Moving in the right direction

The hardest part about today was seeing Mason in pain. He had woken up some more and was not happy and was hurting. They did end up increasing his fentanyl dosing to help out with this. Mason is REALLY swollen. I can't stress this enough. His belly is so tight it looks like plastic. Unfortunately, his belly has an incision from his surgery a few days ago which means all of this pressure is pushing that incision back open. This is not good and is causing pain. The plan is to give him lasix regularly to help draw that fluid off but typically the chest and stomach area is the last place the fluid will pull off. So we will wait and pray that it will improve before his incision opens back up. His platelets had also dropped some and he is getting bloody discharge out of his replogle which is probably due to some irritation. They transfused platelets and put him on zantac to help soothe his stomach. He is still on the vent because he is so swollen he is having problems breathing (it is like he has bricks on his chest due to the swelling) so until we get this fluid off he will need the vent to help him breathe.

We got some mixed reviews about the cranial ultrasound. We thought there was an overall decrease (which I spoke of last night) but turns out there is a decrease in fluid on the left side and decrease of the overall left "shift" of fluid but the right side has a slight increase. Dr. Powers came and talked to Josh this afternoon and said that this was normal and they aren't concerned about it. The brain is doing what it should be doing for now and it is balancing back out. So that still was positive news and we are thankful. I am so ready for Mason to get better and recover from this. I do not like seeing him in pain and the nurses do a great job of catching it and speaking to the dr.'s to make sure this does not happen. Today was a down day for me because no mother likes to see your child uncomfortable and in pain and I am so ready for him to be better but the only thing I can do is pray for healing and trust in God. Mason is so strong and has endured so much. I am so ready for his suffering to decrease and for us to cross over this hurdle. He is such a tough child and is probably going to give us a run for our money!

You can see how swollen he is in this picture.