by Yesterday they snapped a picture of AJ in the OR to use for nurses week. He’s still happy when being wheeled off to the OR, and everyone always looks at me a little funny when I say he doesn’t need a “pre-med” to help chill him out before heading down. Normally he doesn’t take his blanket with him, I’m always worried things will get lost if they go down with him, but it made for a cute picture (and we did get it back!)
Dr Jacobs said “he has a little bit of an airway” with a lot of pride and kept telling AJ to “keep up the good work”. There is still a little swelling and there are a couple of smaller things that may need to be taken care of later, and he doesn’t want to put much pressure on the new airway yet (read: try a smaller trach or a speaking valve etc to force air up through his vocal chords instead of primarily through his trach). But in 6-8 weeks we will be back out here at CHOP for another bronchoscopy and will see what’s next!
So now (or as soon as they finally let us out of the PICU anyway), we start the process of trying to pack up all of our things so we can begin the drive home on Monday! Irony is that Averie is here until Sunday, and Aaron also arrives on Sunday – their layovers don’t cross paths though unfortunately, so they’ll have a few more days before they’ll see each other after Averie’s spring break trip out here, but we will soon be back under one roof again!
