Glenn Branch
May 2023
Glenn
Branch
,
RN
NICU
OU Health, Oklahoma Children's Hospital
Oklahoma City
,
OK
United States

 

 

 

It was a very scary time for us not knowing what to expect and what was happening with Baby B, but Glenn was very supportive and a wealth of knowledge.
This thank you is long overdue, but I still wanted to take the opportunity to give Glenn a humongous thank you on behalf of our family! My daughter delivered twin boys. It was an uneventful vaginal delivery and by all early tests and evaluations, they were both healthy. Within three hours of the birth, it became clear that Baby B was struggling with breathing and keeping his temp up. He was taken from my daughter's room for several hours while they determined he had had a stroke and needed to be transferred. He had an MRI that evening that showed a very large brain bleed. The physicians there gave us little hope that he would survive the night which was utterly devastating for our whole family.

A few hours later, he was transferred to OU Children's NICU and had a CT soon after his arrival. My son-in-law, who was with him at the time, commented that everyone was so kind and encouraging about his condition. He actually said, "Everyone here seems like they deal with this all the time." Baby B ended up being in the NICU for almost two full weeks. Glenn was his nurse on days 2 and 3 and he was wonderful! He was so encouraging, answered any questions we had, and even made notes about things we asked to help us remember to ask the team of physicians when they rounded. It was a very scary time for us not knowing what to expect and what was happening with Baby B, but Glenn was very supportive and a wealth of knowledge.

We thought we would be going home within a week, however, Baby B was not eating what he needed to eat at each feeding so most of them were completed by tube feedings. For several days, that was the only thing that was keeping Baby B in the hospital. Around days 10 and 11 in the NICU, Glenn worked again as Baby B's nurse and commented that he was really surprised that we were still there. Glenn really worked with Baby B to get him to eat and gave us all kinds of tricks and tactics to try to encourage him to eat a full feeding each time. Baby B was still not consistently finishing each feeding until one evening, Glenn tried a different nipple with an increased flow rate. Glenn thought maybe Baby B was trying so hard to suck through the nipple and wearing himself out that he couldn't finish the feeding.

Well, he was exactly right! Something so simple and Glenn figured that out with his vast knowledge and experience with NICU babies. Baby B came home two days later! We are entirely grateful to Glenn for his patience and expertise in caring for Baby B and cannot thank him enough. He is an amazing nurse and you can tell he loves what he does. Baby B is almost 3 months old now and thriving. He had a CT a couple of weeks ago. There is no sign of the brain bleed at all and he is not showing any signs of any developmental delays. Thanks so much to Glenn and the entire NICU team for taking such wonderful care of my grandson!