The past week has been quite tiring for us, thus, no blogging. The night that Mason came home from the hospital turned out to be a good night with oxygen needs going down to about 2.5 liters. He was really happy, giggly, and relaxed. That night, he slept for about 15 hours, only stirring a couple of times for a diaper change and nebulizer treatments.
After that, though, the nights got longer for us. For the next few nights, Mason's teething took on a life of its own and he awoke many times a night because of it. Whenever he has pain, he gets to grunting more and doesn't take in good, deep breaths. Because of that, the oxygen level drops and his need goes up. Then, strangely (for Mason at least), his oxygen saturations went down quite a bit while he was sleeping on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday nights - we had to turn him up to 6 liters on 2 of those nights and 5 liters on the 3rd. It was quite worrisome for us because this is something new. So, we called the doctor. He seems to think that Mason may be starting to follow a "normal" lung disease type of pattern in which he just needs more oxygen at night. They don't want to up Mason's steroid dose which has been the treatment in the past because it has so many harmful effects. Apparently, the side effects of too high of an oxygen level are much less dangerous than the side effects of more steroids.
So, here we are. Maybe at a new place in Mason's development, maybe at a bump in the road. Who knows. We just need to roll with it and make sure the oxygen delivery guy is our best friend!
Regardless of what's going on now, I am constantly reminded of how much of a Miracle it is that Mason is even here and doing as well as he is. One of the nurses in the NICU who spent many a night with Mason and (helped to prevent a disaster when his intestine herniated) is walking in the March of Dimes walk on April 25th. She is walking in honor of Mason and another NICU baby with whom she worked. We were so lucky she was there watching over Mason in the NICU. If you are so inclined, please take a look at her website (click on the red "x" on the right - unfortunately, I couldn't get the picture to come through).
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One of the positive things about going through all this is the wonderful people that touch your lives. Glad Nancy is one of Mason's angels. And a great cause - the March of Dimes. Their funding developed surfactant which made a huge leap in lung development for preemies - Ava (and Mason? I don't remember if he had that or not) may not be here if not for that one development.
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