THE JET!

This machine is "the jet." Yes it is keeping my son breathing, but how I loathe it. It is the first thing I see when I visit Luke, and takes up half of Luke's area. There are as many as 5 tubes running from it that then goes into one tube into Luke's mouth and down to his lungs. This is the machine that we have been trying to remove Luke from for the past few weeks. The number on the left (26) is the one that the doctors are trying to lower to around 20-21. The machine to the right is the conventional ventilator. We need that to run the jet. We are hoping to remove Luke from the jet without going to the conventional, it can be done, but usually they step down from the jet to the conventional. From these machines we can go to the CPAP or maybe the CiPAP. Won't really know till we reach that point. Enough about the machine, I just wanted to show and explain a little more about it, and of course "vent" (haha little joke) about this machine that is driving me crazy.

Back to Luke, he is up to 2 pounds 11 ounces and still getting 23 cc's every three hours. Hopefully the feedings will go up more tomorrow when his regular people are back since his weight went up. Knock on wood we aren't having too much of a problem with his feedings. There is usually zero to 1 cc residual when the check before feeding him again. Tonight Luke wanted to move around so much. I don't know if he was uncomfortable to just thought he should squirm all over. At one time we were watching him and he picked his head up from looking to the left on his belly and tried to move it so he was looking to the right. Of course this didn't go well, due to the ET tube from that darn jet. Joey, his nurse, had to actually sit there and hold his head till he relaxed a bit. They say preemies get really strong neck muscles, and I would agree after seeing that. Tomorrow at 8am we try again to turn down the jet settings depending on Luke's blood gases. Lately his has stayed around the same, but we need his CO2 to lower so they can lower his vent settings. Also IF all goes well, we might be able to hold him if Melody is his nurse. Fingers are crossed! Thanks everyone for the continued prayers!

Jordan