April 1 update.

Boone was not able to maintain his oxygen levels today, even with a nose hose turned to full capacity.

His nurse thought he'd be ok to remove the oxygen sensor on his finger to eat his breakfast.  Boone hasn't been eating but about 900 calories a day at best, so they really want him to eat.  They've threatened to send him back to the ICU for a feeding tube if he won't eat.

Boone was so tired, but he sat up like they have all told him he must do to eat.  Everything tastes awful to him.  The faces he makes over the food, which is not bad for hospital food, would make you think he was eating something as nasty as a rotten egg.  He chokes it down.  After he had consumed as much as I could get him to eat, I started removing the food tray and tidying up a bit.  He just laid his forehead down on the serving table thing and didn't move.

After I finished what I was doing I went over to see if he wanted to lay back down.  As if I had to ask.  He gets no sleep because of anxiety issues and I guess the cognitive issues.  He stays confused a good deal of the time, and is perfectly fine at other times.  Anyway yes he wanted to lay down.  So I helped him lean back into the bed. He curled up into a fetal position.  I slid him up in the bed a bit and tried to straighten out his legs.

For some reason, I decided I was going to hook up the oxygen sensor.  It was on 70 and dropping.  I shook Boone and in a command voice I've learned from the nurses, started to tell him to breathe.  In through the nose, out through the mouth.  I'm hanging over him saying this over and over and watching the monitor.  His nurse came in at that moment to see the low oxygen level on the monitor.  He must have hit some silent code call because within seconds people were coming in the room.  One person took 8 minutes to get there and was frowned upon by the rest of the rapid response team.  It was too long, doesn't matter she was across campus.

They all gathered about, listened to his lungs, and his vitals.  By this time, he was getting his levels back up into the 80s with me telling him to breathe.  They decided to put a mask on him.  That didn't go over too well.  Boone's anxiety level went sky high.  It was scaring him.  He kept trying to take it off.  It took me and two nurses to get him to understand he had to have this mask that forces oxygen into the lungs and sucks old the old air at the same time.  Within a minute of him calming down his numbers shot up to the upper 90s.  He would forget and still kept trying to remove the mask.

It was determined after much discussion that he should be sent to the ICU rather than wait for an episode like before when he went into cardiac arrest, to happen.  They had his chest x rayed, blood drawn, a pulmonary specialist check him and I don't think they really know why this is happening.  It could be lots of things, apparently.  Last time it happened there was mention that it could have been related to the transfusion.  He got two bags of whole blood and  Benadryl last night.

So we (Ms. A and I ) cleared out his room on the BMT ward.   This is his third trip to the ICU.  This time they didn't have his bed stripped.  They like the satin pjs and satin sheets and were mildly impressed with the electric blanket underneath those sheets.

Boone was a bit panicky.  They started to put that same type oxygen mask on him.  He started making noises that sounded something like howling and crying at the same time.  He was afraid he was about to die.  I stroked his head and explained it all to him while the ICU team did their thing.  Finally, I got him to promise to not take off the mask, or pull on his IV.  I had to tell him not to be afraid, that he was just there to make sure he didn't get in danger.  He started breathing a bit slower and easier and began to drift off to sleep.