Guess what I held in my hands last night..

Specialties NICU

Published

Specializes in NICU, PICU, PACU.

A big gob of intestines...oh bleh! The perfect ending to that perfect shift....get a big ole gastroschisis( along with various other 7 admits in 4 hours!) and she had the audacity to poop all up her back and under her dressing...so we had to change it before surgery and I had the honors of holding it..no one else was brave enough LOL And there was her cute little appendix just sticking up waving at us.

I can say, in 17 years, I have never been that intimate with a child... :p Usually they come for L/D wrapped and packaged and we just send them off to OR within a few hours. We'll open the top and peek to make sure it is pink.

By the way...she got it all back in and has a little cute belly button :)

Specializes in NICU.

Hope the little sweetie does well. At least you know her plumbing was working before she got put back together!

The gastroschisis babies are always soo cute. One of my most favorite babies that I got soooo attached to was a gastroschisis baby. We had him for many many months and we almost lost him a couple of times.

I can't say I have ever held intestines in my hands that would be really weird. I will say that it was hard to get used to the babies who have a staged repair of their gastroscisis and their intestines are in a pouch and being pulled by a string. I'm sure that visitors were freaked out by the sight of intestines in a pouch hanging above the baby.

We definitely see some interesting stuff. At least the babies aren't aware of what's going on.

Specializes in NICU, PICU, PACU.

I know what you mean by those silo things! They are kinda ick aren't they?

I love gut kids....they are always so cute! We just lost a long termer last winter :o She was 14 months old and like our own little girl.

I think that gut babies are the best too...Zoe had a silo for about 24 hours, and she had a big BLACK atresia a the top...With her weighing less than 1000grams, it looked like she was ALL intestine...Still my beautiful baby, though!

Stacy

Specializes in NICU, PICU, PACU.

Stacy, for some reason, those are always among the most beautiful kids! Your Zoe reminds me of a primary I had years ago...she was a gastro kid that had lots of problems, but she had the best personality. She, too, was really little and had the silo for a long time...it was wierd to have the itsy bitsy with this big silo hanging from the top of her bed.

I'm glad you can come here and talk about her! :)

+ Add a Comment