Tracheostomy

Peter is out of surgery. We just talked to the surgeon, Dr. Soumekh, and he said that everything went fine. He did say that some damage to his trachea was observed during this procedure, resulting from having a tube down his throat for the past five weeks, and which will have to be monitored in the future. This is not currently a concern, as Peter will be in the hospital for a while yet.

Peter was moved to a friendlier, if somewhat smaller room today (PICU room 15). It has a window, so he can get used to a normal day/night rhythm. There was more positive news from the medical front: his chyle output was significantly less today. His right tube produces virtually nothing anymore (it has been very low for a number of days now) and the left tube is down to about 15 mls per hour or about half of what it has been in the last week. The nurse was quite optimistic about the latest chest X-ray. Peter is also a lot less swollen and just overnight his girth decreased from 41 to 37 cm.

In the near future, we will have to take a day out of our schedule and spend it learning how to take care of Peter's tracheostomy. The information we received about it is quite overwhelming and we were reassured that they will spend 6-8 hours one day soon with us teaching us everything we need to know so that we can be comfortable when Peter comes home (though we will receive in-home nursing care for a goodish bit even then). We try not to think about the enormous upheaval that moment would cause because it is still quite distant. Yet we do long for that day.