Letting a Sleeping Henry Lie

Today was a good day. Henry's sats looked good, and he was so restful compared to yesterday. It was a relief. Since he looked like he was getting some sleep, Jeff and I didn't reach into his isolette to touch him, except during his cares.

Gene was his day nurse. It was the first time that Gene has been his nurse. He did an excellent job making Henry comfortable. He suctioned out Henry's nose and got a lot of stuff out of it. Perhaps that's why Henry was fussing yesterday and desating. The CPAP nose prongs don't exactly work well when the nose is clogged up. Once suctioned out, his saturation levels went up, and Gene was able to turn down the oxygen.

I can't believe how many nurses it takes to run the NICU. And, the nurses are of such high quality and experience. Gene has been working at University Medical Center's NICU for seven years. Prior to that, he worked at a NICU in Phoenix for seven years. And prior to that, he was a fire fighter. He has five kids, ages 3 to 14 years old.

I talked with Lisa, the nurse practitioner. Henry had another chest x-ray. She said that there was some improvement over the one taken on 5/29. She said that Henry was doing very well. She said that he had progressed quickly on his respiration and was pleased that he wasn't intubated as many preemies his weight often are.

Dr. Wispe stopped by and said that he thought that Henry was doing OK. Because of the x-ray taken on 5/29, which suggested some fluid in the lungs, and because Henry wasn't doing well yesterday (oxygen levels were turned up), Dr. Wispe ordered lasix, a diuretic, for him. On the one hand, it could be the case that the low saturations levels and hence increased need for oxygen were caused by his nose, which Gene mentioned as a possibility to Dr. Wispe. On the other hand, his diaper output hasn't been impressive overall (other than the day he was given a small dose of lasix and then produced at 41 gram diaper).

Nadine was back as Henry's evening nurse. I came just in time to change a 29 gram diaper (the lasix worked!). I then helped weigh him. The isolette has a scale feature. (1) The nurse tells the isolette that s/he wants to weigh the baby. (2) The computer screen says to pick up the baby. (3) While holdig the baby, the computer calibrates the bed to 0 grams. (4) The computer then says to put the baby down. (5) Once down, the baby's weight is calculated. I "helped" by holding Henry up while the computer calibrated the bed. We actually took his weight a couple of times because I messed up the first reading by holding "blow by" equipment after I put him down (which had been on the bed during the calibration). The first reading said 940 grams, which was way too big of an increase. The second reading was 860 grams. The third reading (Nadine did the holding on this one) was 850 grams. Since Henry was tolerating us well, we decided to do a fourth reading (again Nadine did the holding). It was 850 grams, so we decided that this was his weight for the evening.

Holding Henry during the weighing was a good experience. I'm feeling a little more comfortable holding him in general. But his head and neck still makes me a little nervous.

Nadine checked his stomach. It looked slightly distended. Nadine felt it, and it was soft (which is good). Before feeding, she checked his feeding tube. No residuals were in his stomach (yea!). Henry's feedings are being held at 14 ml per 3 hours.

When I left around 10PM, Henry's saturation levels were great (95%), the oxygen level on the CPAP was in the 30s, and his respiration (breaths per minute) was lower than I'd seen it in a while (looked good).