Sunday, January 11, 2009

Friday, August 29

I'm almost to the end of our NICU adventures...

That Friday my cousin came by to visit in the NICU and have lunch.  It was nice to have periodic visitors in the NICU while spending time with Bean.  Bean, for his part slept most of the time so I enjoyed company.  After lunch I wrote:

Rocking My Baby

Came back from lunch today to find Bean's nurse rocking and cooing over him. He'd woken up a little early so she was keeping him busy until I got up to feed him. He is a snuggly baby. I do wish I could request specific nurses. Bean and I both approved of her. While some nurses are all business, others really seem to enjoy the little ones.

Endocrinologist

Spoke with the endocrinologist today. He showed me some insulin graphs. Apparently even on Lantus, individuals who don't produce insulin will have higher peaks and valleys. Bean has been fairly stable, leading the endocrinologist to believe that Bean is able to produce more insulin now. He does well for about 18 hours on one dose of Lantus and then the endo theorizes that his pancreas cells give out and the Lantus also peters out. It trends upwards fairly sharply after that point. I asked about doing another C-peptide test, and he said that was something we could definitely do down the road. It would show whether his insulin levels have increased, but he was sure just by looking at his glucose levels that he was producing more.

Great news! Perhaps, perhaps, this is transient diabetes. Still not possible to tell, but maybe! At any rate he only needs a small dose of Lantus, so that in and of itself is great.

I wrote some other interesting stories, but they are more regionally specific, so I regret that I can't include them...

Interesting people at (regional children's hospital)

I was chit-chatting with one of the few male nurses I've seen, a gentleman probably in his late 50s. He was friendly guy who liked to talk. I asked him how long he'd worked at the children's hospital and he said 4 years. "Oh, so where did you work before that?" "I was in construction for 25 years before that."
How's that for a career change?!  Very cool.

Around noon I saw a woman in the scrubbing up room of the NICU. She had a heplock still in her hand, and I asked if she'd come from the hospital. "Yeah, I just had my baby this morning."
!!!


Several days ago, when I was in the mother's room pumping, Jay recognized a woman passing in the hallway. "Hey, I think you delivered my son nearly 6 years ago at (a nearby city hospital)."
"Yep, that sounds about right."

Bean continued to impress with his weight gain.  Every morning at rounds the bedside nurse would state how many calories he'd consumed (not including the two or three nursing sessions) and the doctors' eyes would pop in surprise.  Bean was doing his best to make up for lost time.  Minus the diabetes I suspect he'd have been a 9+ pound linebacker at birth.  

Weighed him again tonight...
and he's now just over 7 pounds. (3.18 kg)
That's over a pound since previous Friday!

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