Naked Boy

One of the many problems Gavyn had while he was in the hospital was his body temp. Even before he went into the hospital I had noticed that he always seemed a little on the chilly side. I did not think a lot of it because it was February and our house is always chilly because it is older. I just kept him bundled up. Little did I know it was because he was getting sick and did not have the ability to keep his temp up.

When he was admitted they put him in one of the NICU beds that has a heater and it was always on. The day they tried to move him out of the PICU it (the heater) had been turned off and all day his temp was slowly dropping and the nurse did not seem to catch that (don't get me started on that day..). About time they moved him and the draft got to him his heart started to crash. It took about 2 hours to get him warmed back up for his heart to stabilize.

Once he had his external shunt put in the docs wanted him more elevated, they took him out of the NICU bed and put him in a normal crib. He had heat lamps put on him almost around the clock. He was dressed in long sleeve, long pant sleepers, usually a couple blankets rolled up around him to sort of hold him in place because of the angle he was sitting at with at least 2 more blankets over him.

One of the first times I got to hold him after his shunt going in I held him for 2 hours sitting in a rocker. It was the first time his whole stay (about 15 days at that point) that his temp went up to 98. Mom, Dr.Clauss and the nurse, Kenzie all joked with me that I would just have to hold him all the time when we got home. I told them I was putting him in the sling when I got home and I wasn't letting him out until he was 16, he would be plenty warm!

When he got home the first time we kept hats on him, two layers, sometimes a blanket and I wold check his temp once a day at least. After he went back to the hospital and had his internal shunt put in he did so much better!

Now he is my nakey boy! Every time I lay him on the changing table to dress him he just cracks up when I go to take his clothes off. He gets his big silly grin and laughs out loud sometimes. With the extremely hot weather the past couple days he has been going around with just a shirt on or just overalls - no shirt at all. He gets over heated being in the sling now and doesn't like to be in it for very long. Just a normal baby who loves to be in a diaper.