Breathing on her own

Ok.
On Saturday, Sara did the coolest thing. She asked if she could have the oxygen Cup removed for a bit. She wanted to see how well she could breathe on her own. So I talked to the nurses and eventually to the RT and they said it would be good to give it a try. So I removed the cup and moved the monitor with Sara’s stats so she could see it. I told Sara that if she dropped below 95% oxygen saturation I was putting it back on. The game plan was to have her watch the monitor for 30 minutes while she tried to hold that range. Then move the monitor where she could not see it and still hold 95% for another 30 minutes. She watched the monitor like a hawk and regulated her breathing. She never took her eyes off of it. She stayed at 95 to 96 the entire 30 minutes. Then I moved the monitor behind her told her to watch TV and try to breathe as regular as she could. She did and the lowest she got was 92% but pretty much stayed at 95.

There were 4 nurses at the stations all watching to see if she could do it, and they cheered when she reached the 1 hour mark. There were a whole lot of people keeping a sharp eye on what she was doing. I talked to the RT and now we have a new game plan for the kid. She will spend the daytime off the oxygen supply and have it put back on at night for safety. They are worried her lungs might dry out at night without the mister in the oxygen supply. After last weekend’s issue with clots, I wasn’t going to argue that one.

So Sara is one step closer to recovery and getting the Trach out of her. I know that it will still be a while before that happens, but it’s another step closer. You should have seen the smile on her face when she did it. I should have taken a picture. I swear I don’t think sometimes.

I also meet the trainer today who has to sign us off for Sara’s in home care. She watched me change Sara’s trach pad, suction her, Work with the ER nurse to change her Feeding bad. She even watched me catch an issue with the feeding tree. The tree kept beeping an error. I checked all the lines and made sure everything was hung correctly and start it up again. It started to beep one more time. I then checked the clamp on Sara’s belly and it was closed. I opened it and restarted machine and it started working the way it should have. I think I earned brownie points towards getting signed off to take care of Sara :)

Anyway, unit next Saturday. Bye