I Saw God Today

Okay, one more "Hannah in the hospital" story:

One night, I was driving home from the hospital after an especially hard day visiting Hannah. I was feeling so exhausted, sad, scared, and alone when I heard this song on the radio for the first time. I was so touched, and felt as if this song was written and playing just for me at that exact moment! It reminded me of how my Heavenly Father is so mindful of me and my trials and how much he loves me! I am so grateful for all He has blessed me with. This beautiful world full of miracles is a testimony of Him; truly, "His fingerprints are everywhere!"

(You can hear it if you scroll through our music player on this page)
I still tear up every time I hear this song:

I Saw God Today by George Strait
Just walked down the street to the coffee shop
Had to take a break
I'd been by her side for 18 hours straight
Saw a flower growing in the middle of a sidewalk
Pushing up through the concrete
Like it was planted right there for me to see
The flashing lights, the honking horns
All seemed to fade away
In the shadow of that hospital at 5:08
I saw God today.

Chorus:
I've been to church,
I've read the book
I know He's here but I don't look
Near as often as I should (Yeah I know I should)
His fingerprints are everywhere
I just slowed down to stop and stare
Opened my eyes and man I swear
I saw God today.

Saw a couple walking by
They were holding hands
Man she had that glow
Yeah I couldn't help but notice she was starting to show
Stood there for a minute taking in the sky
Lost in that sunset
A splash of amber melted into shades of red.

Chorus

Got my face pressed up against the nursery glass
She's sleeping like a rock
My name on her wrist, wearing tiny pink socks
She's got my nose, she's got her mamas eyes
My brand new baby girl
She's a miracle
I saw God today

"...all things are created and made to bear record of me, both things which are temporal, and things which are spiritual; things which are in the heavens above, and things which are on the earth, and things which are in the earth, and things which are under the earth, both above and beneath: all things bear record of me." Moses 6:63

Look Ma, No Oxygen!

What a week it has been! I am in a hurry to get back to the hospital, but I thought I would just jot down a little update.

Hannah really started to improve Saturday and Sunday. Because of her improvement, the doctors started to slowly wean her oxygen down a little bit at a time. I guess it was too slowly for Hannah, because on Tuesday, she decided to DC her oxygen herself. Even though the nasal cannula was taped to her face, she reached up and ripped it right off! Since it was off, they decided to just leave it off and see how she did. Well, she did great! She was able to maintain her O2 saturation on room air, which was a HUGE milestone! We were thrilled!

Today she received her last dose of antibiotics, so if all goes well, the doctors say we will be able to bring her home today! I can't tell you how excited I am to bring my baby home!

Stuck in the Nursery

Unfortunately, Hannah's breathing wasn't getting better after a few days in the ICU, and in fact, it was even getting worse. Her breathing was becoming more labored and her oxygen requirement was going up. That being the case, they did a chest X-ray and discovered that Hannah has congenital pneumonia. Unfortunately, that means another week in the ICU with IV antibiotics (the video is from her first day in the ICU). Fortunately, she has made some improvement in the past 24 hours. Her breathing has become slightly better to the point that she was able to breastfeed today for the first time since birth. She's still needs a lot of oxygen to maintain her saturation, but at least she actually is maintaining a good saturation now (which she had not been doing during the past three days). The neonatologist is now talking about working on weaning her oxygen down starting tomorrow and her IV fluids are already coming down as she's starting to drink. While we're not getting our hopes set too high, there's definitely a possibility that she'll be able to come home next weekend. Interestingly enough, she started doing better soon after Eric Palfreyman came to the hospital to help me give her a blessing. Anyway, things are looking up. Hopefully, more good news will follow. Thanks to everyone for their support!

And Then There Were Five

Well, the delivery went well, and a new little girl was added to our family this morning. Hannah Lee Anderson was born at 7:53 AM on Valentine's Day.

Summer will be thrilled that I posted a picture of her pregnant and in a hospital gown!

Hannah was born after only about 2 or so hours of labor, and she weighed in at 7 lbs, 1 oz, and was 20 & 1/2 inches long. Unfortunately, her rapid descent through the birth canal caused inadequate expulsion of some of the amniotic fluid from her lungs, so she had some difficulty breathing at first (diagnosed with Transient Tachypnea of the Newborn (TTN) for all you medical types out there). She had to be transferred to the Special Care Nursery today, and will likely need to stay there for another day or two as her breathing gradually improves. Summer was only able to hold her for about 30 seconds today immediately after the birth, so we look forward to being able to hold her when her breathing gets a little better. She had lots of hair, unlike our two little boys when they were born. Anyway, she is doing well, and hopefully will be able to come home sometime Saturday.

The "On-Call" Misnomer

Okay, so I've talked to various family members (and others) when making plans, etc, and I've mentioned that I can't go to family function X, or activity Y, or project Z because I'm "on-call" on the scheduled day. The conversation has usually run the course of "well, can't you come along and then just leave if you get called in?" The answer: No - this is because 95-99% of the time, when a physician is "on-call," it means he works all night. It doesn't mean hanging out at home 'till the phone rings or the pager goes off; it means that he (or she) puts in a normal day (leaving the house at 5:30 AM to go to work and then working all day), then staying in the hospital and working all night and well into the next morning, sometimes even past noon the next day. Granted, on a very good call day, you may get 5 hours of sleep during the night, but generally it's 3 hours of interupted sleep or none at all, and you put in a solid 24-36 hours non-stop.

As it so happens, I'm on call right now, and I'm writing this blog during the first break in the action that I got today (it's now 3:55 AM) . During the course of the day, I did anesthesia for two surgeries lasting around 7 hours each. They were both laparoscopic robotic surgeries, which I fondly refer to as "robot attacks." Afterward, I picked up the code pager from another resident, and suddenly became responsible for the well-being of around 30-40 post-operative patients, some of them still breathing through a tube. It also becomes my responsibility to quite literally sprint to the bedside of any crashing patient in the hospital (which covers about 4 city blocks) when everything is going awry. During the night so far, I was called to two codes where it was my job to get to the head of the bed and ensure the patient gets oxygen, either by mask ventilating the patient or rapidly sedating the patient and inserting a breathing tube while other residents perform chest compressions/CPR. During the course of the night, I ended up treating some patients with astoundingly high blood pressures, balancing electrolytes, intubating crashing patients, giving potent medicines (called "pressors") to patients with extremely low blood pressures, writing treatment notes, putting in IVs and arterial pressure lines, treating post-op pain, and managing epidural catheters. Despite the crazy hours, stress, and messes (I've even got blood on my shoes), I can still say I love this job.

*2 hours later*..... Okay, I'm back... change that to 4 codes during the night! It's now 5:20 AM and I just got back from two more. All four crashing patients survived (so far). Crazy night! Anyway, the last interesting thing that happened was after my first patient's surgery this morning. I was rushing to get the room turned over and preparing the anesthesia drugs and equipment for the next patient. In the process, I didn't notice that one of the laparoscopic surgical screens was located a few feet away just above my line of sight but lower than the top of my head. That being the case, I rushed over to grab a new anesthesia circuit and clocked myself squarely across the top of my head with the corner of the monitor. It was similar to stubbing a toe... you know, when you can't really focus on anything other than the ardent pain that is searing into the depths of your soul. I paused and took deep breaths for about 10 seconds while holding my head, then brought my hand down only to notice that it was covered in blood. The gash in the top of my head dripped down my forehead and I had to stick some gauze on it and hold pressure to stop the bleeding. Anyway, I couldn't really cancel someone's surgery because I cut my head, so I went and put on gauze and two surgical caps to hide the blood (I figured it wouldn't be very confidence inspiring for a patient to see blood on the anesthesiologists cap), and we proceeded with the next patient's surgery. When I got a chance, I checked with one of my collegues (I couldn't see my wound because it was square on the top of my head), and he said it was borderline whether I needed stitches. I figured I'd just forget it. Even if it left a scar, at least my hairline would hide it. Anyway, other than the head gash, it's been a pretty typical call day. I'll even get to go home in a few more hours!