I signed off on our last update joking about Rowan having a few tricks up her sleeve and boy did she ever.

Thursday morning Zach and I woke up to let her team do their routine x-ray, afterward we went back to sleep but were quickly woken up by lights, alarms and her room filling with people. Rowan's left lung collapsed somewhere between her first x-ray and her second around 30 minutes later, causing her to desat (drop oxygen saturation's) and for her heart rate and blood pressure to be abnormal. After stabilizing her, we worked with the team to create a plan to "pop" her lung back open and expected a fairly quiet day. Zach and I needed to leave early that morning to get some things together and go get the keys to our new house. 

We called once we'd made it to the house to see how she was doing and got a good report. Received another call to let us know that a specific team had stopped by to scope her in hopes of finding why her lung had collapsed, checking the healing on her airway and the placement of her breathing tube. Not long after that phone call I received another call- this time from an NP that we know well letting us know that that Rowan was okay, but there had been some complications in checking her tube. When scoping an intubated patient- the scope goes down the breathing tube and often allows the scope to view each part of the airway and into the lungs. The entrance (i don't know the medical term) to Rowan's left lung wasn't visible, causing that team to believe the tube was a bit too far down and into her right lung. When pulling the tube back to make sure it was placed properly, her breathing tube was accidentally completely pulled. Rowan is sedated and paralyzed, and while at first this scared us, we now know that this was actually a blessing in disguise. She could not react or thrash, nobody had to wait on meds to quickly sedate/paralyze her, she only needed boluses and after about 3 minutes of being bagged she was re-intubated. Unfortunately during that time she vomited, aspirated and required being bagged and suctioned for around 30 minutes after that. Any time fluid enters the lungs it puts a patient at risk for pneumonia. Rowan responded well to the suctioning and it actually helped pop her left lung back open, which is a small win considering all that she went through. 

Zach and I arrived back at the hospital and she was resting peacefully. Since then, she has spiked a few fevers and had a rough time maintaining her vitals today. We have had a very rocky period of being stable, being agitated, normal heart rates but abnormal blood pressures and visa versa. Her vent settings have had to be increased as well as her sedation and paralytics to make sure she is staying comfortable. The down side of being on meds for this long is building a tolerance and it's no secret that Rowan already has an incredibly high tolerance to the ones she's on. 

One thing I’m coming back to add is that we understand that some expect us to be upset about this. As her parents, we aren’t happy, but one thing we’ve learned is that we have humans doing super-human jobs. Special, talented, amazing humans. But humans all the same. This was an accident and a very unfortunate risk that comes along with having a breathing tube. This is why we pushed to be with our cardiac team and within a matter of a minute every respiratory therapist that knows and loves her was here and working on her. As of now, unless she continues to struggle or develops pneumonia, our plan to downsize her tube on Monday and extubate Tuesday is still in place. Her surgeon has explained on several occasions that children with airways like Rowan tend to struggle and sometimes require being re-intubated and given a few days to rest. We don't know what the next week has in store but what we hope for is to see the beautiful eyes everyone keeps commenting on when checking her pupils. We miss her wrapping her little hand around our fingers and saying "c'mon!" while leading us to watch her slide with her stuffed animals in her room. We miss her deciding she wants to snuggle (we all know she isn't the snuggliest baby) and fitting herself right into our sides, laying her head on our shoulders and saying "aww!". I miss her saying "Daddy! Hi Daddy!" when she gets up from her nap, even if it's me and not daddy. 

Right now we are just hoping that this unexpected and unfortunate event doesn't have any lasting affects on her healing. We are looking forward to the next step in recovery and ultimately getting our sweet baby home.