Hopeful

This past week has been a hard week. Since surgery last week Cameron has been struggling. He had been having these episodes where he dropped his oxygen way down. He could be in the 70s and all of a sudden be in the teens. Some of the time this would be when he was mad and he would turn purple on us. Then he started dropping his oxygen even of he wasn't upset. It was scary and we were really worried and just wanted someone to tell us what was going on. The lowest he dropped his oxygen was probably 9 (if it was reading right) when they put an IV in. He has a picc line in, but some of the medication he was on couldn't go through the same line. It has been very hard for me to be patient because it seemed like we were getting no where. We wondered how much more Cameron's body could take and if God would him Home to be with Him. God has a plan for us and we are so thankful for the time he gives us as a family, however long that is.

The past several days, they have been working on going down on the ventilator settings. Cameron was doing pretty good, but still had plenty of extra fluid in his body. Yesterday, I thought would be they day they would take the breathing out. Cameron was still holding his breath some and seemed to fight more and more against the ventilator. His chest x-ray was the worse than it had been and it had everyone wondering. I had talked to the respiratory therapist before rounds about getting the tube out. We thought that the breathing tube was just making things worse for Cameron. His tube was the size of a straw or smaller, Imagine or try breathing through a straw. He was fighting against it so much it was doing more harm. During doctor rounds, they made a good, but busy plan for the day. They got an echo to make sure everything still looked okay, which I never heard so I assume it was good. They also worked on his picc line to make it a double line. They had to give him extra sedation and paralytic to do that. His picc line wasn't drawing blood, so they also put an arterial line in. He had lost his other one the night before, but the new one didn't last long enough to get labs. They started Cameron on a different med drip to try to get him to get rid of more of the extra fluid in his body and that really helped. So much happened yesterday, I probably won't remember it all. Once they did this stuff and added some medication for the lungs, they did another x-ray and it looked better. The plan was to get the breathing tube out yesterday afternoon, but Cameron was too sleepy from the paralytics and sedation he got. I was disappointed, but knew they would try in the morning. My mom and Jason came to visit last night and then Jordan came after work.

Cameron had a really good night and hasn't dropped his oxygen since yesterday during rounds. I got to the hospital around 5:15 am and they took the breathing tube out at 6:30ish. We have been through this so many times, that they will let me stay in the room. Cameron did great getting the tube out. His oxygen didn't drop and he hardly got upset. Cameron's oxygen has been 70-low 80s, but since the tube has been out it has been 80-94. Everyone is so excited and very happy with Cameron's progress. This morning he got a blood transfusion because his level was low and he has been pale. Today they are working on going down more on sedation and going down on his oxygen settings. They have already been able to go down some. He is on a RAM cannula, which is a larger cannula that is hooked up to the ventilator to give extra support without the breathing tube being down his throat. He was on this before he went into surgery last Wednesday. We are hoping for a good night for Cameron and then hopefully more progress tomorrow.

Thank-you much for the prayers. We have so much to be thankful for.