The baby was extubated at 6:40PM. He is doing well, breathing on his own, crying piteously (and very hoarsely) and trying to eat all his tubes. He’s hungry. His murmur – which has been, since his first month,, so pronounced that you
could feel it with a hand placed on his chest wall – is gone. His color, even recovering from anesthesia and blood loss, is better than usual. His extremities are warm, and stay that way, even when they are uncovered in a cold room.
I’m amazed. I don’t know what to feel. Mostly, I’m just ignoring my emotions and operating on crisis mode. There are things to do and arrange. I will do that, and let someone else feel.
Tim doesn’t know what to think either, but instead of Draconic & Efficient, his crisis mode is Zone Out.
We were discussing this evening how the experience has brought us closer, but I could see how it would so easily go the other way, with some couples. There’s only so much stress a relationship can handle before it either breaks or blossoms.
Luckily, we seem to be flowers.
Edited August 8, 2014 to add an anecdote from this day that is one of my favorite health professional/bystander interactions EVAR:
Previously during the day, my mother-in-law had been vociferously declaring her “experience” as an EMT (she was a first responder, way back in the day) and volunteering her opinion on Every. Single. Thing.
The respiratory therapist and anesthesiologist were standing next to Olin’s bed, debating on whether or not they should extubate him because he was breathing over the ventilator, but his PaCo2 was higher than they liked to see.
They were hemming and hawing a bit, when Sherry pipes up, “I vote we pull the tube out!”
Completely deadpan, the anesthesiologist turns to her and says, “That’s why you don’t get a vote.”
Win!