Just a quick update from the NICU. Warrior Baby has reached 1000 grams as of early Friday morning! That translates to about 2.20 lbs.! She has continued to have problems with maintaining her body temperature, so she's been put back in an Isolette in order to keep the temperature more consistent.
Twins A & B have both been given names, finally, but I'll still refer to them as A & B because of good old HIPAA. Twin B has been moved out of Bay 1 so his condition is improving.
We lost another angel this week:( This was another ECMO baby. I know I promised an explanation of what ECMO is; I just haven't gotten to it yet. But, in this case, the child is, IMO, in a far better place for having gone to get his wings. In addition to the heart and lung problems that created the need for him to be on ECMO, it was discovered that only half of his brain developed. His days were limited on this earth even with the help of ECMO, it sounds like, and his parents had to make that difficult decision.
Another baby was airlifted in a few days ago from another hospital. This child was born with gastroschisis, which is, for non-medical folks, when the intestines are born outside the baby's body. The attending hospital botched the repair (can we say sentinal event?) and sent the child to BHTS.
We see gastroschisis babies far too regularly, I'm afraid - I've already seen three of them in the three months I've been working in NICU. This one was by far the worst, though. Infection was running amok in this little one and it had to be brought under control before surgery could be done to not only correct, but repair the damage already done by the first hospital. The little guy had surgery on Monday, finally, and yesterday they began weaning him off the vent. I was doing blood gases on him every half hour to hour, depending on how the weaning was going. By the time I did the last one before the end of my shift, the little guy was opening his eyes and trying to look around. I'm looking forward to seeing how he's doing when I go back to work next week.
More updates when there's something to tell.
5 comments:
Love the picture on your site. Who is the artist? I would like to get a tatoo of a dragon like that. Thanks!
Karen
Good to hear about the twins doing so well. Sorry about the other poor babies. You have to have a big heart to do what you do. You're an angel.
I read about your warrior babies and i'm so humbled. We were so very lucky that Monstergirl was born with no issues and every time I read about your wb's I stop and thank the powers that be again for giving me a healthy child.
Karen - thanks for dropping by - come back again if you like! I found the blogskin, (or maybe Jude or Tracey did!) over at deviant art; I don't think that particular skin is there any longer, though. The design has been spotted on T-shirts and such, so I think it could be used without permission now. I'm not quite sure how that all works.
Lainy - Oh, believe me, I'm no angel, but thank you for the compliment:) I'm honored that I was given the opportunity to work with these special little ones. They really deserve to be called "Warriors".
Tracey - I know exactly what you mean. When I see what some of these babies deal with on a day-to-day basis I'm so very thankful that all my children and grandchildren were born kicking and screaming, hungry and healthy. You'd better believe that when you walk into a newborn's room and they don't even have the strength to cry you notice it and pray that they make it. When they begin crying when I stick them, it breaks my heart because I hate it that I had to hurt them a bit, but it is joyous to know they're getting well enough to have that response! Same with kicking - when they get old enough to make a heelstick difficult, it might be hard to collect the sample, but it's still great, if you know what I mean!
God bless the babies, and you too for doing what you do Kate!
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