Firsts

Ahn has outgrown her first set of clothes. She has experienced her first family hospital stay after being born. Bo has had his first admission in almost 2 years.

The heat, the increased activity, the excitement, all led to Bo's dehydration that we tried, unsuccessfully, to manage out-patient. The docs were able to stabilize him enough to send us home in record time. A great way to spend the weekend.

This has been going on since the week Ahn was born. We originally attributed this to adjusting to the baby. Bo was suddenly retching and dry heaving. This went on all afternoon until bedtime, ending with a little boy so lethargic and exhausted he could barely sit up for bedtime stories. Anyone who knows Bo knows that I am not exaggerating when I say that the first time I experienced his behavior like this I wanted to rush to the ER. I should have followed that instinct. Turns out that his potassium was dropping to a critically low range (too high or too low will lead to seizure or heart failure), low sodium, low chloride, high BUN, rising white count. Good Lord.

His beloved nephrologist left our home hospital and I was paralyzed with fear that the remaining docs in the practice would not be up to the challenge of managing Bo. And while I am still committed to following this guy, once we find out where he's gone off to, I am happy to say that his clinic does just fine managing Bo, thank you very much! And, I have to admit, I was highly skeptical at having an effective and efficiently managed stay that started with a Friday afternoon admission (who is even on service, will they bother to round, let alone look at the labs?) and in July (bring on the goat rodeo: new interns, residents, nurses, nursing techs, PAs, etc.).

Having a newborn and one in the hospital is not a relaxing weekend program I would recommend, but it was a LOT less sucky with the support of my MIL who graciously dropped everything to pinch hit for us. It also helps that DeVos has a hospitality house attached to it that had vacancies the day we were admitted straight from clinic. With all that gratitude, I have to say that I am out of practice cowing interns, residents, hospitalists and nurses. Usually the nurses I'm all good with, but I cannot get with the ones who insist on drawing labs or taking vitals on Bo at 4am. He is not the kid who falls back asleep. So save that part of your plan for some other baby.

Bo's nausea has been resolved, we can sleep through the night again (only punctuated by late-night nursing), and I can marvel at the speed with which my maternity leave is disappearing. The end.