PICU & JP

PICU-SLAMMED yesterday. Crawled into bed at 330 am, out of bed at 4am, and never made it back. Had breakfast with Amy (The Pedi Ward Senior who got us dinner at 11pm!), and the Pedi Surgery resident, who kept rubbing it in that she had gone to bed at 9pm! So, it was really hectic, a few sick kids, but overall it was a great day for learning. At one point the PICU was closed to admission cause we FILLED IT UP! Kids with trachs with chronic respiratory problems, 2 head injury kids (one who kept me up all night), hemopericardium for unknown causes, aplastic anemia and sick, lupus nephritis and hypertension. Honestly, it doesn't get better. But know what was great, at about 5am, a sense of calm settled over the PICU. The guy with the really bad head injury started to settle down, the girl with the really bad fever started to look a bit better, the girl with really bad hypertension seemed to finally settle down, the kid who had the stroke was awake and talking (although he has lost his vision). And at 5am, there was a little joy, in knowing that kids were better. A few would be transferred out of the PICU, a few would go home. It was also good cause I got to finally think on my own, learned quite a bit as well..

JP... JP is a kid slightly less than a year old whom I have taken care of in July on the pedi ward and again earlier this month in the PICU. She is "my girl." I know this kid well, think about her regularly when she's not in the hospital, get updates regularly from her specialists. She is chronically unwell. If you saw her in the grocery store, you'd think she was maybe 3 months old. When I was in the ED last night I saw her down there , and my heart sunk. (She almost came to the PICU, but ended up on the floor where she was almost constantly observed by us neurotic residents and nurses who care about this precious girl). I can't even describe how shitty this situation is. Nobody knows why this kids is sick, some metabolic/genetic/endocrine disorder. Talking to mom last night (who just learned that her pregnancy is going to be terminated due to a non-viable fetus) she broke down and has finally realized that JP is not going to make it. My gut feeling changed yesterday too, and I don't think JP is going to make it. I'm convinced that we're slowly watching her die. And while I think it is horrible for me to watch her die, it breaks my fucking heart to watch her mom who knows that she's losing 2 kids. I can't even imagine...