Ugh

I know that the vast majority of babies are born happy and healthy, (10% if you read the NRP book), but man does working in a PICU expose you to all the other stuff. How would you like to have a 3 day old baby with a constricted aortic arch, an ASD, a VSD (with left to right shunt), webbed neck (think cabbage patch), clubbed foot, and best of all: ambiguous genitalia! Now granted this child will most likely never need to use his gentials for anything except relieving himself but still.
Hey top it off with going septic, holding on to ALL your fluid and ending up on an oscillator while you melt away into the bed.

There is some good news though too here and there. A baby that has spent some time being very sick with a bad hypoplastic left heart has finally left the hospital. She is trached and on a vent. but the parents love her and take very good care of her. It's nice to see someone leave. Another HLHS kid that has coded several times and been on ECMO and failed extubation twice is actually on a nasal cannula and has been extubated for a whole week now.

Yet another hypoplast who had a BT Shunt done is off of ECMO now for two days and as is doing pretty well. As soon as we get his chest closed I belive we may be able to wean and extubate him fairly soon too.

And a teenage girl with a history of lupis who was almost totally paralyzed and had to be trached and vented for months is now able to feel her toes, move her fingers and one arm and can talk again, even without the PMV, and has been off of the vent for 5 days.