Breathing on her own

Feb. 14.  7:30 pm
One of the first milestones of a lung transplant recovery is when the patient no longer needs the assistance of the respirator and is able to breath on their own.  We had been told to expect this would happen about 24 hours of the completion of surgery.  However, when I spoke to her nurses (she has two dedicated full time to just her) after lunch, they said she was doing great and expected that her breathing tube would be removed this afternoon.

Around 3 pm, I went into Shirley's room and they had her sitting upright. Her ventilator was turned off, but the tubes were still down her throat.  She had to breath on her own for 30 minutes after which time they did a blood gas test.  The test revealed her CO2 levels were still a little high, so they adjusted her medications slightly and had her do 30 more minutes of breathing on her own.  She was quite the trooper as she was conscious while having this tube down her throat.  The second blood gas test showed the improvement they were looking for and the extubation was ordered.

So a little before 5 pm out came the tubes.  And in the competitive spirit that will help her healing process, the first thing she asked was if she had the fastest time from surgery to extubation.

She was experiencing some pain and as I left for a dinner break, they were adjusting her pain meds to give her more relief.

This is such an amazing miracle.  At this time yesterday, Shirley still had her diseased lungs and was still 8 hours away from the start of her surgery. Twenty four hours later, she has a new set of lungs and is breathing on her own.  Amazing.

Stay tuned...