Prepped for Tomorrow

Roscoe's big day will come tomorrow, when he'll have a lung scan, cardiac catheterization, and bronchoscopy. After these 3 procedures, we'll have a great deal more information about Roscoe's current state and any possible solutions or paths that Roscoe might use venture toward good health.

Today he had another good day of progress. They were able to totally wean him from nitric oxide (for the second time), keep his breathing rate at 35 breaths/minute, lower the base pressure (PEEP) from 5 to 6 as I mentioned in the previous blog post. Throughout the day he remained stable with overall fewer drops in his oxygen saturation and less irritability. We snapped a few pictures throughout the day to show him at various stages of rest. It's funny because nowhere outside of a hospital would you see a baby sleeping in a position that looks like its lost in the laundry pile. Hopefully this means Roscoe will be good at playing hide-and-seek:

The nurses also positioned him on his stomach, which is how he typically slept before the trach tube surgery. We could tell he loved it because his saturations stayed high and he slept for a long stretch of time with no additional sedatives needed to keep him resting:

In case you were curious, the bandage on the back of his head is to cover the salve that's being applied to the last remnant of his bedsore that he developed a little under 2 weeks ago. Hopefully it will be completely healed within a few days and he'll be able to once again lie flat on his back.

In an earlier post, I also forgot to include a picture of his trach supplies which hang in his room:

The green bag and pink box contain any dressings and straps that would be needed to replace his trach tube. The clear bag taped to the wall (labeled "Obturator") is a piece that goes down the middle of a trach tube to add stiffness, for situations like when it's being inserted into his neck. In the lowest pockets of the green bag there is a replacement trach tube in the right-hand pocket. The right-hand pocket contains an emergency trach tube which is one size smaller, in case the trach hole starts healing up and gets too small.