Day 168 - Won't You Be My Neighbor?

Wednesday, June 16th, 2021

NICU Neighborhoods 🏘️

Each RN has 2 babies on the 2nd floor of the NICU. The rooms are separated in groups of 4, which are called neighborhoods. These neighborhoods are color coded. We are currently in Blue. So 2 RNs and 1 RT usually oversee the whole neighborhood. When your RN is busy with another baby or goes on break, the "buddy nurse" in your neighborhood is there to help. 

Alarms & Monitors 🚨

Each room has a monitor where the RN can also pull up their other baby's stats side by side. This should be coming up but a lot of time does not work. When a baby is bradying this sends an alarm to their phones to notify them that the baby's heart rate is dropping below the threshold. Unfortunately their phones do not alarm when a baby desats (oxygen is dropping). There isn't even a threshold where it would ever go off. Unless an RN is staring at their monitor, no one is alerted.

The Problem 🙋🏻‍♀️

James no longer bradys when he has BPD episodes, he just desats quickly. Currently our neighborhood only has 2 babies. That means there is only 1 nurse in the area and our RT is actually overseeing 6 babies. It's been a week of this. Mom has had to constantly go in the hall and find help. She can do everything but press the button to give him more oxygen. When your baby is desating the last thing you want to do is leave the room. Several people have made comments that James really needs one-to-one care. Maybe that's why they're trying to get us over to the PICU. So it's a little crazy that we would be in a neighborhood with less support than normal. We are just waiting on some new babies to arrive. On top of it our only neighbor Mom complains if the RN is ever in our room too long. The loudest woman I've ever heard. 🤫

Overall our nurses and RTs do the best they can. Sometimes it's just frustrating with how things are scheduled and how much they are given to handle.

P.S. You can email James your love and support as often as you’d like. Mom and Dad read these emails to James as they come in. We all love them! JamesWestonAbramowitz@gmail.com