Rollar Coaster

The last few days have been a big rollar coaster for Mason. After the ECMO circuit was changed on Wednesday, Mason bloated up (as expected). However, this time he did not dropped the excess fluid as expected. Over the coarse of Thursday and Friday, the doctors were getting less optimistic and seemed to grow more and more concerned about his lack of progress. They tried giving him medications to increase blood flow to the kidneys, help improve his fluid withdrawal rate, increase his blood pressure, etc. and none of them seemed to be working. Suddenly his urination had nearly stopped and it appeared that his kidneys were starting to shut down based on the results of his daily blood tests.

This morning the surgeons had a cathetar reinserted to see if there was a possible blockage in his urinary track. Sure enough, once the cathetar was placed he started peeing at an extremely high rate. We will know for sure tomorrow morning whether the cathetar has totally fixed the issue once we see his blood test results, but all indicators are that the issue has been fixed. The medical staff is once again optimstic and have starting talking about how close Mason is getting to trying to take him off of the ECMO circuit.

As of this evening, Mason has already dropped most of the extra fluids he gained since Wednesday afternoon. He has also started moving around a lot more, moving his arms and legs more than ever before. Late this evening, he has even started opening one of his eyes (the other eye is still pretty swolen).