Breathing lessons

Hi everyone,

Sorry we were too tired to post yesterday. Today you are hearing from Peter's mama. We got to the hospital earlier today, part of a master plan to get Daniel home in time for his afternoon nap. When we arrived a technician was in Peter's room doing an ultrasound of his heart. She had wheeled the machine right next to his bed. He was sound asleep (sedated) while she moved the sensor all over his chest and tummy to get different angles. I was able to watch an image of his heart beating! The doctors will review these images to see how the repair of Peter's veins is working out.

The chyle leak is still continuing, so Peter is only getting IV fluids for nourishment right now. He's also getting a medicine to help the situation. This medicine dilates the blood vessels, so Peter is much pinker today. If you make him mad (such as when a nurse suctions his breathing tube--he hates that!) he turns a deep tomato red--no exaggeration. He cries his eyes out but can't make any noises because of the ventilator tube between his vocal cords.

In his calmer moments, Peter seems to enjoy looking at a few picture books we bring from home. We can see his eyes move from one picture to the next, staring intently, then looking away when he's ready for us to turn the page.

Today they took a first step towards taking Peter off the ventilator, that big hose coming out of his nose in the pictures. They conducted a C-Pap test where they turn off the ventilator for a certain amount of time to allow the patient to practice the act of breathing. If you are on a ventilator for a while, the nurse explained, the muscles that help your lungs expand and contract get weak, so patients need these practice sessions to get back in shape before the ventilator is discontinued altogether. We are told that he did pretty well on his first test of 2 hours, and he will probably get another 2 hours of practice tomorrow.

We had a pleasant lunch with our friend Kristen and two of her boys. And Daniel was praised by one of the nurse practitioners as being the best-behaved three-year-old visitor she had ever seen in the intensive care unit.