Notice anything missing??

Brandt is off of oxygen today! I honestly didn't see this coming. Everyone had told us that with the AVM's needing a little time to go away, we'd be weaning off oxygen over the next couple months, but today we did a trial run, and he's sitting in the low 90's--a perfectly acceptable range--without it! It's a big old celebratory party over here!

Now for a basic rundown of where he's at before I head off to bed:

He's feeling immensely better since we tweaked his tube. We couldn't do much about it, but we did manage to keep it from digging into his side any more, so that's apparently acceptable. He was smiley and energetic for most of the day--even to the point of commandeering our wheelchair walk through the hallways! He practically climbed out of the chair while we were on the move because he saw a short little flight of stairs...about three of them...that he wanted to climb on! So climb he did, while we very carefully maneuvered his drain stuff around behind him, laughing and baffled the whole way. When he was done there, he decided to take a walk down the hallway, very determinedly refusing any help, until he got to tired to keep going. His legs are a little weak, both from lack of use and from low food intake the last week.

Which leads me to the food conundrum at present. It takes a while for a kid's appetite to come back after a big surgery like this. He's actually lost about two pounds in the week we've been here. Our room is filled to the brim with different things for him to try, and even when we hit on something, he's only excited about it for a couple bites. Between his lack of appetite and the diuretics we've been giving him to make sure he doesn't get too waterlogged, his electrolyte levels have been dropping steadily. Not a good thing.

Sodium is the one they're most worried about at the moment. A body without enough sodium (in extreme cases, anyway) will eventually start having seizures. So he's currently on my dream diet: High Sodium. We scan the room service menu every day for the things that are highest in sodium. As a result, he's had a LOT of bacon lately. And the day that he actually ate a few fingerfuls of butter, they were thrilled. The downside is that he's not allowed to have straight water anymore, because that further dilutes him. Bummer for him, because water is his all-time favorite beverage, especially lately. Gatorade just doesn't cut it. Milk is good...or it was until we tried to sneak his sodium supplement into it. Now he's highly distrustful of it too. Anyway. That's our current challenge: getting enough food into him that his labs start looking better.

I just got back from the gospel meeting that they're having here in town. We were all able to go, courtesy of Shawna, who watched Brandt for us while we were gone. Got back just in time to give him his evening meds, and blog, and now I'm off to catch a little sleep before we have to wake him up for an IV and vitals!