night before shunt placement

Surgery is scheduled for tomorrow at 2pm. Please be praying for the surgeon, for Pierce and for us. The doctors and surgeons feel very confident that this temporary drain will be very successful at relieving the pressure in P's brain. (This is a relatively common surgery in the NICU world.)

Today has been a relatively good day as we geared up for surgery tomorrow. Pierce was hanging tough this afternoon when I (Lindsay) went to visit. I stayed for the Dr's to round so that I could hear the "plan" for the night. I should've known that Pierce doesn't follow the rules so well so any plan they might as well be tossed out the window.

Shortly after I left (around 430pm), Pierce self-extabated again. The plan had been to let him stay intibated since he'd have to be for surgery tomorrow and then to try out the CPAP after he's recovered. Pierce, of course, decided he couldn't wait any longer to get the tube out. So needless to say, about 30 minutes after I left we received a phone call informing us that little guy was now on the CPAP bubble machine (meaning he was breathing on his own!). I wasn't going to get my hopes up, because he only lasted 45 minutes on his last attempt. However, Pierce chugged right along for about 4 hours before beginning to drift. When we came in for his cares tonight, they decided to go ahead and reintibate so as not to stress him out too much before his surgery tomorrow. Once reintibated, he rested easy (all of that breathing wore him out!). When we left, he was seemingly stable and in very good hands (have we mentioned how much we love the entire NICU staff?!!). We are praying for a quiet, stable night as we look forward to the big hurdle we face tomorrow.

Much love,
Lindsay, Nik and Pierce