9/11

8 years ago today was my first day of clinical in nursing school. We were getting a tour of the nursing home when the world trade center was hit. It seems so long ago.
Gabe had his scope and surgery today. It was so hard handing him over to the surgical nurse. ENT and Pulmonary were pretty quick. They came and talked to us about what they found. Everything looked pretty good. The only abnormality that they noticed was that they saw some swollen tissue above the larynx. This tissue could be excessive due to inflammation from stomach acid related to reflux or be floppy tissue from Down Syndrome. The hope is that the reflux will go away with the nissen and the inflammation will go away and his oxygen saturations will improve. If this does not happen, they may need to surgically remove the extra tissue and worst situation do a trach (really hoping no trach). They are leaning towards this being a reflux issue. They did take a sample from the lung tissue. It will be sent to the lab. If it has fat in it, they will know it was from aspirated formula. The results should be back next week. The Gtube and nissen went well. I forgot how big the incision is. A nissen is when they wrap the top part of the stomach around the esophagus sort of creating a one way valve so food can come in, but can't come up, preventing reflux. A Gtube is a tube inserted into his abdomen directly into the stomach to feed. Gabe is intibated and on a ventilator. They are hoping to extibate tomorrow morning. The vent will just give him time to rest and heal without having to work to breath and keep his airway fully open.
The sleep study earlier this week showed pretty severe apnea and some lung tissue trauma. The lung tissue could be a result of aspiration. The apnea could be from the floppy airway related to the swollen tissue. He will most likely be on oxygen or CPAP when we eventually go home. The plan is to be here at least another week. I know these pictures are pretty sad to look at, but I'm in ICU with him now and this is how the poor guy looks. I'm happy we made it through today and hoping the Gtube/nissen will resolve his airway problems...here's to staying positive.