The Results

First off this is the picture of the four of us "together". Boston was about to jump out of the window. His face was awesome!

Lets start by saying that today has been way less eventful than everyone was planning on. Dr. Rone came in this morning and talked with Trav and I about all that he was going to do. We have gotten the impression from him and all our nurses and Doctors that Carter would need a Trach. Good news today he doesn't. We are not out of the woods yet, but it feels good to know there is still a chance. (does dumb and dumber come to mind for anyone else?) Dr. Rone found three things

1-Carter's left vocal cord is paralyzed. This is most likely a result of his heart surgery. This mean that his right vocal cord is trying to do all the movement of the air and all the speaking/noise. Long term Carter may require some speech therapy. The Dr. said he wont be a opera singer and well that is no worry to us, because he had no chance. It also most likely wont effect his ability to speak, but will effect the production of his voice. Meaning it might be horse or raspy.

2- His lungs might be contributing to the problem more so than we thought. He said they don't look horrible, but they don't look great. We take comfort in the fact that his vent settings don't portray that of very sick lungs.

3- Most surprising to us was that he used the word "beautiful" to describe his airway. He does have some swelling but it is very soft and is only there from the ventilator.

All during this I have wanted to make sure that we have given Carter every chance we could to get off the vent. We got the impression from Dr. Rone this morning that unless he thought Carter had a good chance to succeed without getting a trach he would go ahead and give him one. I forgot to mention that Monday night after the extabation is when the steroids spiked and really started to work for him. They couldn't turn his vent down enough. He LOVED those steroids. With that being said Dr. Rone noticed a big difference in the amount of swelling Carter had today as apposed to Monday. So he said in good faith he could not trach him with out letting the steroids do all that they could for Carter. So the plan now is to start steroids right away and let them do their stuff for 48 hours and try to put him on CPAP again on Friday. The Neo today said that at the rate they were turning his settings down on Monday and Tuesday she isn't sure that he will be able to go the full 48 hours before they ext abate. We are hoping that the steroids help the swelling and lungs so that it will be easier for the right vocal cord to do what it needs without the help of the left. So needles to say I am so happy that Carter still has the opportunity to try again and get a fair chance, because Mondays sure wasn't. One thing for sure Carter continues to be a fighter and our Heavenly Father is aware of him and us. Let all pray that the steroids work and Carter can make it. We are so blessed. Thank you!

Dr. Rone the surgeon on the left and Dr. Jones the anesthesiologist on the Right