Week 1

I survived my first full week in the NICU! It has been a wonderful week and I have no uncertainties that this is the right career for me :)


So far I have learned how to do infant massage on the babies and got to massage 2 little babies today. One little girl weighed 5 lb. at birth and she was so tiny! It was kind of surreal to hold her and realize that I was smaller than that when I was born! 

Another thing that I am learning to do in the NICU is getting the car seat adjusted to the baby and setting the baby up for the car seat test. Every NICU baby must sit in his/her car seat for at least 30 minutes to make sure they can breathe and not have any episodes of no breathing, etc. So I've been learning how to do that too.

We have had some interesting babies to say the least. One baby was born earlier in the week with gastroscesis--basically her intestines were outside of her body (yuck I know). They had a clear plastic bag hanging above her little body with the intestines enclosed. They would close off a little bit of the bag each day so gravity could push it all in. By today, it was all inside! Kinda cool :)

There is another baby that has been in the NICU for 9 months! She finally gets discharged next week. We will have a graduation celebration for her with lots of streamers and gifts :)

Several of the babies have older siblings, so we do sibling support with those kiddos. We had two of the big sisters yesterday afternoon for some sibling time. The hospital had a special Memorial Day service yesterday where there was supposed to be an airplane flyover. Well we promised the kids they would get to see the cool airplanes--only the airplanes never showed up :( At least they had cake for us instead!

Today the children's hospital had a special presentation by the Kleenex Nascar driver (I can't remember his name--I'm not a Nascar fan, but this is Nascar country!) and Kimberly-Clark Corporation. Some of the kids got to get the driver's signature and take a picture with the car. The other intern Kathryn and I even got our picture taken haha!

I'm excited for next week to start so I can be more actively involved in things that the Child Life Specialist does. This week has been mostly orientation and getting acclimated to everything in the NICU. Next week I'll begin doing more on my own, which will be fun. If only I could adjust to the 7am work day! At least that is only 3 days a week, and the other days start at 11:30 :) Too bad this is just for 3 weeks....then the 6am OR rotation starts in June :(

Posted in: , on Friday, May 22, 2009 at at 4:25 PM 0 comments  

Privacy please

I am going to set this blog to private as a way to ensure confidentiality, etc. Probably safer that way--although I doubt anyone is reading this blog anyway haha. I've sent invites to those I thought would be interested in keeping up with my adventures. 


Thanks!

Posted in: on Saturday, May 16, 2009 at at 6:43 PM 0 comments  

Day 2

I survived my first full day! We actually were not at the hospital today, but went to an elementary school to talk to 2nd graders about being healthy, germs, going to the doctor/hospital, etc. Overall it was a good day. Tomorrow I start at 7am in the NICU which will be interesting I'm sure. Then we have another school visit tomorrow. Saturday we have a thing called "Kids in Motion" that the hospital is sponsoring. So needless to say I have jumped in feet first and am looking forward to my first full week next week! 


**Not sure how much I'll be able to write about on this blog to protect patient confidentiality. But I'll be keeping track of things in general--probably no specifics on here though to be safe. 

Posted in: , on Thursday, May 14, 2009 at at 4:36 PM 0 comments  

Day 1

Today was my first day at Presbyterian Hemby Children's Hospital for the internship. We just had a brief orientation where the other intern and I received a 4-inch binder full of information and things for us to do this summer. Just a tad bit overwhelming :) The other intern and I had to go on a scavenger hunt throughout the hospital to find where each area is, etc. We didn't really get lost except for a mislabeled map that sent us to a wrong place. Otherwise we got to know the hospital well enough to get to and from the places we need to go. 


My first full day is tomorrow starting at 10:30am. We are going to an elementary school to teach kids about being healthy, etc. Then on Friday morning at 7am I start my NICU rotation for 3 weeks. Should be interesting. I expect this to be one of the more difficult areas dealing with preemies. I expect most of the work will be with parents and siblings, etc. 

Say prayers that I am not totally overwhelmed and will be able to handle everything to make this a successful internship. I know that since God put me here, I am fully capable of everything that I will have to do. 

For more info on where I'll be working for the next 4 months, click here. For more info on this new Child Life Specialist career I'm pursuing, click here.

Ok back to Lost season finale--It's only been 15 minutes and I can tell it is going to be a really good 2 hours! Good thing I don't have an early morning tomorrow :)

Posted in: , on Wednesday, May 13, 2009 at at 9:03 PM 0 comments  

Last day

Wahoo!!! The day has finally come....my last official day at work! Yesterday my coworkers took me out to lunch. We went to my coworker Jeanette's husband's restaurant and had a great time. They were so nice to give me 3 pairs of scrub pants and some cute accessories for my name badge when I start at the hospital next week. It was exciting and bittersweet to have one last lunch with them.

My first official day at the hospital is Thursday. We have a short orientation thing on Wednesday afternoon. I'm very excited and can't wait for next week to start! I will hopefully update this blog more often with stories of my hospital adventures (of course keeping all patient information confidential). But there will definitely be things worth writing about with this career change and I hope to share that with y'all!

Posted in: , , on Friday, May 8, 2009 at at 10:48 AM 0 comments  

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