Hard Week in the NICU

This last week has been hard in the NBICU.  We lost 3 patients.  This part of our job never gets any easier.  Andrew, Rio and Amaris may be gone but they will never be forgotten by their families or by us.  Their families will never be forgotten.  The babies go to join Jax, Gabriel. Aaron, Bridget, and unfortunately many others.

This week I was taken by surprise when one of the families came back and gave me (and everyone who had taken care of Rio) the following story.
A wise man was accustomed to taking walks on the beach every morning, thinking of ways to change the world.  One morning, he passed a boy methodically picking up starfish off the beach and throwing them into the water. He asked the boy, "Why are you doing this?" The boy replied without looking up, "It's low tide," he said, "and all these starfish on the beach will die out here in the sun." The mans smiled. "But son, this beach stretches on for miles and miles and there are thousands of starfish.  Do you really think you are making a difference?" The boy grabbed a star fish, gently tossed it back into the water and then looked up at the man. "I made a difference to that one."
They finsihed the story with saying this was their way of saying thank you for making a difference in their lives and the life of Rio.

This really touched me in a way that I can't really explain.  Often when having to help families say goodbye to their babies I feel a sense of failure.  I often feel like I let these families down.  There unfortuneately is not always things that can be done.  We try our best and sometimes it is not enough.  Instead of feeling like I let them down, this family reminded me that for whatever time they had him I and other members of the NICU team had made a positive impact on their lives.

So the lesson reinforced to many of us this week, is to take time to hug and love those close to you, because death can be sudden and unexpected.

National Neonatal Nurse Day

Today is National Neonatal Nurse Day.  I have worked with a lot of amazing neonatal nurses and nurse practitioners in the last almost 10 years.  One thing true of all of them is their fierce dedication to the tiniest of patients.
 As a NICU nurse and nurse practitioner, I was secretly scared my whole pregnancy that my baby would end up in NBICU.  I was scared to have a sick baby - in part because of all that I have seen working in the NBICU.  However, the one calming thought was that my baby would be in great hands if he was in the NBICU.
Throughout my pregnancy I had a couple of scares with preterm labor, gestational diabetes, multiple failed stress tests, early onset of contractions and cholestasis of pregnancy.  Jackson, being stubborn (like his father) decided after multiple scares that he did want to come early and my water broke at 35 weeks.  However, Jackson being Jackson changed his mind and I ended up with a c-section under general anesthesia.  The first 3 hours of his life is literally a blur as I took awhile to be lucid after the c-section.  My husband dutifully went between the recovery room and the NBICU and told me the story of his birth and admission multiple times (apparently).  I was blessed in that Jackson did remarkable, was never on oxygen, and started eating as soon as I came over from the recovery room.  We were discharged a little over 48 hours later from the NBICU.  I was so relieved as a parent to know that there were such amazing nurses watching over my little guy. 
Throughout my years in the NBICU there have been countless families that have touched my life and shaped my practice.  Now that I am a parent I am even more in awe of all the families go through during their stay in the NBICU and after almost 6 months pumping I have a whole new respect for our moms. I can honestly say that for all its moments good and bad every family has taught me something about compassion, nursing, and neonatology.  So today when we take time to say thank you to all the neonatal nurses I also want to say thank you to all the parents who let us take care of their precious babies and let us into their lives at such a difficult time.

 

 

 

Jackson Cooper Grassham in the NBICU on 3/17/2012

 

 

My little cool guy almost 6 months later!