Today, kids, Namine had her bronchoscopy. According to Wikipedia (since everything on the Internet must be true), a bronchoscopy is “a technique of visualizing the inside of the airways for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes.” Sounds good to me. The purpose of this, as it relates to The Feisty One, was to determine if she needs a jaw distraction. The jaw distraction, of course, is only a means to an end: decanulation, or the removal of her trach.
Namine was taken back pretty quickly after we arrived, and they first gave her what one doctor called “happy juice.” I still don’t know exactly what it was. What I do know is that it made Namine more than a little loopy. When they took her into the O.R., they told us it would be at least 45 minutes or so. I’m not sure how long it was, but it seemed shorter than that. I didn’t even have time to eat my cream cheese-filled croissant.
The results were very good, all things considered. Namine’s left lung is not nearly as collapsed as it used to be (how that may relate to her plicated diaphragm, I’m not sure), and her airway looks good. Namine’s tongue still collapses on the back of her throat, so the jaw distraction is pretty much a given at this point. We’ll find out from the plastic surgeon when he can actually do the operation.
It seemed like Namine recovered pretty quickly, but her heart rate was pretty high. We didn’t want to go home with her heart rate in the 180s (not when her usual awake/resting rate is in the 120s), in the event that we needed to come back. So we had them page her cardiologist. In the meantime, the nurse gave her some Tylenol. When the cardiologist arrived, her heart rate had dropped into the 140s, and he told us not to worry. He gave her a listen and said she sounded good. In fact, given all she’s been through, he’s quite impressed with her O2 levels (low 90s) and how her lungs sound. (Especially since she’s had more secretions than usual the past few days!)
Leave a Reply