A scary triggery day

The day before Acorn turned 5 months old, he went to surgery for his trach and g-tube:

Acorn post surgery

They told us it'd be quick - less than an hour, and that we'd have him off the ventilator by the end of the week. He reacted poorly to the medication they gave to sedate him, so he ended up being sedated longer as they weaned him...and then it took a year to get him off the vent.

Yesterday, the day Leaf turned 5 months old, she had surgery to put in her g-tube:

Leaf, post surgery

They told us it'd be an hour (longer than Acorn's surgery to do 2 things), and that they'd extubate her before sending her back up to the NICU.  They failed extubation twice, so they sent her back to the NICU on a ventilator. They gave her the same sedative they'd given Acorn, and it had put her out too much to make the second attempt at extubation a go. They were hopeful that they'd get her off the vent later that day.

It all sounded too familiar. It all looked too familiar.

The good news (as evidenced by the photo above) is that they *did* get her extubated just a couple hours after she went back upstairs, with nurses and doctors who knew her and knew what to expect from her, and just a few hours later was back to baseline.

Of course, I missed that part where things went better. I was with Acorn, off to see the ENT about a suspected infection in his trach incision, which turned out to be the internal stitches working their way out of his skin (which still carries a risk of infection because the blisters keep popping open), which also shouldn't happen.

Still, there are days that this stuff is just too damn hard.