Saturday, October 25, 2008

NICU Reunion



We went to the KP San Diego Medical Center NICU Reunion today! It was SO much fun! They had llama rides, games, face painting, pigs to pet, food, a bounce house and it was in beautiful San Diego! What more could anyone ask for?
We got to see many of Maryam's nurses, all of which agreed that she looks amazing! We heard a lot of "you'd never know by looking at her now...." and "OMG, is she really going to be 2 in a month or so?" and "She really is a miracle baby." I just love hearing all of that from people who knew her from the beginning. Those words have so much power! Especially from people who actually watched her fight for her life and were there on the days when they didn't think she'd make it.
We also got to see three of Maryam's Neonatologists. Sadly, two of them are retiring on January 2nd. Boo-hoo. Dr. Bromberger and Dr. Schneider actually started their fellowship together in 1979 and now they're retiring together in 2009. We wish them nothing but the best of luck and happy retirement! I'm sure their families will be happy to have them all to their selves for a change!
Dr. Matt Sebald took over the NICU last year. I asked him if he likes being large and in charge and he said, that he's "definitely large!" He's got to be 6'4" or some ridiculous height. I asked him if he was going to have the job of telling mommies that their baby only has a 30-35% chance of life like Dr. Schneider told me. And you know what his response was? He actually said, "30-35% huh? That sounds generous. She was VERY sick." I said, wow. Then he proceeded to tell us that he really missed having us around. That there have only been a handful or so of babies that were in their nursery as long as Maryam was.
Maryam LOVED seeing everyone and playing the games. I think one of the highlights of her day was playing a "basketball" type game where she had to throw the ball in the net. Earlier in the day she had to throw a bean bag through a hole to get a tattoo and she just walked up and placed the ball in the hole. It was cute. Afterward she got to pet a super cute little black pig. If only I could convince Brett that we need a pet pig, Maryam LOVED it!
We got to see most of our favorite nurses, Nurse Focker (Tim), Nurse Kathy (Laura Bush Kathy), Nurse Kathy (Home Health Kathy), Clerk Kathy (Funny Kathy that answers the phone), Nurse Jennifer (Our Jennifer), RT Laura, RT Brown Hair (Russian accent RT), Nurse Gertje, Nurse Carol and the 3 docs I mentioned early. We ate lunch with Nurse Sarah, who actually came to Maryam's baby shower and Nurse Olivia. We LOVE Olivia! We got to meet her husband, he seems really nice.
It was a wonderful day. We even got to see Baby G. She was the baby that was across from Maryam in the Critical Area. We use to joke that they competed for attention because they always had competing alarms. If Maryam's went off, hers went off, if hers went off, Maryam's went off. There was no rest for the weary in that area and the two girls were definitely NEVER paired together for one nurse to handle. But she looks AMAZING! We also go to see my friend Matt's son who is also a 25 weeker! He looks great too!
There were hand sanitizers on every table and at every booth. They were very careful for our little fragile babies! And it was REALLY nice to see 6 and 7 year old kids who use to be 100% tube fed scarfing down pizza! Word has it that most of them stopped being tube fed by the time they were 5 years old. So, cross your fingers that we're only struggling with this issue for 3 more years. Because really, what's 3 years in a lifetime? Not much! She's been through more people in her short 2 years than most people do in 30 years! So 3 years is nothing! She can do it!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds like it was an amazing day! She is so cute!
Julie

Anonymous said...

Ahhhh.... I'm sooo sad we missed it! Does Kaiser have a mailing list?