Wake Up, Part 2

Mason had a fairly good night overall last night with a couple of blips. As we neared shift change, you may remember, he started to move a bit more and was not quite as calm. Well, as it turns out, one of his IV thingymajiggers was leaking so he wasn't getting the full dose of either his paralytic or his Propofol. Once that was figured out, he was calm most of the rest of the night. At one point apparently, his heart rate was staying up again, so they almost increased his dose of his Methadone. Thankfully, he self corrected and was able to continue the Propofol wean without increases in his other meds. He did have one major event lasting about 30-45 minutes in which his saturations dropped and he wasn't moving air well in his left lung. Thanks to our favorite Attending who happened to be on last night, the mucus plug was moved and he resumed doing ok.

This morning at about 9:30 or so, the paralytic was stopped. About an hour or so later, he started doing some "hula" -- that's the best way I can describe how he moves when he's waking from the paralytic; he moves from the belly out. Then at about 11:15 or so, he opened his eyes to the world again. He came up coughing and helping to move the gunk out of his lungs which is a really good sign. The best news so far is that he has not fought the vent once yet. He has had a little lower saturations when awake, but has not pushed back against the air coming in!! For this, we are extremely thankful. His Propofol was turned down again around 12:00 so he's now on 45 mcg/kg/min. No increases in Ativan or Methadone yet which is really, really good.

We're really not wanting to jinx it, so we are thankful for what we've seen, but prepared for a time when he does start fighting.