Thursday, June 10, 2010

Dispatches from the night shift.

Tyler is resting comfortably now. The same can't be said for an hour ago. I walked Sharron to the car so that she could go to David's House and get some sleep. When I got back to the room Tyler was just starting to stir. He very quickly went from stir to fit, then to the maddest I've ever seen him. He wanted water, but would not calm down long enough to drink without a boomerang effect. To make matters worse the attending decided to pull some labs to see it was anything more significant than a mad little boy. The fear was that it was possibly an electrolyte imbalance related to the extended NPO period. 3 sticks later they finally struck blood.

I just got the results and his sodium and glucose are both low (not to dangerous levels). He's on an IV with sodium so that should recover nicely on its own. We have been giving him water and we need to advance to his formula to get the glucose moving. From what they tell me in PICU most patients would be on D5 or D10 at this point (IV solution with sugar) but that is not the procedure with neurosurgery patients. I'll have to remember to ask why when I see a resident tomorrow.

While they were trying to pull blood Tyler and I had a nice chat about how he wants to see his kitty "Meow Meow" and doggy "woof woof" and sister (He hasen't decided on a noise for her yet;-).

Hopefully that's it for tonight.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ben, when you and Tyler are fishing some day when he's 14 (do you like to fish?) and you're telling him these stories, he's going to think you're pretty amazing. If you remember to use some carefully-selected expletives to describe exactly how long these nights are and how long that damn highway between Nashua and Dartmouth is over and over again, he'll think you're pretty cool. Of course, by that time cool won't be the word. It probably isn't now.
Anyway, I love you guys. You're awesome and he's lucky to have you.

Unknown said...

Ben Fishing?? That would be Tyler bringing him to the Hospital.