March 26th

Today is day 94. We are about 22 hours after surgery. The first 12 hours were great....he was breathing over the vent and looking good.
Then, we extubated. I was so excited about him getting the tube out------Cohen was not so pleased with it. Within 5 minutes, he was retracting his chest and laboring super hard to breathe. It looked awful. They had him on the vapotherm at 6 liters of flow and 40% O2. It wasn't helping. They did an X-ray and showed his right lung collapsed, and the left lung was well on it's way to being down too.
The RT (respiratory therapist) came and did a breathing treatment that seemed to help him a little.  The doctor compared his airway as trying to breathe in a snorkel for many hours.

It has been a long night, needless to say.

As of now his right lung is still partially down but improving. His left lung is looking better as well. They now have him on a CPAP machine and positioned on his belly. He moves air alot better on his stomach. He still looks pretty bad, but seems to be coming out of this a little. The next step would be to re-intubate and get back on the ventilator. Our doctor said they would avoid it unless absolutley neccesary.

This is exactly why Justin and I were so weary of the surgery. The doctors say all this is fairly normal and he should be better in a day or so. After rounds when the team walked out, I said to Justin " they acted like a collapsed lung is normal "and Justin quickly stated " he didn't care what they said, in his family lungs just don't collapse." I had to laugh at him. It's amazing what our new "normal" is!

It has been a long time since we worried about hermdacrites and blood gas levels. These are things we were consumed with in his first days of life.  Hopefully this setback will be fast and temporary. Seeing our baby like this is so hard, after seeing how far he has come.

Please continue to pray for Cohen and his recovery.  We thank you for all your support during this time.