to extubate or not to extubate…

The following is a collection of updates on the day the Drs were attempting to extubate Judah:

The plan is to extubate Judah tomorrow morning so they will lower the amount of work the ventilator is doing tonight. We ask for prayers that Judah picks up the slack and proves he’ll breathe on his own tonight and be ready to fully take over his breathing tomorrow morning.

So last night they lowered Judah’s vent and while the air was still assisting, he did wonderfully. When they switched him to the CPAP to see if he would initiate breathing, he didn’t. They said he just wasn’t breathing often enough. So for the time being, they will NOT be extubating him.

We’re doing another CPAP trial for about an hour then we’ll let him rest. Basically the CPAP means that the ventilator doesn’t start any breaths for him. Once he initiates a breath the machine will push a little because it’s hard to suck enough air down the tube but other than that his breathing is up to him. He’s doing a pretty good job. The doctors sat and watched him for a bit to get a feel for how he breathes. To us, it looked pretty normal for Judah. He doesn’t breathe steadily like most kids. He takes huge, infrequent breaths, so big that the machine keeps wigging out because it thinks it must be attached to and adult rather than a little kid. The more alert he is the more regular he breathes so we think that once they kill the sedation he’ll go back to his normal breathing pattern, which isn’t normal for anyone else but it has always kept his O2/CO2 balance in a pretty good place.
Keep praying that he’ll work hard to breathe and that he will be able to support his airway properly once they extubate.
Thanks everyone for your continued prayers!
This CPAP trial Judah got a passing grade! His breathing is unusual for sure but he did what he needed to do to keep his oxygen level up. The more alert he is the more regular his pattern. We have faith that once we get off the sedation completely, and extubate him, he’ll breathe more normally.
It’s official! Judah is extubated!!!!! He’s doing great and resting. Thank you for all the prayers. Keep praying he continues to do well.