Apgar Signs: A Short Story

I tried to keep my head, I was awake and alert. I had dreamed about those first moments, getting to breastfeed right away, all that. And so when I had to go to the hospital, it was a shock.

When he came into the examination room he was different, I had his medication record and a record of his vital signs and blood glucose checks but had not looked at them. He started to talk before I had a chance, he told me that when he left from the previous visit that he went back to his room and prayed the entire night. He said that God told him that he needed to start following his treatment plan. I than looked at his records and saw that he had been taking all of his medications and that blood pressure and blood glucose numbers were decreasing. I could not believe it, I just looked at him dumbfounded. The patient told me he felt great and that I needed to keep continue what I was doing because I really did make a difference and had changed his life. I must have looked so silly because I was crying and smiling at the same time. He said that he just could not believe that someone cared that much about what happened to him. I continued to see that patient for several more months, and he would tell me how he had started to repair all of the relationships in his life through understanding, forgiveness and god.

Throughout most of the shift, my nurse preceptor and I were in the patient’s room either evaluating her and the fetus, performing exams, taking vital signs, administering medications and fluids, charting, or reading the fetal monitoring strips. We also kept in regular contact with the physician to keep him up to date on the patient’s status and to receive new orders. We also spent a lot of time talking to the patient, her mother, and her boyfriend. They were concerned for the status of the mother and the baby. We explained to them that both the mother and the baby’s heart rate was high and their goal was to decrease them both. In addition, my nurse preceptor explained how we were administering Tylenol and amoxicillin to reduce the fever and

His heart had stopped beating. It is hard to describe how I felt in that moment as I am still trying to process my emotions. I remember turning away from the table where the patient lay lifeless, and staring at the sink in the far corner. A single tear rolled down by flushed face. Suddenly, I felt as if my throat was closing in on itself. After a few deep breaths I turned around and began to focus only on the medical treatment being provided. The storm of emotions that was brewing inside of me was kept at bay for the moment. Instantly, I became infatuated with all of the medical procedures that were being performed, central lines, chest compressions, and intubation were all unfolding before my eyes. Watching a code is nothing like how it is portrayed in the movies. Everyone is extremely calm and precise in their actions. Seeing a human heart be shocked is something that I will never forget. When a heart is being shocked, the whole room stops. Time stops. Everyone has their eyes glued to the monitor hoping to see a rhythm appear. A rhythm didn’t appear. I will never forget his skin turning into a grey blue pallor. It is a color I will never forget, for this is the color of imminent death. Compressions begin again, and then it is my turn. I am still shocked that I was able to find the courage to hop up on the stool and deliver chest

I was sent into the New Born Intensive Care Unit to begin receiving medical assistance along with treatment for my collapsed lung, hours after my birth. Within the following days I had been intubated, cut open and had a tube placed into my lower chest, and placed in a confined box. The tube placed in my body was to help drain the fluid that had accumulated. The box I was placed in was to prevent any pathogens from getting in my body. The only contact I had was with my parents and the medical staff at Valley Baptist Medical Center.

Weeks turned into months, the good news was always the best. It made me feel like i was on top of the world. But the sad part is to this day the don't know what is wrong with him. When they took him out of the coma he very slowly started to heel. They move him into a much large room and they didn't have to keep the lights off all the it was bright and fresh and it didn't have that sad tone to it. The first time walking into the his new room my heart exploded. He was sitting. His frail spain held him up, with support of a few pillows. I look over at my mom and just smiled. That was a special day Liam wasn’t aloud to eat food but we fed him ice cube which doesn’t sound like much but it was great to know that i could help him in anyway. He continued to become more healthy. My sister called my mom and told her that we will be having to have surgery to amputate hands fingers and its toes. that was the most horrid thing I've ever heard I was shocked. Soon my mom received another phone call it was my sister saying that the doctors have decided to move Liam into the burn unit. He stayed a couple of months in the burn unit. At that point the doctors still

Later that day we went to visit him in the Oklahoma Sooners pediatrics hospital and he stayed in the hospital for the rest of his spring break. He went under two different tests an EEG and an MRI. Needless to say when I saw that he was awake and he was able to come back to his senses the whole weight of the world was lifted off of my shoulders. I was trying to be optimistic about it and I kept telling myself he was going to overcome this. I remember just listening to the sirens of the ambulance as they rode off to the hospital I wouldn’t eat until he woke up and he didn’t wake up until about 5:14 in the afternoon.

A few years later his lung collapsed, and it was the first time I saw my mother exhibited the helpless feeling I have been feeling all those years. Even with a

Mercy Hospital was only a 11 minute drive from my house at the time. The only problem with that was my mother having to take the bus while a whole blizzard was going underway. In Chicago busses run from six in the morning till around one in the morning with each bus passing within 13 min intervals. My father was at work his shift was from one in the morning until around noon at that time. Surprisingly enough, she got on that very first bus feeling those awful contractions and she pushed through them. Once she arrived at the hospital she called my dad who was worried that she was alone in the hospital. My aunt arrived at the hospital 30 minutes later to accompany my mother and later my dad arrived. My father had never seen any of his other 3 daughter being born, so I was his first. The pain my mother was put through was excruciating. It was a very emotional, yet painful day. “It’s Twins!” the doctor tells my mother and father. It was a very unexpected moment. They pull my little sister out first, the doctor looks down and tells my parents that she was dead. Her little skin gave off this burnt look all around. The doctors never explained what exactly happened to her, my mother certainly didn’t look like she was having twins. It hardly seemed as if she was having one baby for that matter. My father was cried as he held my little sister and my mother didn’t have

I have been a NICU parent for first time when I had delivered a baby boy name Mikail. Mikail never had a enjoyment moment while inside my belly because my placenta unable to support his growth. Plenty occasions, the blood flow graph was absent from placenta to baby. This condition make him to adjust the blood supply by switching the supply more to his brain instead of his important organ such as tummy. Even with the limited supply, he shown his

It was the worst feeling I have ever felt. Finally, after spending one week in the hospital, he was able to go home with a follow-up procedure to fix the AVM that had a rupture and bleed. On the day of the procedure to have an embolism, he was going to be put to sleep for 72 hours because, they wanted to keep his blood pressure extremely low, before the surgery the doctor said it would only take one hour, after four hours of seating in the waiting room the longest four hours of my life, like any other human being I was thinking the worst and was scare off all the risk all over again, like any other surgery you have a chance of stroke or even death. I imagine myself without my father and me began to cry, how could I possibly be able to keep living a life where I don’t have my father. The doctor who performs the surgery came out and said everything was good and he had no problems, that was a relief, now the hardest part was going to the ICU and seeing my dad hooked up to what it seem like millions of monitors, and having him breathing with

I woke up not knowing where I was questioning everything that was going on. I was surrounded by doctors i had seen previously at the rehab center, when they had realized I had opened my eyes a few of them began to shout he’s awake. After hearing them scream that I looked over and there was Addison laying in the bed next to me with tubes hooked up to him. I tried to sit up but couldn’t, there was this sharp pain in my hip. The doctor rushed over and said “Don’t try to sit up, everything is okay son.” I began to ask what was wrong with Addison but all they kept on saying was “He’s fine don’t worry about him.” The doctor were examining me as I was laying there, they checked my ears, my mouth, and my eyes and documenting all of it. Later that night

Being able to view a cesarean section that close was a very cool experience and all the doctors and nurses in the room were very nice and welcoming. Once the surgery was over, I was able to assess the mom and we did fundal checks every fifteen minutes. The first two checks had a scant amount of bloody discharge. Then we went in to clean her up so she could feel clean and fresh since her family was going to come visit shortly. From rolling her from side to side, our next fundal check let out a clot the size of a lime, and that was very cool to see. I also assisted mom in getting to do skin to skin and positioning her baby correctly so he could latch onto her breast. He latched on with no problem and ate for about twenty minutes. This couple lost a previous baby boy at twenty-four weeks, so I was happy for them that they were blessed with another boy who is happy, healthy and full of smiles.

I was waiting for my father to finish surgery when I heard a woman screaming for help. Peering outside, I saw a man collapsed on a bench. Despite shouts for help, the hallway remained empty and still. It was only when I looked at the clock that I realized that most of the doctors and nurses would have already left for lunch. I did the only thing I could think of, I grabbed the pager on my dad’s desk and repeatedly paged the Operating Room. After what felt like an eternity, my father and several nurses raced down the hallway. I watched as they expertly insert an IV and used a defibrillator. Within minutes, the gentleman had regained consciousness and was breathing again. When I saw him next morning, for someone who was close to death the day

He was released and had seemed to be doing good until he was rushed back in the following week for the same reason. My mom and I would go see him as often as we could and each time we realized he was getting worse. After a week or two in the hospital he was moved into hospice. At this point we were told it would not be long before he would no longer be with us. The last time we visited him at hospice was the time we knew within ourselves it was about time. Our last visit with him I will never forget. He wasn’t able to speak at all but he just kept looking around the room at us with a kind of look I still can’t describe. Leaving hospice that day we knew it wouldn’t be long but we also didnt realize how soon it would