Day 5

No photo today. Why? Jack woke me up at 6am this morning with the sound of him puking into his bed. Poor little boy had picked up a bug going around at school and was really poorly this morning. The bug is clearly very contagious, so no visits to Annabel or to Kim for Jack for 48 hours, and none for me for 24 hours assuming that I don't become sick. Bummer.

Fortunately Kim's mum and dad came down to visit today and are staying overnight, and Kim had been really looking forward to seeing them both all week. They spent time with them both today.

Jack was feeling and looking much better this afternoon, but has been on a diet of toast and water today. I hope he has dried out by the morning. The weekend's plans are back in flux. Kim was likely to come home this weekend, but that has been put back until Monday at least.

The news from intensive care is that Annabel is hooked up to fewer and fewer tubes, as she has been taking well to mum's milk through her gastric tube. Her glucose drip has been removed, she is on and off extra oxygen, and her cannula was taken out this afternoon. So far she has progressed pretty well, I reckon.

Jack's sister

DSC00371.JPG, originally uploaded by samwebster.

It goes without saying that Jack is loving having a tiny, little baby sister. He has had much advice from his classmates who already have sisters, and I would love to have transcripts of those conversations!

Annabel on the sunbed

DSC00370.JPG, originally uploaded by samwebster.

Day 4. Annabel continues to progress well. She has a little jaundice, but you may notice from this photo that she has had her oxygen tubes removed from her nose. She's been coping ok with this, but was puffing a bit when I went to visit. She will get the extra oxygen back for a little while this evening to give her chest a rest.

Kim has been expressing breast milk, and Annabel has been drinking it through a tube. Annabel has taken very well to it, and she is being fed more and more each hour.

Day 3

Yesterday (day 3) mummy had her first cuddle with Annabel. This cheered Kim up a lot, and made all the recent events seem less dream-like. She says Annabel seems real now that she has been able to hold her.

Annabel

After giving Annabel a clean and changing her nappy, I took a little bit of video of her and Jack. That's Jack's hand in the incubator, not mine. She is pretty small.

She really doesn't like being handled much, and would rather stay asleep. She has a tiny, squeaky cry, but was very good for me when cleaning her up.

I think she's getting the sleep that I'm losing.

Annabel Beatrice Webster

Annabel Beatrice Webster, originally uploaded by samwebster.

(aka Baby No. 2)

So much for making plans. Kim had some bleeding yesterday night (morning of 25th) so we went to the labour ward to get Kim and baby checked out. The bleeding stopped, restarted, stopped, and baby seemed settled. As the day went on Kim started to have contractions, which got closer and closer together late on the 25th. By early morning the decision was made to deliver Annabel by C-section and the surgery went well.

Annabel was born 7 weeks prematurely, and started breathing pretty much on her own. She was pink, wriggly and grunting at birth, and was well cared for by the staff.

Annabel weighs 1.53kg. She's now in the special care baby unit, and Kim is recovering. Both are doing OK. Jack is very excited to have a tiny baby sister.

Stem cells from human, adult skin

Students have asked me about the ethical difficulties of embryonic stem cell research a number of times in the past, and it's a great question to pose at candidates' interviews. That topic may now have become mute though, as work published by two groups in Science and Cell suggests that you can dedifferentiate your own skin fibroblasts back into a pluripotent stem cell.

Now that's very handy. If you can get your own cells to become stem cells that you can then encourage to become whichever cell type you need to fix an organ or a tissue, then who needs cloning? Or embryonic stem cells? Which rather buggers up science fiction writers and cheers up pro-lifers (although not for long, I'm sure).

The lab work so far has shown that it's technically feasible and more work needs to be done to find a safe method of dedifferentiating human fibroblasts for use in humans. Of course we're all still working in our own areas to find the best ways of getting pluripotent stem cells to differentiate into our favourite cell types, and how then to get them to grow an implant or rebuild damaged tissue. Knowing we could potentially use a patient's own skin cells as a source for future therapies is a great help though.

Science Mag article
BBC article

Zzzzzz

I'm so tired. Jack's been poorly with a dry, painful chesty cough and a temperature since we got back to Swansea on Sunday night. He hasn't been very well or very happy, but he's feeling a little better this morning. When he eventually sleeps any coughing wakes him up and upsets him, so we wake up.

Is this what it will be like when the baby is born? I forget. It doesn't matter; I'm still looking forward to the sleepless nights of January, February, March....

I've got the car today, so maybe I can pick up a copy of the new Lego Star Wars game for the Wii for Jack on the way home.

Red Lightsaber

alex5thparty_waun_svw_020, originally uploaded by samwebster.

Guess what sound Jack's making.

Fog driving

Holy cow, this must be what it's like to drive with cataracts. We drove back to Wales at night in thick fog the other week, and really couldn't see to drive any faster than 35mph. It's actually quite nice to drive slowly, and the whole trip only took us an extra 15 minutes. The fog lifted as we crossed the Severn.

New podcasts

New students, renewed colleagues, revised podcasts. Rhiannon and I are working to redo the embryology podcasts and to finish the series. She's far livelier than me, and the two of us may be more interesting to listen to. She's also superb at getting me to get these things done, and she has more time than me. Seriously, you wouldn't believe how many unread emails sit in my inbox.

Listen to the advert for the new podcast series. I'll start adding the new podcasts to iTunes and to the medicine page soon.

Podcasting

See? We're doing it, really, we're doing it. OK, we're a little slow, but we'll get there. It would help if I could follow simple instructions to the end though.

Millennium Falcon

Millenium Falcon, originally uploaded by samwebster.

Kim really liked this photo. Jack's pretending to pilot the Millennium Falcon at a soft-play place. Yeah, I was Chewbacca.

Easy Glider

I want one! This would really mix up my daily commute (and give my tired old legs the occasional break). It's a "personal transportation device" (yawn) that looks simple and fun. It's essentially a powered wheel that drags you along on whatever wheely thing you prefer to stand on (I wonder if it's any good with shopping trolleys round Tescos....) It's way cheaper than a Segway, far simpler, and personally I reckon it looks a lot more fun. You'd look a little less of a twat on one of these than poncing about on a fancy-arsed Segway.

Dear Father Christmas...

Easy Glider website
Gadget Show article

Pumpkin

bonfirenight_cheltenham_svw_006, originally uploaded by samwebster.

This is the pumpkin that Kim carved for Halloween last week. I think she's keen to pick something more detailed next year.

Movements of the Hand

I've finished preparing a new elearning project, with much of the work done by some very talented students from the School of Digital Media at the Swansea Institute of Higher Education. The project deals with the movements of the hand and looks at some of the nerves and muscles involved. It doesn't review the fine detailed anatomy of the hand, but instead is aimed at teaching the major movements and muscles of the thenar eminence. Some students (and teachers) get confused about the movements of the thumb.

You can go direct to it with this link, or from the Medicine page.

Lego skeletons

DSC00208, originally uploaded by samwebster.

More lego! Jack's been playing with some new skeleton and knight lego that his Nana bought him.

We're getting very excited about the release of the full Lego Star Wars game due on Friday for the Wii!

Ding

Ding, originally uploaded by samwebster.

Mum reversed her SUV into my car! The bonnet is dinged, bent downwards, and has pushed the left light bracket down into the bumper. Oops.

Bleeding skull

DSC00169, originally uploaded by samwebster.

Like I said, I love Halloween.

*$

*$, originally uploaded by samwebster.

Jack loves Starbucks for some reason.