Today was about trying to get Thomas of the ventilator.
He tolerated weaning the vent very well and got down to a respiration rate (number of breaths per minute) of 20 provided by the machine.
The doctors were planning to extubate him once he was slightly less sedated however Thomas had other ideas! He took it upon himself to remove his breathing tube (strong boy!) which then prompted the doctors to give him a go on the step down of ventilation, CPAP (this is a continual pressured flow of air rather than the ventilator which is given set pressures per breath).
Thomas appeared to tolerate this really well, however 4 hours later it seemed that his energy reserves were almost all used up and he started struggling, working too hard. The decision was made to reintubate him to give him a chance to rest before trying to extubate in a controlled manner.
Thomas was kept mostly stable for the rest of the day.
Leave a reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.