I already wrote about how Seth had some blood sugar issues when he was born. We were happy when we learned he was in the clear with that. A few days after we came home from the hospital, we started noticing that the whites of his eyes were a little yellow. Since he had an appointment with his pediatrician scheduled for when he would be 9 days old, we didn't think we'd have to take him in any earlier.
Well, when the doctor saw him, he thought Seth looked quite jaundiced. So, we were given a prescription order for a bilirubin test at a children's hospital outpatient center, and the doctor told me to increase Seth's feedings to help flush the bilirubin out of his system. It took forever to finally get his test done at the outpatient center, and then we went home.
The next day, Seth's doctor called me and said that Seth's results were surprisingly high and that the home care people from Children's Hospital actually wanted to have Seth admitted to the hospital. The doctor, however (& thank goodness), thought that was a bit extreme and asked them to just send over a glow blanket (bili-blanket) to our house instead. The home care people then said that they wouldn't send over a blanket until we had his bilirubin levels checked again to verify that his levels had gone down since the previous day. So, off to the outpatient center again!
When I got there, I discovered that Seth's bilirubin level the previous day had been 19.8. That didn't really mean anything to me, but when the nurse who was drawing his blood found out about that, she was a little shocked that Seth hadn't been admitted to the hospital because a level of 20 was considered critical! That was more than a little alarming to me! And I felt like a horrible mom because I hadn't insisted on getting him into the doctor sooner.
That night, the home care people came and set up Seth's glow blanket. His levels had gone down to 16.7, thank goodness! Over the next 48 hours, Seth and I were pretty much stationed in our living room, which wasn't exciting. Fortunately we had nurses and one med student (who looked like Dr. Sweets from Bones, incidentally) come to our home to draw Seth's blood instead of us having to take him to the outpatient center. His levels dropped to 15.3 and then 13.something. Finally we were able to take him off the blanket. After getting his blood drawn 2 more times for a total of 6 times, the doctor was satisfied with Seth's progress, and we were able to move past the whole jaundice thing.
During this time, Seth was also having a hard time recovering his birth weight. He weighed 8 lbs 14 oz when he was born, but at a week old he was 8 lb 6 oz. Then he kept hovering back and forth between 8 lb 9 oz and 8 lb 11 oz. Finally after weekly checkups for three weeks, Seth gained a whopping 1 whole pound in 1 week, meaning that we don't have to take him back to the doctor for another month!
That's so Sad. Fischer had to have his blood drawn for a week due to the jaundace thing and was on the Billi-bed. His poor feet were so picked at. The soles were all raw from all the poking that was done. I full your pain Seth. Not fun at all. Glad to hear things are going much better.
ReplyDelete