YIKES!!!

Sleeping soundly around 6 this morning, I thought I heard footsteps in my room - I thought maybe James had gotten up and was coming back from the bathroom - wrong. Suddenly I felt a tap on my back and I jumped about a foot out of bed.

It was Josh and he was trying to say something to me - I heard the breath sounds - but no voice. I thought maybe he'd forgotten to grab his passy Muir talking valve - wrong again. His trach had slipped out of his neck! And he couldn't get it back in.

I directed him out in the hall near a light. I noticed the trach ties were still in place, so I undid the velcro holding them together to make sure I was able to hold the trach tube in the right direction to get it back in Josh's neck. Try as I may, I could not get it to slip back in. I could only get a couple of centimeters to go in - no good.

I had him hold that in place for a second and raced after his trach that is a size smaller - hoping it would fit. All the instructions we'd learned for a trach emergency went flashing through my mind. I remembered that you have to get the 1 size smaller if the same size doesn't fit. And if that doesn't work - you grab a suction tube and put that in then call 911. Luckily, I was able to get the smaller size one in.

Then I realized why Josh had gotten up to begin with. He was wet and all his bedding was too. My poor baby. I grabbed all his wet stuff and took it down to the washer and found some clean dry stuff to put on him and his bed. I got him back to bed and hooked again to his vent and monitors. He was still upset. He hates wetting the bed and worried because we couldn't get the same size trach in place - worried about that meaning he might have to go to the doctor and what they might do. I kept reassuring him and he finally went back to sleep. And I climbed back into my bed to try and sleep a little more, too.

I kept going over everything in my mind again and suddenly realized that I should have tried putting his same size trach in with the stick looking device in it (like I would when I change his traches) and with lubricant on it. In my haste, I hadn't even thought of it before. I decided to get back and try it that way before his stoma (opening on his neck) had a chance to close up further around his smaller trach. I hoped I was thinking of it soon enough. I woke Josh, apologizing that I hadn't thought of it before and tried the same size trach again as I described above. It worked - slipped right in - phew!!!! What a relief. Josh was relieved too and we finally got to get some real rest after that.