Day 593

Ava has been having some trouble lately. It started Sunday night when she gagged and/or coughed and started turning colors. I suctioned her but it still didn't help. We changed the trach which was gunky and then she coughed and the new trach came shooting out before we had the trach ties on. We thought maybe the vent circuit was pushing too much air in her tummy because it was alarming earlier. We changed that and I listened to her chest and I didn't hear any air moving in her lungs. I gave her two puffs of her albuterol and that didn't work so we gave her an albuterol nebulizer treatment. That worked and while I was giving her chest pt and the treatment, she fell asleep and we put her in bed. Her lungs except for the left upper lobe sounded clear. Her left upper lobe sounded not as good as the rest.

I spoke to Lung Center the next day and they said that after 6 days the change in vent settings wouldn't do this. We also got a new pulsox on Monday and it seems to be working and giving us more accurate numbers.

Today she had two episodes this afternoon where she drops her sats. One instance was her gagging the other wasn't. She dropped both times to the 70s but came up easily with bagging. We are now giving her Albuterol every 4 hours. She is doing better tonight and hasn't had any episodes. We don't know if she is having an asthma attack or ??? Both of our other girls had problems with asthma the first fall after they were 1. Lung Center said that a child with a ventilator doesn't get asthma, but I'm not so sure about that.

Our one of two night nurses (the only one who is full time), can't come to work for a while. Just found out about 4 pm tonight so I am doing a full night shift until 5am when Anthony will take over. Hopefully she will be back on soon. Please pray that will happen and we can also find more nurses. Our nursing situation is very draining and is probably our biggest problem.

Thanking God for Ava's lung growth and praying for protection and for her to get better in Jesus's name...