Saturday, January 19, 2013

Bilirubin

No...that is not our new nickname for Bennett.

Our last day at the hospital, the Pediatrician informed us that Bennett was barely in the high to intermediate risk range for Jaundice. So we had to take him to the doctor the next day to have his levels tested. It is sad to watch because they prick his foot and have to take quite a bit of blood out to put in a vial to test. We heard back later that day that his levels were still bad and so they were going to send us a Billirubin bed (a blue light bed) to have in our house and that he needed to stay in it all the time to help. They delivered the bed and it fit perfect in the bassinet next to our bed. It had a material with velcro down the middle to keep him in and then there was another device, about a foot long square light covered in fabric, that was to be put on his stomach while he was sleeping. He could only have his diaper on because they didn't want anything coming between him and the lights. He did really well staying in the bed all day and night. 
The next day we were to take Bennett in to have him retested. We took him in only to find his score had improved by only 4/10 of a point. We were told we needed to keep him in the bed all weekend and then have him retested on Monday. I am very proud of our sweet boy who did a great job with this and stayed in the bed all day and night. 

From this Bilirubin bed Bennett got a nickname...that is Houdini. This little kid can get out of anything! We would go to check on him and he had somehow always managed to get his arms out of the velcro suit and have them right by his face.
He even was able one time to get his foot out! Crazy boy!
Thankfully when we took him back on Monday to be tested his results came back positive and no more bilirubin bed for Bennett!

2 comments:

  1. That's good news! What a sweet boy.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Cute boy. That's funny he could get out. Glad he is doing better.

    ReplyDelete

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