Dear Ellie,
Tonight is a good night. The ET tube has been out for 15 hours now and you are doing far better than we anticipated. Your oxygen level is about half what it was the first time you were extubated. They started you high, but throughout the day your O2 needs tumbled down and down and down. I've never seen you so relaxed. You aren't constantly flailing in pain like you were before and your blood oxygen level is very stable. Once again, there is a high chance that you will slowly wear out from breathing on your own. At first, it seems so strange that breathing should be such a chore, but then I remind myself that you should be floating around in amniotic fluid right now and it makes such simple sense.
As of now, the specter of reintubation is never far off, but for now, I'm as relaxed as you are. In the isolette, your arms are thrown back and legs stretched outward, like a house cat lounging in a sliver of sun on the windowsill.
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