Reintubation Update #3: Ready

So... Ayden seems ready. They turned the vent off to see how successfully he would breathe on his own (called a "CPAP trial"), and he did great for the full hour and forty-five minutes. (Oops. They are only supposed to trial for an hour!) The plan is to extubate as soon as they can get a team ready to do it.

The PCCU world is a tornado funnel around us. There are a lot of sick cardiac babies. As soon as an ECMO connection is made available, another baby needs it. At one point, they were essentially using a makeshift ECMO made from a bypass machine and ECMO parts. (If you are thinking back to a previous post, yes, that means that SIX babies were on ECMO at one time.) The cardiac team is weathered and worn and probably discouraged.