Tag Archives: blood

giving blood. the surrealist edition.

giving blood. the surrealist edition.

due to cancelled blood drives on account of inclement weather, the red cross is short 38,000 pints of blood in the midwest. give blood!

in a scandinavian themed church basement, when asked why i made the trek to give blood in inhospitable wintry conditions, i almost made the nurse cry when i told her about all the the transfusions odin received in the nicu. and after giving blood ( the the rarest blood allele ), as i was helping a co-worker who passed out ( it happens! ) i was told i look like charlie sheen. on a tuesday.

the rarest blood allele.

the rarest blood allele.

i’m giving blood as i have many times over the years ( and you should too! ) and it occured to me that i don’t think i’ve ever asked about my blood type. as it turns out, i have “b positive” blood. and for the life of me i couldn’t remember what that meant. i drew a total blank as i imagined my high school biology teacher scowling.

so, here’s the refresher course. the gene that determines blood type has multiple alleles which we call “A” “B” and “O” ( “O” is actually defined as the absense of “A” and “B” antigens ). the positive or negative after the letter indicates whether or not the Rh antigen is present. simple enough.

while the B+ blood type isn’t a “rare” blood type ( and i’d have no trouble finding a suitable donar should i need blood ), it is interesting to note that the B is the rarest blood allele worldwide with only about 16% of humanity carrying it ( wikipedia says it’s a bit higher, but still the “rarest” ). the highest distribution of the B allele is in central asia and lowest native Americas and australia ( every population has all four blood types in varying frequencies – being type B doesn’t mean that’s where my ancestors came from ).

apparently, if i lived in japan, where blood typing is a common tool for “predicting” personality traits, there’s a chance i’d suffer from discrimination for being a B.

and i suppose i shouldn’t be surprised that there’s a blood type diet. proponents argue blood type is an important factor in determining a healthy diet. The Establishment, unsurprising, claims the theory is lacking in scientific support.

the eric update – day 48: gifts! last transfusion? no alarms (except pops induced)!

day 48: loose cannula

there’s no doubt about it. we’re back to the ho-hum days that are mostly filled with kangaroo care.

eric is being transitioned from the cpap to the nasal cannula much more quickly than previous attempts. today, they altered his schedule to alternate between 4 hours of cpap and 4 hours of the cannula. amazingly, he only had 2 brady’s (bradycardia, or slowing of his heart rate ), the entire day and both were while he was on my chest, which, of course led to endless jokes from kris and nurse jan. both brady’s were due to his head slowly getting into a position that made it difficult for eric to breath. of course, whenever eric’s on my chest he seems to enjoy putting his head in the position that will lead to a brady. i imagine that he thinks it’s a fun game to have me move his head in the correct position, only to move it slowly and imperceptibly back to the wrong one. over and over we play the game and sometimes he wins and has a brady.

eric also likes to tug on his nasal cannula, pulling the prongs out of his nose. if he weren’t doing so well breathing on his own, we’d know when the prongs were out of his nose, as his blood oxygen levels would start to decrease. but since he is breathing so well, we don’t see the “desat” and only later discover that his prongs have been out for as long as 10 or 15 minutes at a time, which is yet another sign that he’s getting stronger.

day 48: eric meets babo the ugly doll

some longtime friends, matt and erin, who we haven’t seen in awhile came into town this weekend bearing gifts! eric was happy to receive his new ugly doll, even if the nurses were all a little perplexed as to what an ugly doll was and why on earth anyone would want to buy one. but we don’t care what they think, since eric and the ugly doll got along quite famously and found themselves in long, heated discussion about which of them was taller.

day 48: eric and babo discuss who's longer

clearly, the ugly doll has no grounds for his assertion that he is, in fact taller than eric.

day 48: eric's new handcrafted knit cap

in addition to giving him the ugly doll, they also gave him a cap that erin knitted with her very own hands! the nurses were all very impressed that the cap was knit by a nicu rookie, since it can be tough to make the cap snug, but not too snug, and it should also be quite stretchy in all directions to accomodate the various forms that his very malleable head might take on from day to day. there’s a bit bucket of “discards” in the waiting room outside the nicu that have been knitted by volunteers but that haven’t passed the quality control inspection from the nicu staff, but eric’s cap won’t be in it, because it’s about as perfect as you could want it to be. thanks!

day 48: diaper change from pops. I.

there’s nothing special about the fact that i’m changing eric’s diaper, but i couldn’t remember ever providing photographic evidence to dispute any lingering suspicions that i might be trying to shirk diaper changing duties.

day 48: diaper change from pops. II.

it’s a bit more tricky to change his diaper these days, since it is seemingly impossible to not get the velcro on the diaper stuck on the shirt before you get all the cords and lines out of the way.

day 48: diaper change from pops. III.

as i change his diaper, it strikes me that as odd to think that some day we’ll actually change his diaper and not have to worry about pulling out IV or feeding lines or detaching sensors.

day 48: diaper change from pops. IV.

it occured to me that i’ve only casually mentioned his intravenous feeding and having discussed at greater length a very important element of how well eric is doing.

day 48: total parenteral nutrition.

so it’s time for a short course in parenteral nutrition, where parenteral refers to food that enters the body through a blood vessel. in what is known as total parenteral nutrition, all of the essentials ( carbohydrates, protein, fat, vitamins and minerals ) are delivered directly through an IV line in one of eric’s veins.

day 48: lipids

despite all the active research that has gone into parenteral nutrition and fact that it’s probably one of the greatest reasons that eric has been able to keep growing despite suffering from pneumonia, i can’t help but feel that the bag of fluids look suspiciously like gatorade and the the syringe surely must be filled with lard and not some state of the art blend of short chain lipids as they claim.

day 48: another feeding

day 48: eric's 16th transfusion

eric received three more transfusions today which brings him to a grand total of 17 thus far. he needed the transfusions because he still has a hard time making new blood as quickly as he breaks it down and they’re talking a lot of samples out to keep close track his immune blood counts while he has pneumonia. we were told today by nurse jan that, if things went as they expected, today’s transfusions would be the last he’s likely to receive during his stay in the nicu!

day 48: checking his lungs

eric’s lungs are sounding so good that it’s not really clear whether they’d still would say that he has pneumonia. in other words, he might just be fully recovered!

day 48: pooh borrows the cap

it’s interesting to note that while we were free to explore giving “directed donations” ( where we give the blood that eric would receive ), we didn’t because it apparently takes so long to process and screen the donations that they often get the donations back after they are no longer needed. also, the screening criteria for neonatal donations is so rigorous ( i.e. can’t have any antibodies for many common ailments ) that it’s often difficult for the parents to pass the screening test. so while the staff would never prevent us from giving blood, they’ve always strongly hinted that it’s easier, safer and faster to just get transfusion from their trusted pool of special neonatal donors.

day 48: ending the day with a little 'roo

because they have to monitor his blood pressure and other vitals closely during the transfusion, there’s no kangaroo care to be had during the process. of course, kris wasn’t going to let let three transfusions get in the way of lots of kangaroo care, so she simply had to time the sessions differently than normal. speaking of timing, while you might think that we can just waltz into the nicu and do the ‘roo, in addition to having to work around the transfusions, we also have to be aware of the nurses rounds which occur every two hours. and it’s also nice to get the kangaroo care in while he’s on the nasal cannula as the cpap mask can have a hard maintaining a good fit while he’s doing the ‘roo. so there’s quite a few “knowns” that we have to deal with in addition to the usual array of “unknowns”, such as getting kicked out abruptly in the evening, just after kris had settled in with eric, to prepare for two new admits.

the eric update – day 36: stabilizing. gagging. and just a bit of jealousy.

day 36: bearer of the ring. II.

eric spent the day stabilizing. as quickly as things started falling apart, they appear to be coming back together, thanks to the fast response of his care team. he’s still on the vent, but amazingly, he’s doing so well that they they’re just letting him cruise to give him a rest while he fully recovers from the infection. his differential blood counts are all returning to normal and there’s still no sign of bowel perforation. we’ll never know what caused his skin to start to slough off. nurse debbie said it might not have even been an infection at all, but rather a circulatory issue. micropreemie skin is so delicate that small changes in circulation can cause the skin to deteriorate.

day 36: gagging

there’s certainly no doubt that eric’s gag reflex is developing quite well, as he spent much of his waking time choking on his endotracheal and od tube which releases air from his stomach. although he was relatively comfortable, it was still quite difficult to sit by his bedside and watch him gag on his tubes over and over again. they could have taken him off his vent today because he doesn’t appear to need its help for breathing, but they want to let him get a little more rest while he’s recovering from his infection. from where we’re sitting it’s hard to see how he’s able to rest while he’s gagging, but i guess that’s the way it goes.

day 36: yet another transfusion

he got another 10 cc’s of blood. they are taking a lot out of him since they are running a bunch of bloodwork to monitor his infection. whatever they take out, they have to put back in.

day 36: blood pressure

whenever they give him a transfusion, they monitor his blood pressure closely. the white cuff on his right leg is pressurized, which is making his foot red. eric doesn’t like this one bit. if you look close you can see that he’s squeezing his fist and pushing it against his thigh, while sucking a bunch of air in his belly and kicking up his left leg.

no, he’s not happy at all. soon it’s all over.

day 36: get this blood pressure cuff off me!

he’s wriggling his foot as if he’s trying to kick off his cuff.

day 36: cuffed leg and hand

so, other than a little gagging and a transfusion or two, it was a fairly quiet day. i suspect in the next day or two, eric will be back on the cpap and start feeding again. maybe we’ll even get to start kangaroo care.

day 36: transfusion stopcock. I.

today, we also had to deal with an issue that any nicu parent faces – comparing your child to those around you. it’s one of those things that you know you can’t do, but which is basically impossible not to do. in our case, one of the new admits across the way happens to be a 27 weeker who came in at 1 pound 9 ounces.

day 36: pampers (tm). III.

he’s aready on nasal cannula full time and graduated from a radiant warming bed to an “isolette”, which means that the don’t think that he’ll require as much intensive care as eric still requires.

day 36: pampers (tm). II.

while we’re tremendously happy for the 27 weeker parents, it’s hard not to feel jealous at how much difference two weeks can make, as we watch eric gag on his ET tube.