doing well...

Micah is doing well today. They took him off the ventilator attached to his tube. He's doing very well off of it! He can hear himself breathing through the trach, and it wakes him up. Therefore, he's hardly slept today and he's a big grump. Now he's on a trach mist collar, which is basically a big blue tube attached to a water source that sends humidity his way. That helps keep the junk in his chest loose enough to be suctioned. It sits loosely at his trach entrance, not attached firmly or anything. Right now since his trach is so fresh, he's considered a critical airway, but after Monday we can get him out of bed and he can go back to his crib.
We were afraid we'd have trouble hearing him with a trach, but the rattling of the junk in his chest makes a ton of noise. So far he's not been able to make much of any sound past the trach, which hopefully will change as the swelling goes down. Micahs trach sits basically between his collarbones, and is about the size of a nickel with little "wings" that extend out from it. It comes up about an inch and a half from his neck. It will be awhile before he has the dexterity to pull on it.
Any other trach questions? Or feeding tube questions? There's a million things to mention, but I'll just answer questions as you have them.

We just wanted to say thanks to the church for the card shower. We've got about 40 cards from people in the church over the last few weeks. The picture in the previous post is the first batch hanging up in our room. We'll leave them up a few days and switch them out for more cards. We especially appreciate the notes from the youth (you know who you are! we miss you!) Travis has been working on plans for great things coming up, so just be patient!