Extubated....for just a while

Friday morning, after 48+ hours of continuous pressure support trial, the doctors decided to extubate Jackson. At around 10:30 am the doctors removed Jackson from the vent. Jackson's work of breathing was not good as soon as he came off the vent. He was breathing around 80+ breaths a minute and retracting with each breath he took. His heart rate was up above 200 bpm and even with 2 liters of oxygen via nasal cannula he was really having to work to keep his oxygen saturations in the low 90's. He was given some steroids in the hope that perhaps his airway was swollen from being extubated for so long and that the steroids would decrease the swelling. It seemed to help some but even when he calmed down enough to go to sleep his work of breathing was still not good and his heart rate remained high around 190 bpm. At about 1:00 that afternoon Jackson couldn't keep his oxygen sats up so the decision was made to reintubate him. Jackson immediately felt much better back on his vent. X-rays were taken to insure that the placement of his ET tube was correct. When the results came back the doctors discovered that the gortex patch used to close the hole in Jackson's diaphragm had slipped and that his stomach was now back up in the left side of his chest. This is quite possibly the reason why Jackson failed to come off the vent. Jackson will have to have surgery to fix the patch but we don't know as of right now when he will have it. It's not an emergency as Jackson is doing just fine on his vent at 23% oxygen, a PIP of 23, and PEEP of 5 and saturating in the mid to high 90's still. Jackson is scheduled to have an CT scan on Monday to give the doctors a better idea of where the patch has slipped or come untied from. Hopefully after Jackson's patch is repaired and once he is recovered from the surgery they can get right back to pressure support trials and give him another shot at extubation. We were able to get one picture of Jackson without his tube, it's the one where he is laying on his tummy. You can see in his eyes just how uncomfortable he was. Please pray for Jackson's surgery to go well along with a speedy recovery. We'll update when the surgery is scheduled when we find out.