4 weeks ago at this time we were a mere 26 minutes away from this long journey. Gabe was put on the ram cannula and made comfortable and stable through the weekend. On March 3, Gabe left his picu room at 7:45 in the morning with one picc line and did not return to his new and bigger room until almost 10 pm that night. He was on ECMO and had an IV in both ankles, both thighs, both wrists, both arms, and his picc line in his scalp. He had 2 chest tubes and 2 ECMO tubes, and he was intubated. Gabe was on ECMO until Friday March 7. After that his chest remained open until Sunday March 9. They closed him up that morning! He remained paralyzed until that night and at about 10 pm that night I got to see our beautiful babys eyes for the first time in what seemed like an eternity. Gabe remained intubated until March 18. Up until that point he took many steps forward and one big step back. Gabe was extubated first thing that Tuesday morning. By Thursday I was able to start *trying* to nurse and that Friday we were moved down to the step down unit. Gabe has been doing amazing with everything and they thought we would be home by the end of this weekend but on Tuesday they. Changed his morphine dosage from every 6 hours to every 12 and he began to withdraw. I mentioned withdraw to his doctors and they said that wasnt it. Through that night Gabe was throwing up cold sweating irritable and having tremors. The next morning surprise the doctors said *they* thought he was withdrawing because all of his symptoms we getting worse... So we took another step back and they had to go back up on his dosage and frequency of his morphine but that is ok we have a big God and he knows what he is doing!!!!
Posted on: Sat, 29 Mar 2014 04:44:59 +0000