The lungs...

We went and saw Dad and talked with his nurse, Robert. He is still looking good and pinker. He continues to have good urine output and they are decreasing his blood pressure meds. The current issue continues to now be his lungs. Because of all the fluid on his body, it is in his lungs as well. This is keeping him from getting the oxygen into his blood to take it to the rest of his body. They are now giving him 100% oxygen. Usually your blood saturation would then be 100% but currently Phil's is at 90ish percent. He is kind of headed in the direction of what they call ARDS , Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome. He hasn't fully developed it yet so they are treating him to keep it from getting to that point. The usual treatment is removing all of the fluid and giving steroids. Because of his liver, they can't give him steroids so they are now working on getting all of the fluid off of him which will improve his lung oxygenation. To do this, they are increasing his dialysis to remove 300 ml/hour. Eventually they may increase it to 5oo ml/hr. It has been at 120 ml/hr. That means they will be getting about 1 Liter off every three hours so 8 Liters in one day. They are also ordering Phil a special bed that will change his position often which will help mobilize some of the fluid off of him better. No more word from the doctors yet. We continue to be encouraged.