I took J’s mum to see Massimo today and when we got the to hospital, a very nice lady called Mary told us that she had been called to the NNU to teach us how to change Max’s trachy tube! Luckily J could wrap things up in the office quite quickly and come and join us within the hour. Changing Max’s trachy tube is something that we will have to do possibly on a weekly basis, but maybe less often, depending on the type of tracheostomy tube the hospital give us. Most importantly, however, we have to be able to put in a new tube should the one he is wearing get knocked out of position.
As changing his trachy tube effectively means disturbing his airway, the whole procedure has to be planned with military precision. I must say that this was one of the most stressful afternoons that J and I have had in a long time. Max was hungry, which didn’t help, but all in all he was quite settled UNTIL we started fiddling with his tube and then all hell was let loose! The worst thing was that in the 2 seconds it took Mary to take the old tube out and fit the new one in Max’s face went completely purple as he fought for breath. Poor little mite, and then he had to wait whilst we quickly changed his nappy before he got his feed. When we realised that the nasogastric (ng or feeding) tube was actually split at the top and should really have been changed before feeding, we decided that he had really had a bad enough time and that we would feed him first, let him sleep a little and then change the tube. J and I left the unit absolutely exhausted from the sheer stress of it all.
More difficult still is that next week we will have to do it ourselves – with supervision of course – but until we can change the tube with some confidence ourselves, Max will not be able to come home.