Ryan came home from his extensive stay at the hospital on October 6, 2012. Since then, he has not been sick enough to be re-admitted. Aside from one small cold, he made it through the severe flu season unscathed. Several doctor appointments have proven that his lungs are progressively growing and healing. The pressure settings on his ventilator have been reduced to very respectable levels and we can see that his calories are being used for full body growth and not just trying to breathe. The level of oxygen that he is requiring is still at 3 L/min, 24 h/day. But at this point weaning on the oxygen is second to weaning the necessity of the vent.
Even with all of the good things happening lately, we did have one scare. Ryan had a routine chest X-ray about 2 weeks ago, followed by a visit to his Pulmonologist at the Home Vent Clinic. He Was lying on the table waiting for the doctor to come in, when he started coughing. Right away his Oxygen sats started dropping rapidly, getting lower and lower. His eyes starting rolling back and he started turning blue. Immediately we hooked up his resuscitation bag to his oxygen tank and proceeded to give him hand ventilated breathes. We increased his Oxygen as high as it would go, this did not help. As mom was bagging him, she felt a lot of tight resistance when hand ventilating. After we tried this, we decided we should change his trach. So right there on the exam table, mom and I did an emergency trach change. And at last, the answer. Ryan had a large mucus plug at the end of his trach which was restricting him from receiving O2. Once we got the new trach in, his Oxygen sats started coming back up. Moments like this are rare and terrifying, but a reminder that these things can happen and panicking is not an option. It feels really good knowing that we basically saved his life right then and there thanks to the proper training we received prior to Ryan coming home from the hospital.
Since the weather is starting to get warmer and there are not nearly as many bugs for him to catch. We have been walking Ryan on a weekly journey to our local yogurt shop. Round trip, it is only 1.3 miles, but he seems to do really well. He enjoys the small things in life, like watching the trees move in the wind. Something we often take for granted.
Over the last seven months, not much has changed in the way of Ryan's health. Growing out of the condition he has is a slow, slow process that takes years. We don't see daily or even weekly changes. But if we look back over the last seven months, things are progressing forward.
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