On Second Thought

We were all packed up and ready to go home this morning and Mason decided it wasn't time yet. He had what could be called an "episode." When he woke up this morning, he did his usual coughing/trying to get out the junk from the night. The only difference was that his oxygen level dropped quite a bit and would not come up easily. We ended up giving him "blow by" oxygen (another big tube that just blows oxygen at him) and turned up the oxygen through his nose from 1.25 liters to 2.5 liters. Finally, his oxygen saturation came up and has been getting better throughout the day.

Thankfully, the pulmonary resident came in right around the same time and was able to see him/give suggestions right away. The doctors all listened to his lungs and thought that maybe his left lung was a little "chunky" - meaning that there may have been some gunk in there. So, they ordered a chest x-ray, asked the respiratory therapist to do some "chest therapy" on him (using a small, soft cup type thing to tap his chest repeatedly to loosen up the gunk), and decided to keep him another day to make sure that was what was going on.

Good News: Soon after the chest x-ray, Mason did cough up a good bunch of gunk, and started to saturate much better. Over the next couple of hours, after the chest therapy and coughing up a little more gunk, we were able to turn his oxygen back down to 1.5 liters and he's been there ever since. He has been playing and sleeping off and on and doesn't seem to be any worse for the wear.

Even Better News: His chest x-ray looks even better than Tuesday's. He looks like he is exchanging air a little better and definitely has more dark spots (this is a really good thing!).

So, we are hopeful that we can return home tomorrow, but very thankful that we were here when he had this "episode."