We've Gone Nuclear

Things started moving today and compared to the last week or so, it was incredibly busy.

First things first, though -- No 4am vitals!!! Mason was able to sleep through the night for the first time in a week and a half. I was able to get more sleep, though not straight through, but more sleep - guess I'm used to waking at odd hours now. When the doctor came in this morning, he told us that he had heard they had tried to do vitals on Mason at 2am. According to him, when he heard about it, he sent a "nasty-gram" to the nursing team. It's really nice to know the doctors are trying to help us out! He told me that if he heard about it again, the "nasty-grams" would get nastier AND, he's on call tonight, so he'll hear about it sooner. Love that the doctor is rooting for us!!

So, things got moving for us around 11 this morning. We were transported down to the depths of the hospital for Mason's Nuclear Medicine study. We gave him his regular formula with a radioactive tracer in it. Fifteen minutes later, he was placed on his back under a gamma camera, for about 10 minutes while watching Monsters, Inc to help keep him distracted. We repeated the procedure with the gamma camera at 1 and 5 hours after eating. We will go back to the gamma camera tomorrow morning for one last set of pictures. The idea is that if the radioacive tracer is found in his lungs by tomorrow morning, it confirms that he has aspirated. If not, it leads to a possibility that he is not aspirating. We may repeat the study tomorrow evening and see what happens overnight. It is possible that he doesn't aspirate during the day, but may do so overnight. There's very little risk to him in repeating the study, so if need be, we can do that. I don't think he'll turn into the Incredible Hulk with a little more exposure to the gamma camera. That's just in TV and the movies, right??

Otherwise, no changes today. We have the care conference tomorrow and should be able to get everyone on the same page about Mason's care and a plan moving forward.

As we were transporting back and forth today, we passed a couple of families clearly going through some very difficult times. I don't know what their situations were or who they were, but am requesting prayers to be said for them in hopes of easing their pain. Thank you!!