The week after Karlie got the tracheostomy was a rough one. She had to recover and her stoma had to heal so she had to be heavily medicated the entire time. She spent most of her time sleeping and couldn’t be moved from her bed when she was awake. Moving her from side to side required two nurses and a respiratory therapist. The RT had to hold her trach in place to make sure it wouldn’t jiggle around and cause bleeding or pain. It was a very rough week to get through. I still visited her every day because how could I not? Sitting alongside her bed while she slept made for some long days.

I hit a breaking point when I arrived at the NICU one day and saw two graduation banners on other baby’s doors celebrating their homecoming. One of them was celebrating their 2 day NICU stay. My sass took over and I couldn’t help but think, “2 days?? Wow that must have been so hard.” Karlie had been in the NICU for 3 months at this point with no end in sight. I broke down in tears once I got to Karlie’s room and saw her trach. It was maybe two days after she got the trach so she was still puffy and she had what almost looked like a collar around her neck. All of it was overwhelming in that moment and it felt like we were never going to bring her home.

Things started to look up about a week after Karlie got her trach as she healed and became more lively. She was in less pain and was smiling again. It was wonderful to see her sweet face free from breathing tube tape or the CPAP. There was so much tape on her upper lip when she had a breathing tube and the CPAP covered almost her whole face. There was a good stretch of time when I genuinely didn’t know what she really looked like because I could never see her whole face. Even her regular nurses commented on how great it was to finally see her beautiful face.

The nurses and respiratory therapists handled Karlie’s daily trach cares for the first few weeks and that was fine with me. I was still intimidated by the trach and wasn’t feeling confident in myself. Once we started our training the trach slowly became less intimidating. The first thing we learned how to do was suction Karlie. That probably sounds very strange but it’s extremely important with a trach. When we suction we are clearing secretions out of the trach that Karlie can’t clear herself. Usually the secretions are thin, basically what you get when you clear your throat. Unfortunately they can also be thick and plug the trach which can be detrimental. You can tell when Karlie needs a suction because the secretions kind of make a rattling sound in her trach. Once we learned how to suction we were allowed to suction Karlie with a nurse in the room. I was very nervous to do it the first time but it became easier and just part of our every day life.