The Corner

It is Friday-- the end of the week. The big week that Andy talked about on Monday. So how is Maggie? Maggie has been known to go against what the doctors think she will do. Her GI system is going to re-bleed and she's going to lose 75% of her stomach-- she decides not to bleed again. She isn't making much progress on the vent so they decide she might need a trach-- she decides she's ready to wean. And she has.

Maggie is on extubatable settings! They have been lowering her pressures by 1 all week (they worked very slowly, yet tried to be aggressive), and she is now at the pressure of 5. 5 is what they extubate at. At the beginning of the week, I believe she was at about 10. Her FI O2 is at 40%, another setting they want it at, where as at the beginning of the week I think she was at 60%. Yesterday they changed the mode on Maggie's ventilator to allow her to do all the breathing by herself. If she decided to stop breathing, the machine would then take over and do the work. In the last week or more, she has been breathing over top the vent, while receiving support, however in the last 24+ hours, she has done it with some volume support, but little else. This helps them to see that she seems to be ready.

Yesterday Maggie also managed to stay awake for 13 straight hours. This was a first in a long time. She tried to communicate with us, but it is difficult when no sound comes out of her mouth. We all took our turns trying to entertain her yesterday. One of her favorite things was to wash her hands with the sanitizer. It is the cutest thing to watch her put her little hands together. Though she is heavily sedated (but at this point all these drugs really don't do much for her), we still see bits of Maggie every now and again. Given that she was up so long yesterday, she fell asleep last night without any drugs and she slept the whole night without anything as well. She was tired.

So, our big day is TOMORROW! Though I am very excited, I also have been warned by one of the nurses that given that today marks the day she was intubated 6 weeks ago, she might have to be re-intubated after extubation. The longer they are intubated, the harder it is to get them off. By the sounds of things, we should know whether Maggie is successful at extubation within 12-24 hours. Hopefully Maggie will again prove us wrong and show us that she is ready.

Please, pray with us tomorrow, especially between 10-1, that Maggie will be successful without the ventilator. Pray that she will not need to be re-intubated, but that her lungs will stay open and that she will be able to oxygenate and ventilate well.