E-mail from Rachel at 9.42pm:

Dear All,

After many days and hoping we may be able to get away without it, Matthew had a tracheostomy this afternoon which all went to plan. Due to his incubation, his mouth and tongue had become a problem area and this has been creating a bit of discomfort and agitation as they have tried to wake him. Yesterday was not a great one, with Matt emerging from sedation after 5 days and it felt a bit like groundhog day as Di had to walk through with him again where he was. This morning, Di reported he was bit more with us, and the kids sat next to his bed while the muppet movie played.  Go figure.

So the tubes are out of his mouth and we hope his healing can allow for better comfort for him.

The x-Ray showed his lungs were in good stead. So we can only hope that after a while he can be left alone from tubes entirely. This may take a week or two.

Matthew won’t be able to talk until then, although he will be able to mouth words and we have devised a ‘blinking’ chart for Matthew to use if he wants to. He might get a bit sick of blinking but until I can put a stylus in his mouth and move his neck better, or wait until after the  tube fully gone, he will just have to make due. He will get sick of me ignoring his cranky eyes (yup, he has given me those already). Am not going to get doey about what sort of eyes he is making at Di. 🙂

As mum said today, we feel we are in a better place; however, it is still baby steps and there will be more set backs down the track. Today a small step forward.

Again, info to those in this email only for now.  General info / updates happy for you to update others. Thx