Don't Rock the Boat

I think that should be the mantra for the next couple of days. We are getting closer and closer to our attempt to wake Mason up from his detox and are trying to be very careful to avoid rocking the boat.

Last night about 2 hours after I posted the blog, Mason started to saturate better. By the time I went to bed (yes, I did stay with him in the hospital last night), he was back to the mid 80's for saturations and his heart rate was coming down. Overnight, the nurse was careful not to rock the boat and only did what was absolutely necessary so that he got some good rest from the events of the very busy previous day. With no real "events" of the night, I was able to get some sleep, too. Rare, but possible in the hospital.

This morning, we changed Mason's trach again because the last one was not sealing well in his windpipe. This one has a better seal and doesn't leak air around it nearly as much. Immediately after changing it the volume of air in Mason's lungs improved and his saturations went up. He continued to have a better day than yesterday with a few desaturations into the 70's. It continues to take him quite a long time to recover, but eventually, he still gets his saturations up into the 80's and has been there most of the day.

The detox part of his sedation/paralysis is most likely done today. The drugs (remember the 7 narcotics and sedatives he was on??) are most likely out of his system, but we are giving him a couple of extra days of rest before trying to wake him up on Monday. The doctors started a little bit of Ativan (one of the 7) to help with his sedation in hopes that by Monday, his body will have some sedative in him and he can slowly wake up with the removal of the paralytic and the Propofol. Some sedation remains necessary as we wake him up because the pressure of the air being blown into his lungs is very uncomfortable. He will likely fight it, we just hope he gets used to it and doesn't require larger and larger doses of the medications.

So, here are my requests for directed prayer for those of you who like to pray for something specific: 1) That Mason continues to be able to rest without incident tomorrow and 2) that when we attempt to awaken Mason on Monday, his struggle is temporary and that the dose of the Ativan he is given will be sufficient to help keep him calm.