Stormy

I'll try to keep my annoyance out of this post, but we are at a frustration level of orange.

Everything was going well until about two hours ago, and then Andrew decided to spit up again. Apparently it was quite a bit (four hours worth of feedings) and contained bile. The entire reason we delayed extubation earlier this week was because they said the GJ-tube would keep his food down, and that neither bile nor milk would leak back up in any large quantities. They told us the GJ would also work better than the NJ, which went through his nose, because he would be less likely to gag on the tube. As they were cleaning up his bed, they noticed that his ET tube was loose, which may be why he spit up. Somehow during the process, he also lost his arterial line. On top of it all, his primary nurse got called to another unit for the day, so we're dealing with someone that doesn't know him (or us) as well.

Somehow in the span of two hours, they went from being over halfway to minimal vent settings to having him completely sedated again (to add a new arterial line). He's back up to full support (30 breaths per minute), with a feeding solution that obviously doesn't work and an as-yet-to-be-added arterial line. I feel like we've wasted over a week on solutions that aren't solving anything, all the while getting no closer to getting him off the ventilator. Assuming they don't break anything else in the next couple of days, I suspect the earliest he could be extubated would be Monday or Tuesday.