Hey everyone – just a quick note of celebration tonight! We hit a big milestone in Julia’s recovery, and no one would have convinced me last night the kind of progress we have seen today. Notice anything different? If you don’t, I’m happy to report that as of 12:45 this afternoon, Julia is off the ventilator and breathing on her own!

Like I said, there were many clinical strategies in the removal of a ventilation tube, and I wish I could describe the ins and outs of and intricate decision making that took place. In the end, it was pretty straightforward: Take her off the sedative, reduce the vent settings to a minimum, let her get wiggly, make sure her blood chemistry was stable and pull out the tube. Simple! Yeah, right. Let’s just say that I’m glad it wasn’t me making the decision!

Both Jocelyn and I were a little awestruck at how… routine it seemed. The medical staff prepared us that she might be a little raspy and cranky when the tube was finally removed as she re-acclimated to breathing on her own. If she wasn’t tolerating the lower settings, she may have slipped into distress and would have to have been re-sedated. In the end, she was quiet and reasonably comfortable through the whole thing. It was, in the words of our nurse, Megan, “an easy one.” Thank God for “easy ones”.

Our friend, Ken, who pastors an Episcopal congregation in Rochester Hills, came by to pray for Julia. Turns out that it was a prayer of thanksgiving that our girl is breathing on her own! There are still concerns with her heart rhythm that I assume we’ll be tackling tomorrow, but the lower settings on the pacemaker that Dr. Walters had dialed in this morning seem to be holding.

The team has pulled Julia off of most of the intravenous meds for blood pressure and fluid retention, so they may pull a couple more tubes tomorrow. And as an added bonus, Julia started feeding on her own today!

We still have a long way to go, but we have a lot to celebrate today. Celebrate with us!