Small World, Big Day

Yesterday, we met Beth, the oncology resident now assigned to Kevin’s case. She walked into Kevin’s room and asked Kathlin, “so, did you go to Colgate too?” Beth is a Colgate alumna who graduated in 1998. We’ve gained one more member of the Colgate community who is pulling for Kevin’s success!

We were told yesterday that they would try to take the ET tube out early this morning, but when we arrived today, Kevin still had the tube in. The doctors and nurses continued to waver back and forth, unable to make a decision about taking out the tube or putting in a tracheostomy. Finally, around 4 p.m., they decided to give Kevin a trial extubation.

They took the tube out and let him breathe on his own, but we discovered that he has some upper respiratory problems. His breathing was extremely labored, and he probably would not have been able to keep it up for a long period of time. His lungs are strong (thank you water polo), but there are a number of factors that could be weakening his control of his vocal chords, swallowing, etc. His very labored breathing led them to sedate him and reinsert an ET tube, and they plan to put in a tracheostomy. We obviously were hoping that Kevin might be able to breathe and protect his airway on his own, but at least it doesn’t seem like there was any harm done while trying to extubate Kevin.

Kevin is first on the waiting list to receive a trache, so we desperately hope he’ll receive it tomorrow. We’ve been through several holidays since this all began, so we know that elective procedures simply don’t get done over three-day weekends. The trache will bypass Kevin’s upper respiratory issues and make his breathing easier. He will also be more comfortable with the trache than he is now with the ET tube down his throat.

I’m sorry to end on a negative note… but we also learned today that Kevin has developed a small pneumonia. He is on antibiotics to clear it up, so let’s hope the antibiotics do their work quickly and efficiently.