Evening Update (Friday 12/19)

(Late night update: Speaking of measurement error, Nurse C. measured Max's head circ at 35.0 cm. I also forgot to mention that the NICU team have ordered a head ultrasound for Sunday night so the results will be waiting for them when they return on Monday morning.)

Carolyn and I, between us, managed to spend almost all of the day with Max. Carolyn was in for morning rounds at 8:30 AM and stayed until about 1:00 PM. I rolled in around 4:00 PM and stayed until I was kicked out a little after 7:00 PM. While I was with him I tried to interest Max in sucking on a pacifier but he wasn't going for it. I did, however, get to change a very dirty diaper. The NICU's policy of "clustering cares", i.e. requiring that all procedures such as heel sticks, diaper changes, temperature monitoring etc are all crammed into a single care session held once every three hours, means that their patients are better rested and calmer than the typical hospital patient, but it also means that Max can sometimes get two full loads into a single diaper. Parents notice these things.

The regular NICU crew are all taking off for the weekend, leaving their charges in the hands of a fresh crew until Monday morning. Given the importance that the NICU docs tend to put on how Max's fontanel feels, Carolyn asked all of the incoming docs to feel Max's head this afternoon so they would have a baseline to compare against if there are any changes. Max nurse last night measured his head circumference at 36.0 cm but--charmingly--admitted that she might have gotten it wrong (as a rule, the medical profession staunchly denies that measurement error exists).

(Reminder: the head circumference graph won't be updated until Sunday evening for technical reasons.)