What a Difference a Day Makes

When we got to Carter's bed today, we noticed that it was very quiet and after peeking around the screen, realized that he was OFF THE JET!!! Yes, that's right as of 1:00 pm, he's only on the conventional vent. For all the ground that was lost this weekend, he more than made up for it today. By the time we left the hospital around 5:30 he was doing so well, they were making progress weaning off the conventional vent! The last chest xray showed a well-inflated left lung that was actually compressing the bowels and stomach down.

We know what the next question is, and no, we don't know about surgery yet. We're just enjoying this huge step in the right direction and we'll get to surgery eventually. The great thing about the progress he's made is that they will have "wiggle room" to give him lots of support after surgery when he's really sick again.

Although we want to dance in the hallways, we're trying to remain cautiously optimistic because he still has so many more hurdles to jump, but we're so thankful for the progress he's made today.

Because he joined the cool kids off the jet vent, he got a new pair of cool shades!

Notice the jet vent turned off in the center of the pic :)

Change in Tactic

Carter was almost off the jet yesterday, but he had quite a setback last night, so now the settings are back up. Apparently he is a very "normal" CDH baby because he's sooooo sensitive to the slightest changes and it's always two steps forward, one step back.

One of his favorite nurses from the PICU stopped by tonight to visit him and told us that she gave Carter a pep-talk at the start of her shifts with him and he always had good days with her. So, we decided we needed to change our tactics and go from nice to tough love. We (very quietly) told him that we're tired of his games, that he can do this and we're ready for him to get moving. We told him that being on the jet vent is "so last season" and all the cool kids can breathe on their own. And it worked! During the 45 minute tirade of tough love, his CO2 levels steadily declined and when we left, they had turned down the vent settings. We hope his nurse keeps up the pep talks all night so we can make up for the lost ground last night. :)