Slow and Steady Wins the Race (hopefully!)

We may not be making big gains or rapid gains, but we are making progress.

Yesterday was a pretty low key day. Mason caught up on some sleep and weaned down on the oxygen a little bit. He is now getting the steroid every 12 hours and building up the level in his system. We were able to turn him down to 3.25 L around 4:30 or so and that's where he stayed until this morning. We could tell he was doing a little bit better because he would hold his oxygen saturations in the mid to high 90's (normal for people without lung disease is 99-100%) while he was awake. On Friday, he was in the high 80's to low 90's on 4 liters, so there is definitely some improvement!

Overnight he had a couple of rough patches with his saturations going down in the low 80's, but after rolling him onto his side and patting his butt (he loves this!), he was able to fall back asleep and saturate in the high 90's again. This morning, we turned him down once again, so he's needing 2.75 liters. He seems to be a little more comfortable with his breathing, too, and isn't working up a sweat while just resting.

The doctors are a little worried about the carbon dioxide level in his blood. One of his tests showed that he's retaining quite a bit of CO2. His PCO2 was at 80, but they don't know if that is where it has been or if it's recently elevated since he hasn't had the test since October (then his level was 60). It's entirely possible that the level has been creeping up since we left the hospital in early October and may even be down from Friday since his oxygen need is going down, but regardless it's too high so they'll be talking today with the lung doctor to figure out what to do about it. We'll just have to see.