Care time

As long as he is doing well, the doctors and nurses generally want to leave him alone to let him focus on his main priority: to sleep and grow. To minimize disturbing him, the nurses normally cluster his tests and care (diaper change, repositioning and testing of sensors and lines, blood draws) to occur all at the same time.

This evening, Jac's nurse turned him over (he was belly-down during the afternoon), cleared his stomach and flushed the OG line, flushed his Art and PICC lines, and check on his peripheral vein catheter, calibrated the arterial blood pressure sensor against a cuff blood pressure sensor, took his body temperature(*), changed his diaper(*), weighed him(*), cleaned the drool off his mouth, readjusted the SpO2 sensor, suctioned his ventilator tube, administered various meds and fluids, listened to his lungs and stomach, and returned him belly-side-down(**) (which apparently was his most comfortable position today).

(*) I helped with some of the tasks.
(**) I was warned on the very first day that sometimes the doctors and nurses will put the baby face-side-down -- which is safe in the NICU, but should be avoided outside when he doesn't have around-the-clock care and monitoring.