May 13, 2009

Yesterday was something fierce. Something we haven’t had in a while. After rounds in the morning I walked in the clinic to find Anne Marie and Sara, who had gone on ahead of me, in the midst of resuscitating a baby who had just been born. A twin girl who had been born after her twin brother who had come out breech. She had been fine until the point when she came out. She wasn’t breathing, and so the resuscitation began. We all were working on her for probably 45 minutes. She was there on and off but not breathing well enough on her own the whole time. After a while she started to come around, breathing on her own, a good heartbeat, and responding better.

Then we moved on to the next patient. A lady 8 months pregnant in preeclampsia. To make it better we found two heartbeats. Another set of twins! We decided it was best to keep her and induce the labor ourselves. So on went the IV pitocen and we just had to wait to see if it would be effective enough for her to give birth that day, all the while watching her blood pressure and babies closely.

In the meantime a woman brought her 22 day old baby in who was not responding. She was hot. We took her temp, and I was shocked beyond all words when I saw it read 108.0. Never in my life have I ever heard of something so absurd. What?!!! For a few minutes we just stood there, I think we were all just waiting for her to die there right in front of us. She was forgetting to take breaths every now and then. But after we got over the shock factor we tubed her to try and get some meds in her before it was too late. Who know what a temperature like that was doing to her brain. After four hours we got her temp down and she was beginning to wake up. Still not present enough to respond well, but waking up not the less. Now we will just wait and see what happens.

To make the day even better, Sara and I ended the day with a battle that involved a lot of sweat and the killing of four spiders who decided to get a little closer than were welcomed (inside our mosquito net and under the bed). I’m eating my words about being comfortable with spiders. But these were not our friendly banana spiders. They looked a little closer to baby tarantulas.

Let’s just say it wasn’t the best day.


Update today:
The first set of twins went home! Both breastfeeding and appear well.
The second set of twins were born today. It went beautifully. Two boys, one head out first, the other butt out first. He was small enough to come easily.
Our temperature baby is still with us. Still weak and sleeping most of the day, but is taking milk with a syringe. We will still have to wait it out.