Bath Night

On Tuesday, Debbie was Henry's day nurse. Henry's feeds were condensed to a two hour period (feed over two hours, no food for one hour). Debbie tested his blood sugar before his feed (after it had been off for an hour). It was 52, which is OK but kind of on the low side of OK.

Henry had an eye exam. Although the staff don't like it when the parents watch because it is a Clockwork Orange looking exam, I stayed and watched from a couple feet away. He has developed ROP (retinopathy of prematurity). Basically, ROP is when the blood vessels at the back of the eye build up. If too much build up occurs, then they can cause the retina to detach. Blindness is a potential side effect of ROP. Considering that Henry was so very premature and small for his gestational age, he was bound to get it...it was just a matter of when. The potential solution is laser surgery to zap some of the vessels and hence prevent detachment. But we aren't at that stage yet. Henry has a mild case (stage 1 in zones II and III of the eyes). And, hopefully, things will correct themselves. He has a follow-up exam next week.

At one point in the day, there was a power outage. All of the monitors in the pod went black. Luckily, the oxygen was set up on a backup generator of some sort. The backup can last 20 minutes. The outage messed up Henry's isolette, which kept going off, even though I could tell that the temperature was at the goal temp inside the box. After everything came back on, the monitors went out a second time. It was rather disturbing. Basically, as far as Henry's safety goes, the only thing he had to have was the oxygen. If his monitors are down for a while, it isn't great but he's been relatively stable for a few days (with the exceptions of some desats which he recovers from on his own). But, there are a lot of babies in the other pods who are attached to ventilators and such. Therefore, loss of power isn't an option.

Kathy was Henry's evening nurse on Tuesday. She does one 12-hour shift each week. She helped Jeff and I give Henry a bath. We changed and weighed him before the bath. Henry weighed 1650 grams. At first, the scale said 1680, but we decided that a 100 gram increase was highly unlikely, so we weighed him two more times (1650 was it).

Jeff took the lead on bathing Henry. Kathy guided us through the process. She took off all of his leads and pulsocs. So other than the feeding and cannula tubes, Henry was a free man. We wrapped Henry in some warm blankets. Jeff began with his hair. Henry loved having his hair washed. Then, we dried his head. Jeff placed Henry in the tub with the blankets around him. We slowly unwrapped him from the blankets in the water, and I washed him while Jeff held him upright. He loved it. However, when it came time to get Henry out of the tub, he was not a happy camper. He was really angry about being removed from the warm water. We wrapped him in a dry, warm blanket when he came out of the tub. As I held him, he decided to show his displeasure by voiding and stooling in the blankets and a little on me. The nurses in the pod were highly amused.

Word from the docs is that Henry only needs his blood sugar taken once a day. But Kathy, knowing my anxiety, asked me if I wanted her to take it again. She was afraid that I wouldn't be able to sleep. Very perceptive of her. She took it, and it was 60.

On Wednesday, Linda was Henry's day nurse. The word from the doctors was that Henry's feeds were to be given over 90 minutes rather than two hours. I held Henry for a couple hours as usual. The pod was really, really loud. The baby pterodactyl's family were incredibly loud. Like child, like parent, I suppose. Luckily, she finally went home at the end of the day. In addition, the mother of the baby next to Henry was on her cell phone all day (except when she was on the pod phone). There was one point where she was holding her baby and shouting to her baby's nurse what to tell her kids who were on the pod phone. I said something to Linda but she said, "Well, there's really nothing we can do but put Henry in the isolation room but he wouldn't be there long if someone needed it, like parents rooming in." Of course, there is another solution: People could STFU. Nurses should keep their voices low rather than using pod three as gossip central, and if guests are getting loud, nurses should tell the families that they need to keep their voices down. I told her that the staff is the problem. But she didn't know how to respond. As one can probably guess, I've had it. I'm planning to take it up with management today.

Jenny was Henry's nurse last night. It has been a long time since Henry had had Jenny as his nurse. She is a sweet, soft-spoken woman. She said that she had given him a thorough going over and thought he looked wonderful. She weighed him at 1690 grams. I don't know if it was her or Linda who did the test, but Henry's reported blood sugar for the day was 71, which is good.

The pod was quiet last night (busy but quiet). It was really nice (a different world since the Jurassic age). There were actually quite a few people in the pod, but everyone was keeping their voices low. The lights were dimmed. Henry's sats were excellent (hanging around 97-98% while Jeff was holding him). It was a really good night.