When I graduated from Nursing School, I went to work as an RN in the Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit at Arkansas Children's Hospital. It was a great job and I owe who I am today as a nurse to the awesome experiences that I experienced while working there. One such experience not only changed who I am as a nurse, but changed my life forever....
I received my assignment that morning and was told that I was going to be taking care of a newborn who was being flown in on Angel 1. I was a little nervous because this was my first time to take a transport by myself. I reflected on the lessons that I had learned during orientation. One such lesson, probably the most important lesson, was about how you treat the family of a newborn (or any child for that matter) the first time that they see their child with tubes and cords and machines, etc. I learned that in that moment, the most important thing that you can say to them is "It's OK to touch them!" I learned the importance of touch both for the parent as well as the child. When my patient arrived, he was a beautiful baby boy. I stood in awe as they began running the tests and the diagnosis became grimmer and grimmer. He looked so perfect on the outside, I wondered how he could be so broke on the inside. The final diagnosis was one of the worst heart defects that can be diagnosed. This precious baby boy would undergo multiple surgeries and a life full of doctors visits and tests, that was if he was lucky enough to survive infancy. I remember feeling sick to my stomach when I saw the dad and the grandparents make their way to the room where their little boy was. My heart raced as I introduced myself and explained the wires and tubes. When the doctors came in, I had to excuse myself because I didn't want the family to see me cry. They seemed so sweet and I knew that they loved this little boy so much.
Well, my relationship with this family did not end there. Baby Grant would end up undergoing several surgeries over the next year. The nurses would all fight over who would get to take care of him because he was so stinkin' cute and his family was such a breath of fresh air in the crazy world that is the Intensive Care. Along the way, Grant suffered several severe set backs. Grant's heart stopped beating not once, or twice, but three times. Each time his tiny fragile brain suffered injuries. The last time that his heart quit beating, Grant was placed on ECMO. ECMO is the most advanced form of life support. During the time that he was on life support, he suffered a brain bleed. After getting well enough to be taken off of life support, Grant's brain did not seem to be responding. The physicians began to run some tests but told Grant's sweet family that they did not think that he had any brain activity. The physicians told Grant's parents to begin thinking about with-drawing support and letting Grant go to be with Jesus. I will never forget what Grant's parents said to me during this traumatic time in their lives. I asked them how they were able to stay so strong when faced with such devastating news and they told me that they believed that Grant belonged to the Lord. That though they wanted him to stay with them, that since he belonged to the Lord that the Lord could have him when he needed him. Wow!
So as Grant's parents began calling their family to the hospital and began accepting that they would probably not celebrate his 1st birthday which was just weeks away, we all began praying. I asked to be Grant's nurse on the day that the physicians thought they would receive confirmation that Grant in fact did not have any brain activity. As I entered his room that morning, I approached the bed and began stroking his hair. Grant loved two things while he was in the hospital, to have his hair played with and to lay on his belly like a frog. So I started playing with his hair that morning and he began squirming and wiggling his fingers and toes. If you are not a medical person, people without brain activity don't move! So as the day proceeded more test reveled that he did in fact have some brain activity. However, the news that followed this seemed to devastate this family as much as the thought of losing him. The physicians then told his parents that they estimated that he had less than half of his brain that was functioning and that though they could not say for sure, they did not feel as if he would ever, hear, see, talk, walk, or do anything more than lay in a vegetative state.
I have had the pleasure of keeping in contact with this wonderful family though I do not work at ACH anymore. What I saw today that made me say WOW GOD, were these pictures:
I'm so glad to find your blog!
ReplyDelete