Will is having a tough day today, having real trouble keeping his oxygen levels where they want them. He seemed agitated this morning, and they gave him some morphine in the hope of settling him down. It seemed to work, as he quieted down by noon. As usual, a downturn is met with many different possible diagnoses; the nurses think one thing, the doctors another. For their part, the doctors seem to want to help push Will through this. They want to continue feeding him, albeit at a slower pace than before, and started antibiotics in case he has developed an infection (yes, he just ended a course of antibiotics on Saturday), and seem content to let ventilator changes help him to pick up the slack. Some of this is expected, of course, now that he's off the steroids. The exact same thing happened the last time he came off a course of dexamethasone. He crashed, they put him on antibiotics and he improved for a couple of days. We just need to keep that in mind and hope for a similar turnaround this time.

People have likened this to a rollercoaster, but someone along the way was even more accurate: It's like a rollercoaster in the dark. You know the ups and downs are going to come, but you can't see them ahead and can only wait to see which way you're headed at any given moment.