Degrees

Hard: Picking up a fixed-wing NICU transport team and bringing them to the local Level III NICU. Seriously, these things take forever. I think there’s an unwritten rule that requires every NICU transport team member to discuss a procedure three times, pick up the equipment three times, and then discuss it three more times with a different team member before actually, you know, using that equipment.

Plus, these are very sick newborns. A Level III NICU is a pretty capable unit. If they’re shipping a preemie out of there because they can’t provide the care he needs, that is a baby in very real danger of dying.

Harder: Watching the transport team physician inform the parents that their son, in all likelihood, will not survive the trip, and may not even survive the move from the radiant warmer to the transport isolette – three feet away.

Hardest: Watching that entire scenario play out, just as the transport physician predicted, over the course of five hours. I wonder at what point in that futile struggle that the parents realized that their son was not going to survive. And I wonder at what point in the future they will finally come to grips with their grief.

Because they certainly hadn’t learned to accept it last night.

I’m drained – mentally, physically and emotionally.

More later, when I’ve had time to recharge, and maybe see a baby or two that isn’t dying.