I know how eager many of you are to hear about today’s procedure so I thought I would give you a very brief update.

Levi went to the operating room today for a follow up bronchoscopy to see how the airway was healing. Everything looked like it was healing as it should and he only had a small amount of granulation tissue (an ulcer on the healing surface of a wound) on his vocal cords; we are assuming it is from where the ventilator tube was rubbing.

They were also able to extubate him (take him off of the ventilator) down in the operating room and I was even able to snap a few pictures of him before they taped the nasal cannula on.

He is on high flow oxygen right now at 4 liters and we will be working on weaning him down over the next week or so. When he gets to 2 liters or less we can start thinking about trying to introduce the bottle.

Jake and I were absolutely thrilled to hear that everything looks as it should, but a little disappointed when we saw him post procedure today and still heard the stridor. We were assuming that the noisy breathing would be completely gone when the tube came out.

He is also breathing very aggressively and retracting his little stomach pretty hard when he breathes in. They are telling us that it is normal to have some noisy breathing since the airway is swollen from all the activity and the swelling should go down over the next few days. Here is a video of his breathing post-op:

We still don’t have an idea yet if we can deem this surgery “successful” but stage one is complete! He will go back to the operating room one week from today so they can monitor the progress and by then we will have a better idea of whether or not a trach is still needed.

Levi is so much happier off the ventilator! And we are thrilled to be able to hold him again without the constant fear of the vent coming out. Levi is so incredibly strong and the last 10 days have been so rough on him…he has done everything in his power to get the tube out. Last night I got a call at 2am that he successfully popped the ventilator tube out of his throat and I was devastated, worrying that it was going to jeopardize his surgery site. We are very grateful that it didn’t!

Today when the nurses weren’t looking he yanked the oxygen prongs out of his nose and pulled the tubing off his face. He is not a fan of oxygen support it seems. He was a ticking time bomb with the ventilator in his nose so we were always on edge worrying he was going to get it out. Simply having that mechanism removed is easing my mommy heart tremendously as it gives me less to worry about (as well as less 2am phone calls…those are the absolute worst).

I will do a big update on Sunday evening and ramble on like I usually do haha! Christmas Day updates and such. But I didn’t want to leave you all hanging in the meantime.

And as a little teaser, here is a video of Malachi’s favorite toy today…a grocery bag full of grocery bags…yep…a car full of Christmas gifts, but this is the current winner:

As far as specific prayers needs right now, Levi needs prayer for strength and endurance. His body gets so tired when it works so hard to breathe and we need for him to have some sudden bursts of strength to get over this hump. Levi also needs prayers for the airway to stay open and not start to close in on itself again. We also are requesting prayers for his ability to eat when we get the green light. If the surgery was successful, eating will be one of the bigger hurdles keeping us in the hospital.

And please continue to remember Jake and Malachi in your prayers as they are still struggling with getting back to 100%.

Thank you for your prayers and I am hoping to bring you an awesome and stridor free update on Sunday.

God bless,

Leah