Tracheostomy - Should I Stay or Should I Go?

The Next Step:

Austin has a sleep study tonight, Monday, February 8th {On...believe it or not his 2nd Tubiversary!!}

Based on the DLB surgery, Austin's ENT has determined that prior to his sleep study Austin's tracheostomy tube will be downsized to 3.0mm (from 3.5mm) and once he is asleep it will be capped.

What happens after that is up Austin.

With any luck he will breathe thru his mouth and nose. If all the angels in heaven unite he will also no longer need Oxygen. You get the idea.

A typical sleep study begins at 9PM and ends at 5:30AM. Austin will strapped to a number of machines and monitored, once he awakens in the morning my job is to change his trach back to its regular size. Then we wait for the results.

The offical report takes 6-8 weeks to get back to the ENT -- Can you believe the wait? So we will return to see the ENT in April to find out exactly he well {or badly} he did. Now unofficially I can tell during the study how he is doing, since I am not going to be sleeping much. For instance if he is reacting badly to the capping or needs more O2 a technichian will come into the room to remove the cap or place him on back on oxygen. So I will have some idea how it is going.

I know all this sounds like blah, blah, blah and you just want to know one thing...when does his Trach get removed?

Unfortunately, it is just not that simple. We will wait until April for the ENT's recommendation. Then in late May we will meet with the Craniofacial Team and our Pulmonologist to get their recommendations. {Can you believe it has almost been a year already?} There are several ways this could go, so I don't want anyone to get their hopes up yet. But so far things are progressing nicely towards an eventual decannulation (removal of tracheostomy tube).

Let's hope next year we have no Trachiversary to celebrate.

Thanks for peeking,