Lucas Camilo

Having Lucas home continues to be wonderful, but yesterday we had our first heart-thumping scare. After holding Lucas peacefully on his chest for a while, Burke moved him in preparation for putting him back in the crib. All of a sudden his oxygen saturation started dropping and it became clear that something was clogging his airway. We got him in the crib and started giving him some extra breaths with an “ambu” resuscitation bag, but the numbers on his monitor kept dropping and he clearly looked like he was choking. So we did what we had learned at the hospital and quickly changed his tracheostomy, removing the trach and placing a new one in the stoma. We then connected the oxygen tank to the ambu bag and continued giving him breaths, now including supplemental oxygen. And sure enough, his oxygen saturation started going up, his color returned, and we took in a deep, collective breath of relief.

It all happened so fast and included various beeping and alarming machines, which certainly added intensity to the situation. Most difficult was seeing Lucas’s shocked look and his color change – babies turn blue pretty quickly when they don’t get enough oxygen in their blood.  This kind of thing has happened before in the hospital, but there were always nurses around to help out.  Yesterday we were on our own, and we’re proud to say that we did great. We kept our cool, did what needed to be done, and proved that we’re a darn good team. We also learned a few things in the process, such as the need to more frequently suction out Lucas’s trach so that such major mucus buildups don’t happen. (For any nurses and parents of kids with trachs who read this: we’re open to more advice!)  And we learned that for now at least it’s important to have the oxygen tank close at hand at all times. We hadn’t used it since arriving home but on this occasion we were thankful that we’d done a test run a few days before.  We were also trained in the hospital in infant CPR, so knowing we could do CPR if necessary is important.

So we don’t mean to freak out our friends with this story but it’s an example of what can happen with Lucas.  Despite his amazing progress he is still fragile and he does have a tracheostomy which is exactly why someone, if not two people, need to be by his side at all times.

Krista’s sister, Megan, arrives today, and we’re looking forward to having another person around to help.  We are still trying to strictly limit the number of people Lucas comes into contact with, though.  Our scare yesterday wasn’t cold or flu related, but it was a reminder of why more mucus in Lucas’s lungs could be dangerous.  So we want to thank everyone for inquiring about visits, and also ask for your understanding while we keep Lucas’s visitor policy pretty strict.

On a lighter note, Lucas continues to break records in both quantity and frequency of urine output.  He’s soaked through multiple diapers and seems unfazed by it all — maybe even proud to have inherited his dad’s hyperactive bladder.