Before I get going, let me just state that Lyra is finally home and doing great.  Not to toot my own horn, but it had everything to do with my strategy to feed her and persistence to get GI involved in the hospital. This is directly relevant to my title.

By trade, I am a Qualitative Analyst. Don’t get it confused with a Quantitative Analyst, those are the number crunchers. I deal with words, not just numbers. Now, data analysis is important and often plays a role in qualitative analysis. The difference is, I work with things that can’t be quantified. I take information from various sources and tell a cohesive story. I answer the questions, “So what?”, “Why is this relevant to me?”. I also use that information to propose solutions to complex problems. Many people (including my sister) have been baffled about how to apply this skill set in and out of the work place. So, let me put it in context of caring for Lyra.

Lyra has many people who are on her team. Her care (outside of family) involves an occupational therapist, dietician, gastroenterologist, cardiologist, surgeon, pediatrician, geneticist, and we will be adding physical therapist in the near future.  All of these people orbit Lyra and have opinions and insights to her care. However, they do not all communicate directly and the only common denominators are Lyra and myself. I am at EVERY appointment. Part of my job as her mom is to take the information that each of these caregivers, along with my own observations, and present it in a way that makes sense to everyone. My job is to tell the story that is “Lyra” that goes beyond test results and numbers on a paper.

According to test results, Lyra should not have been throwing up while getting NJ feeds. Also, according to test results, she should have been able to handle the volume/hr of formula the surgeons were prescribing. However, Lyra WAS puking and Lyra was NOT tolerating the volume/hr of formula she was being fed. Looking at the problem a few things came to mind:

1. I know Lyra has trouble adjusting to rapid changes in volume. I have been puked on enough times to have solid evidence of this
2. Her dietician had mentioned that, with cases like hers, you often can only increase feedings by 1 mL at a time
3. Genetics has told us that most rules probably won’t apply to her since we have no idea how she will be physically/mentally impacted by her genetic abnormalities
4. GI had previously told me that we will likely have to go by trial and error with her. If something doesn’t work, we just have to try something new

Using this information (mostly 1&2), I was able to come up with a solution for feeding her and present to the surgical team in a rational way. Was I sure that it would succeed, hell no. In fact, I anticipated it would fail. However, it has been about 6 days, Lyra is HOME, she is tolerating the total volume she needs every day, and she has only thrown up 3 times since we started using my method. What we had been doing wasn’t working, and we needed to try something new. Even the “wait and see” method had been tried and failed. With my professional skill set I was able to take the information from multiple sources, put it in context, and solve a problem. I didn’t spread sheets, or complicated equations. I took words from many sources, told a story that was relevant to audience, and proposed an information based solution. Because of my qualitative analytical skills, my daughter is home.

So what is a Qualitative Analyst? It is someone who using words, not just numbers, to tell a story and come up with solutions. In today’s world of big data, never underestimate the power of a Qualitative Analyst.