More good updates

Mia is doing very well and is recovering nicely. Last night was uneventful and when Rachael and I came in this morning Mia looked to be doing very well and was very relaxed.

There was a minor hiccup this afternoon because the respiratory therapist was being a little overly aggressive. He was "following" the doctors order on turning down the vent but Mia wasn't tolerating the drastic changes very well. She started to desat and was hovering in the 60s and 70s. Two nurses and myself where watching this and pointed it out to the RT but his response was that she would adjust in a couple of minutes and that it was likely because she was being moved around and the probe couldn't pickup her O2.

One of the nurses pointed out that the monitor was showing a good signal reading and that whatever setting he had changed she was not tolerating well. Meanwhile I was looking at Mia's tidal volumes (how much air goes in and out of her lungs) and saw that she was getting about half of what she was supposed to get. I pointed this out to the RT and he made up a lame comment that it was okay and that she would adjust. At this point I had about enough and asked him what was wrong with just going back to what she was tolerating well since she obviously didn't like the new settings. At that point he finally conceded the situation and started bagging Mia to bring her stats back up. After a couple of seconds of bagging her O2 went up to 100% and she was looking much better.

The nurses and doctor later consulted with the Doctor who then ordered that Mia be put back to where she was previously with the vent settings and to try weaning her down a little slower. Apparently they tried making a change of 30% (the nurse was actually quite surprised by the amount) and now they are going to try stepping her down much slower.

So other then that interesting episode Mia has been pretty good. Her stats all look good and they are going to continue weaning her down on the vent. For those of you that are wondering when Mia was struggling with the pneumonia they turned the vent settings up really high to try to keep her stable. Since her chest was so tight they had to use pretty high pressures in order to get air into her. Now that she is loosening up they are able to back off of the pressure but it has to be done slowly enough so that she adjusts naturally to the new settings.