Trach Replacement Successful

Thank you for all of the prayers. The surgeon arrived at the hospital at 5:30pm to replace Roscoe's trach tube. Yesterday when they replaced his tube, they asked me to leave along with all of the other parents in the room. This time the surgeon introduced himself to me, then started right in on Roscoe without kicking me out. He even let me take a closer look at Roscoe's neck when he inspected it (he said it looked very good). While the procedure started, I stood about 6-8 feet away from Roscoe and kept my eyes glued to his monitors. At his bedside were the two surgeons, one neonatologist, one or two nurses, and a respiratory technician.

When the procedure started he tilted Roscoe's head backwards to get a better angle. Then he and the other surgeon in the room removed the stitches that hold Roscoe's trach tube in place. While they removed the stitches, swapped the tube, and inserted the new tube Roscoe's oxygenation stayed at 100% (a great sign) and his heart rate never got higher than 180 or lower than 100 (all in good range). They worked so smoothly and quickly that as they finished up, I thought they were just getting ready to swap in the new tube. Thankfully the entire process was very uneventful.

Now we are home and resting, and Roscoe is resting too. Because of all of the complications with Roscoe's pulmonary hypertension, the doctors plan to keep him sedated and paralyzed for 1-2 weeks. They said that this will give his body time to heal and build up oxygen reserves.

We are extremely grateful to all of Roscoe's audience for their earnest prayers, and we are thankful to God himself for listening to those prayers and responding. Throughout the day and even the surgery he was very stable, aside from the 5am incident.