Jason Millar's progress today

Today was another day where we made a trip to visit Jason in his room at UCSF Medical Center & Children's Hospital. (By the way if you are interested about the work that UCSF MC/Chldrens' Hospital does, consider going to this link to learn more.) When we arrived in the afternoon we got there just in time when Jason woke up.

In the past few days the nurses have been weening him off of oxygen (supplied by tubes to the nostrils) by lowering both the volume and percentage of oxygen as part of the medical plan to his transition for leaving the hospital and going home. This afternoon the nursing staff took him off of it completely and allowed him to breath in room-air (what the rest of us breath) while keeping a close eye on his oxygen saturation in his blood. For those that don't know, most humans maintain a near 100% arterial saturation (blood fresh from the lungs being sent out to the systemic body by way of arteries) Since Jason is getting venous blood mixed in with his oxygenated blood, it is expected to be less that 90% for the time being until the next two heart surgeries. He did pretty well with the transition and we saw that he handled it pretty well. We saw him in various activity states such as sleeping, and then later on in a grumpy crying state and his saturation levels stayed above 77%.

We also saw what happens when Jason was held while a little upset. My wife picked him up and held him in her arms, and he settled down almost immediately. We were pretty surprised by this and a bit apprehensive about this becoming habitual as I of the mind that Jason will be training us as much as we will be trying to train him.

On a final note for this post is that I am an aficionado of anything technical or scientific in nature. If its math based, or it has some basis in chemistry or physics, then I become interested in it. But but by no way am I any sort of expert in the field of medicine. I am just a guy that is into how life 'ticks' and what makes carbon-based life one of the most efficient machines known to mankind in this day. My disclaimer is that I might stand to have a erroneous interpretation in the present or future on a medical subject and I will assert now that it can come from human error in understanding. If anyone has any correction or clarification on the matter, I wholeheartedly invite them to advise me so I learn and grow with the correct knowlege. Thank you for your understaning

Ok, that's it for now. Lets' see about posting a picture....