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It was a rough one last night

CityGirl

CityGirl

Silver Member
I have taken care of a fighter this weekend. Born prematurely and now weighing 2.7 kg, she had open heart surgery on Friday. 4 times during the night, Friday, we ran code blue and 4 times her circulation was restored. Her chest wound is not closed but open and covered with a clear dressing so that you can see her beating heart. Through the day and night Saturday, she was precarious. Sometime during the day yesterday she turned a corner and stabilized. Last night, she tolerated my slowly tapering down the amount of IV medicines she was receiving through continuous infusions to support her heart function and blood pressure. When I left this morning, the baby who was blue ,cold and hanging on by a thread when I assumed her care on Saturday night, was pink and warm with excellent pulses and rock steady vital signs.

On the other side of the unit, a momma and daddy lost their little girl who just 2 weeks ago was a vibrant, healthy precocious 4 year old with the world at her finger tips. An overwhelming systemic infection from pneumonia and all our technology, we couldn't save her.
ECMO_08.jpg

This picture, not my patient, shows a child on a mechanical ventilator for breathing and the large tubes with blood are connected to an ECMO(Extra Corporeal Membrane Oxygenation) machine. ECMO involves channeling the patient's blood into a roller pump that serves as the child's "heart" throughout treatment. The pump sends the blood through an oxygenator, which serves as an artificial lung, infusing the blood with oxygen and removing carbon dioxide and returning it to the patient.



Please have this family in your thoughts and prayers and please pray my little fignter will recover soon. Thanks, ya'll.
 
I just don't see how you do it girl. I am choked up now thinking about. It truly takes a special person to do what you do.
 
I said it in a PM but will say it here too....You do an amazing job you have my full respect.

seeing a kiddie like that i would just turn into a wreck.....what use would i be.....Thank you for the hard work you do.
 
There's nothing harder to do in this life than watch a child.....any child......suffer like that. Breaks my heart to hear about stuff like this. Keep fighting the good fight..as they say. I was considering getting into nursing but I'm not quite sure how I would handle this.
 
groomerguyNWO said:
There's nothing harder to do in this life than watch a child.....any child......suffer like that. Breaks my heart to hear about stuff like this. Keep fighting the good fight..as they say. I was considering getting into nursing but I'm not quite sure how I would handle this.
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Gg, I see waaaaaaaaaay more patients make a full recovery and get back to their lives than I see these types of situations and that is how you keep your sanity. With children, the scales are tipped in favor of recovery and not death not so much with the elderly but regardless of the patient population, nursing is a most gratifying profession. To minister to the mind, body and soul and be paid a good wage to do it....what more can you ask for? Some people have hobbies to fill their souls. I have nursing. It is not a career, though. It is truly a calling. I would only encourage you to consider the profession if you have a heart for people. If you want job security and good money and that is the sole appeal of nursing.....please don't do it.
 
I see a headline about a kid dying or hurt and i can't hardly read it.... it tears me up. Saw where a 4 year old died in a washing machine of all places. I couldn't read the article, but i imagine was just being a 4 year old and was playing where he/she shouldn't have been.
 
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