Monday, 5/2

Today was a big day for our little man. Let's see if I can try and explain. They wanted to test him on C-pap (continuous positive airway pressure): Air is delivered to a baby's lungs through small tubes in the baby’s nose. The tubes are attached to a ventilator (respirator), which helps the baby breathe, but does not breathe for him. They wanted to do this while he was still intubated (the tube down his windpipe) so they just put his ventilator on C-pap settings. So basically Dinky was taking all of his own breaths but the c-pap setting still gave his lungs a little pressure. He did great! His oxygen remained at room air settings and he still "sated" almost 100%. They are putting him back on the ventilator overnight but the plan is to try and extubate him in the morning. This means they will remove the tube that's in his windpipe and he will no longer be "vent dependent". This is HUGE!

The fact that he did so well today gives them a pretty good idea that his diaphragm probably works a little more than we thought which is great news. We're still not sure how the little "flap" in his windpipe factors into all of this and so that will be the big question tomorrow.

He is tentatively scheduled to go to surgery on Thursday which will definitely put us back a few steps but it will be so encouraging to go into surgery knowing that he can get to this point.