As I walked down the hall to the very back of the NICU, I noticed that three cribs that were still there on Friday disappeared. Sometimes I find myself just assuming that the same babies will be there forever and nothing will ever change, and then I get surprised when a quarter of the babies are replaced with new faces in just a single weekend. I'm glad that I'm here long enough to see the beginning and end of some babies' stays in the NICU because it gives me a bigger picture of what it is actually like to have to let go of the babies after a short time.
One of the babies Lynn had was new to the NICU and was having seizures from bad drug withdrawal. Her head was all wrapped up in gauze, and tons of tiny little colorful wires came out of the gauze, which connected to a screen showing all of her brain wavelengths and activity. The doctors eventually read the patterns to try and determine the cause of the seizures. The baby was on about four different medications to try and reduce or eliminate the seizures. She was on a B-6 vitamin because a B-6 deficiency can cause seizures, but after examining the patterns in her brain, the doctors were able to determine that it was not the cause of the seizures, so they took her off the B-6 supplement.
The other baby Lynn had was born with his insides on his outside. They call them "gut babies" in the NICU. He already had surgery to fix it, so now he is just in the healing process. He tends to be very fussy and want to scream at the top of his lungs when he is in his crib, so Lynn asked me if I wanted to cuddle him. His screaming stopped the second I started to rock him, and pretty soon he was fast asleep. I rocked him for over an hour until it was almost time for me to leave.
Today the person at the front opened the door for me, and I asked, "Which babies does Kelli have today?" She looked at her chart and said, "Well actually, Kelli has mandatory time off today." Does this story sound familiar at all? I ended up with Angie, who I met at the beginning of last week. I walked down the hall and the nurses said, "Speaking of the devil! We thought you'd have school off today!"
Angie had the same two babies as yesterday. Soon after I arrived, I saw one of the babies seizing badly, which I never saw yesterday. It looked like her whole body was twitching and flailing. One of the nurses pressed a red button on the monitor, which marks that they witnessed a seizure so that the doctors can pay special attention to that area of the monitor. Angie showed me that the way to distinguish a true seizure as opposed to tremors is by firmly placing your hand on the seizing area, and if the flailing continues, it's a true seizure, which is what happened. Her seizing lasted for 40 minutes while the nurses dosed her with more medications.
The other baby was screaming all day again, so I cuddled him for most of the day, which really calms him down. One of the nurses came up and commented, "He's really going to get used to you."
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