Out of the PICU

Happy Birthday, Grandma Mary!

Here we are at Day 2 and Mason is doing well as far as the surgeon is concerned. He is very happy with the post-op course so far - said its almost "normal" - whatever that is. The g-tube site looks good, and a series of xrays this morning showed that the tube is in place where it should be and the stomach has no leaks. He just had a follow up xray to make sure that things were moving down his intestines. If all comes back, he should be able to start eating a little bit through the g-tube shortly. The surgeon said things looked great on the first series of xrays and has no concerns for the follow up xray.

Overall, Mason is becoming more and more stable and was kicked out of the PICU at noon. We have graduated to a "step down unit" which means the nurses have fewer patients to care for than on the regular pediatric ward, but more than the PICU nurses -- an intermediate level of care. What it means for us is another small step toward home.

Last night was a little rough because of pain management. We have had to walk a fine line between enough morphine to help with his surgical pain and not too much so that his breathing rate lowers too much, so much of the night we were behind the 8 ball so to speak. Whenever the pain got to be too much for him, he got quite agitated and his oxygen saturation would drop. So, we've been working hard to get ahead of the pain and I think we've turned a corner this afternoon. He is resting very comfortably at 2.5 liters of oxygen and saturating in the high 90s. According to the nurses, he should continue to have less pain over the next 12 hours or so and should eventually be managed by tylenol alone. Once that happens, we don't have to worry so much about his breathing with more medication. I'm eager for that time to come.

It is so comforting to know that he is making these slow gains and seems to have tolerated the surgery and intubation/extubation well. Our prayers and all of your thoughts and prayers seem to have been answered.

Please say an extra prayer tonight for our cousin Linda as she goes into surgery tomorrow for her lumpectomy and sentinal node test. Linda, we wish you all the best and pray that your sentinal node comes back negative!!! Rob, Brian, Austin, and Ava, we are also praying for you as you stand by Linda's side.