The Power of Roids

Today we awoke to our discharge fears realized. Mason had a hard time through the night with the oxygen monitor going off every once in a while and this morning, he was desaturating (not holding enough oxygen in his blood) even on 1 liter of oxygen. His last dose of steroids in the hospital was Wednesday morning. Today, they were finally out of his system. We got all packed up and ready to go to the hospital with a stop first at the pediatrician's office for a scheduled follow up. Mason had some blood drawn to see how the sodium, potassium, and carbon dioxide in his blood were. He also had to have another xray to make sure the feeding tube was still in his small intestine (it was moved from an NG - nose to stomach - to an NJ - nose to small intestine - in the hospital). Thankfully, the carbon dioxide is down a bit and the NJ tube is still in place. We still don't have a good idea of why Mason's lungs keep getting fluid around them, so until we do, we'll have to keep treating the symptoms. So Mason's back on the 'roids. Amazingly, within about an hour of the first dose, his breathing eased quite a bit and he was able to nap comfortably. He still needs a little bit more oxygen than a couple of days ago when he left the hospital, but thankfully he is not getting worse anymore. We are hoping that he continues to be stable so that he doesn't have to return to the hospital. I think we're going to stay packed, just in case though.