Legal notices*

As seems to befit my never-ending quest to get myself in trouble, this lil' website has come under the steely gaze of lawyers (NO!) and risk managers (HEAVENS!)†. After having a heart-to-heart with nurse J, I have been informed of a couple of issues that I should address. For starters, I was not as careful as I should have been on one of Woody's x-rays, which displayed a portion of a patient ID number. So, I deleted it (for a while, until I can modify the picture to remove that). In another picture, I showed a nurse's face, which she didn't necessarily have much of a problem with, but if the picture had better resolution, a stalker could have blown up her name badge and figured out some information about her. So I deleted that one, even though I was just being extra careful. Finally, I made a mistake in the now-infamous Lactation Specialist post:

...the boob is mostly used to dealing with full-term mothers, and it seems pretty obvious that her advice has limited usefulness for Maggie...

The mistake I made was in my assumption/assertion that the boob was mostly used to dealing with full-term mothers. In fact, the expert is used to dealing with preemies, as the one that talked to her is specifically used and trained by the NICU. Further, I'll go ahead and note that the specialist talked to Maggie twice that day; after the first visit, which I mentioned, she came back in to offer some more encouragement as opposed to just being mean to her.

I'll just go ahead and state my editorial policy on some of these legal issues now, just so it's out there. First, I certainly don't want to violate anyone's privacy; the posting of the nurse's face was not intended, and that's why I removed that picture right away. Second, it's not my intent to post any identifying ID or SSN type information about Woody, because that doesn't do him any favors, for sure. Third, I don't consider myself a journalist here, so I'm not posting the correction based on a sense of journalistic ethics, but just a personal desire to get things right. I post what I do because it's my own site, and it's how I get out my opinion and particular slant on Woody's time in the hospital. I don't owe anyone any duties under HIPAA or any other Federal or State laws, and will change things based on a sense of propriety and decency as opposed to feeling like I have to, legally.

The other meta-issue here is just that the hospital may be a little twitchy about what I say here because they're afraid that we're turning into Those Parents, you know, the ones that are really cranky. Me, I'm just kind of a crank, and despite my puffery here about making a nuisance of myself I really do try to just let the professionals do their job. So have no fear, lawyers and risk managers, I really do think he's getting some outstanding care, and think that all of Woody's nurses are kind, professional, competent people.

All that being said, the lactation specialist still should have been nicer to Maggie.

*My penchant for double entendre and puns really irritates Maggie sometimes. In this case, of course, the post is both as a legal notice and to reference the fact that (the) legal (department) notice(d) the blog itself. Ha, ha, ha.

No, no, that's "Works on commission? No, money down."

†Of course, you know what me and Maggie do for a living, right?

**One other note-- it occurs to me that nowhere in this post did I reference how Woody is actually doing today. He's doing just fine. He's back over 2 lbs, this time maybe for good, and his respiration statistics are unusually stable today. Moreover, he's now up to 12q2 on his feedings, and they increased his protein shake amount by 100%, to 1/2 tsp per 100 mLs. I think it's hilarious how the measurement ratio on that stuff is english per metric, by the way.