9:30pm: Kristen said it best earlier today: as strong as Reid has proved to be in the past and as much smiles and laughter we have seen in recent months, it is easy to forget how fragile Reid really is. We have seen some things today that I never care to witness again in my life, but we are still here fighting and making little baby steps of progress. While the day started off on a bad foot, Reid has been weaned a little bit on his oxygen (85%) and still satting about 94. The sun has come and gone today and Kristen and I are drained. We remain optimistic and know that Reid will keep fighting the fight. The medical staff in the PICU have been a huge support for us this week and have taken the time to make sure we are comfortable with what is going on and understanding every move they make. Please keep the doctors, nurses and therapists in your prayers tonight for God to give them the strength and knowledge to help our baby have a speedy recovery.

7:30 p.m. The 2.5 hour attempt at the arterial line was unsuccessful. So for now the nurses will draw gases from the PICC line every 12 hours. The problem with this is that they have to waste 5 cc's or so of blood every time they draw from this line to get an accurate CO2 measure and over time this adds up to quite a bit of blood loss. I'm sure a blood transfusion is in our near future. The goal for tonight is to wean the O2 down to 60%. We are currently at 100% so this could be a lofty goal. The Dr. wants to see improvement in Reid's lungs by tomorrow. Hopefully with all of this oscillating, his lungs will open back up.

Another concern is the pulmonary hypertension. Currently, there is no evidence that it is acting up and we pray that it stays out of the picture. It is likely that Reid will have an echocardiogram tomorrow just to be sure but the Dr. said that judging by his oxygen saturations and PaO2 levels that we are safe for now.

So come on Reid!! Let's have a stable and successful night of weaning that O2!!

Thank you again for all of your thoughts, well wishes, prayers and positive energy you are sending our way. As more than one person has pointed out to us today, Reid has been on the oscillator before and survived, and now that he is bigger and stronger he will prove once again that he is one tough little guy!

3:30 p.m.: Well, we are on the oscillator. We are praying that it opens up his lungs. While we associate the oscillator with something very negative, the doctor told us that in this case he is simply using it as a tool to help recruit Reid's lungs, in other words open them up. Reid has been on this machine for about 30 min and he just had his first desat. His CO2 is 66 and soon the doctor will give him an arterial line. Since he's on the oscillator, his blood gases must be checked more frequently. So, in addition to the 2 IV's, PICC line, pulse ox, drug patch, heart monitor, trache, and oscillator tubes he will now have an "art" line. His poor little hands are so bruised from being stuck with an IV.

We are drained. Chad's parents have been here throughout the day to keep us company and bring us lunch. It's so hard on everyone to see Reid so lifeless.

Well, the doctors just asked us to leave for an hour so they could insert the arterial line. Please pray they get it in swiftly and on the first try.

1:00pm: After a significant de'satting episode where the drs almost decided to pull the trache and intubate Reid through the mouth, he is stable for the moment. During that episode which lasted about 20 min, the drs could not get his sats above 60. Finally after some "aggressive suctioning" his sats came back to the 90s. The pulmonologist deducted from the bronchoscopy that the collapsed portions of Reid's lungs are due to the leak in his original trach. Because he wasn't receiving the necessary pressures parts of his lungs collapsed and perhaps all of his secretions are contributed to this. Time will tell. We are praying that with this new trach Reid will receive the support he needs and will be on the road to recovery.

10:15am: [Kristen's blog] Before we went to bed last night I had called Reid's nurse to see how he was doing. We were pretty optimistic that he would be doing well since he had had a decent day and when I had called at 8:00pm he was status quo.

Unfortunately things had worsened. He was starting to desat again, although not as low as the day before, and they had ordered a chest x ray. She said she would call me if there were any changes. Well at 530 this morning both Chad and I were awake and realized that we hadn't received a phone call so we thought Reid must have had a decent night. No sooner did we think this when the phone rang. It was the doctor (never a good sign) and she proceeded to tell me that they were preparing to put Reid on the oscillator because they could not get his sats above mid-low 80's on 100%O2. Well that news is enough to make you jump out of bed.

We arrived at the hospital a little after six and were pleasantly surprised to see that the oscillator was sitting in the hallway. Reid is tough and he is hanging on and so they have not needed to use that dreaded machine. The doctors also decided to do an urgent trache change. Reid's trache had a leak in it and therefore was not receiving all of the pressures the ventilator was giving him. This trache change occurred 2 days ahead of schedule and the surgical resident, chief surgical attending, two critical care pediatric fellows, Reid's nurse and respiratory therapist were all present. It went off without a hitch and now Reid is receiving all of the pressure support he needs to keep his lungs open.

To add to the complication, Reid has an infection. We're not sure exactly what type of infection he has but it looks like pneumonia and staph. He has significant clear secretions coming from his nose and mouth and brown tinged secretions coming from his lungs. In a bit, the pulmonologists will be coming in to do a bronchoscopy. They will send a small camera down his airway and check out his lungs. The x-ray shows that his upper lobes on both lungs are collapsed and they hope to find out if this is due to the infection or perhaps a mucus plug. I think it's amazing they can do this and I can't wait to see what Reid's bronchial tubes look like :)

He is still heavily sedated and paralyzed. Since the trache change his sats have held steady in the low 90's. They just got a blood gas and we (Chad, the nurse, RT and me) all took bets on what his CO2 levels would be. The nurse went the negative Nelly route and said low 80's (she justified it by saying that b/c of his bad night she wouldn't be surprised it his CO2 was high), the RT said 68 as did Chad and I said 66. Reid blew us all out of the water. His CO2 was 55. I like to think he was secretly laughing at all of us :) He's such a tough little guy.

They were just able to wean his O2 to 80%. Hurray!! And with all of these complications it looks like we will be able to stay in the PICU longer than expected.

We will post more as soon as we know more.