Rest

Mason continued to be a little on the cranky side today. Travis and both agreed that he seemed improved over yesterday though. He let the kidney doc check him out (and uncover his blankets) and he only gave her the pouty face.

They removed his other chest tube today because it was basically falling out. The pediatric surgeons will put another one in, but only if they need to. Mason seems to be doing ok without it for now. They will continue to monitor his chest x-rays daily to see if he will need one. He seems much more comfortable without it and I think the docs don't want to mess with him any more than they have to.

Mason has ditched one of his blood pressure meds. He is on 2 meds right now (down from 3). He is maxed out on one of them and is at a very low dose on the other. We are sort of in a catch 22 right now since Mason is requiring so much sedation for his pain. The sedation lowers his blood pressure which makes it hard to wean off his blood pressure meds.

He is also slowly getting rid of his excess fluid. Until the fluid is at an acceptable level, they won't be able to change his vent settings. The docs seem to think that within the next couple of days they will be able to reduce his vent pressure (from 32 to 30) and slow his breathing from 60 to 50 breaths per minute. He will remain at 60% oxygen for now.

Mason's main focus for now is to rest. He was sleeping peacefully when Travis and I left for home this evening.

Mason's neighbor, Noah suffered a small setback today. The vent pressures have put a hole in one of his lungs. This is a common CDH complication and Noah will recover, but his lung will take a few days to heal. We are praying that Noah makes a speedy recovery so that he can have his hernia repaired soon.