Missed It By This Much

We narrowly avoided going back to the hospital today. For the past couple of days, since being home, Mason's oxygen level has been on the rise and his desaturations are far too frequent. He's gone from needing 3.5 L while sleeping and 4-5L during the day to 7 while sleeping and awake. Saturday night, he was awake nearly every hour with his monitor screaming at us. Last night was a little better with the monitor only going off every couple of hours. However, this morning, we could barely get his oxygen saturation above 90% and couldn't keep it there for the life of us.

So, instead of going in for our routine "post-hospital follow up," we saw our wonderful pediatrician with the goal of going through the proper channels of re-admitting Mason. As always, our wonderful pediatrician was wonderful and suggested the possibility of trying a couple of things at home. He contacted the pulmonologist on call who supported the idea of trying things at home, but was certain that we'd still end up needing to be admitted by tomorrow -- what a vote of confidence!! Our wonderful pediatrician left the decision up to us, in part, I think, because of the look of sheer exhaustion on our faces. In the end, we decided to try increasing the lasix and the steroid on our own and seeing how things go. The good news is that Mason's labs looked pretty good...potassium down, chloride up, sodium a little high, but not too bad, and carbon dioxide elevated as always (so who's counting?).

The better news is that tonight, Mason is resting a little more comfortably. About mid day, he had a significant desaturation that took a bit to recover, but after a whole bunch of oxygen, some futile attempts at comforting him, and successfully suctioning 2 major nostril blocking boogers out of his nose, he's doing better.

What happens tomorrow remains to be seen, but for now we will start the night as we have the last couple of nights -- saying a prayer for a better night and a better day tomorrow and going to sleep in my own bed. I am hoping that the morning doesn't find me sleeping on the air mattress in Mason's room once again.