Thursday, May 02, 2013

Flight test

Here's a pic of Charlie at the hospital this morning, having his flight test.
We needed the test to see what happened to Charlie's sats in air with a lower oxygen content, because although we've flown shorthaul quite a few times, he's never been on a LONG flight before, and we need to know if he'll need oxygen on standby.
The cylinders on either side of him are oxygen and nitrogen, and are used to create air equivalent to that in the cabin of an aeroplane flying longhaul.
Anyway, his sats were 90-91 in air before we started, and only dropped to 84-86 during the test. (Pre-Fontan, his sats were always low-mid 80s anyway, so he's pretty used to that level of O2!)
The technician then tested him with 2L of O2 through nasal cannulae which brought his sats back up to normal.
So although the technician can't give us a yes/no, both he and we were pleasantly surprised by how well Charlie's sats held up.
We'll obviously speak to his consultant to see what he recommends, whether he needs O2 on standby or not, but hopefully we should be all systems go soon to book a rather fab holiday for next spring! :-)

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