ER

I had to take Isabella to the ER last night because her G-tube “button” came out.  It was in place since mid-August, and they were supposed to change it last week, but we cancelled the appointment because it wasn’t on a Wednesday and because her surgery is scheduled for a few weeks from now.  At that appointment, they were also going to instruct us on how to change it ourselves.

The button has a balloon on the end that goes through the wall of the abdomen and gets inflated with water to keep the tube from pulling out.  Well, over time, it loses some water, thus our little adventure last night.

When she first had the G-tube put in, they told us that if it came out, we were to bring her back the hospital ASAP.  Well, when we called last night, the doctor said we could try to put a new one in ourselves.  We tried, but it didn’t go very well.  So they told us to go to the ER.  I was only there for 2 hours, but those hours were 11 pm to 1 am, so it was a short night.  Needless to say, Gwen & I can’t wait for the G-tube to go away for good.

This was her first visit to the hospital here, so it was fun to have to explain to everyone her whole situation:  why her oxygen saturations were so low, that she was only 2 lbs. at birth, that she is on 7 medications, that she has already had 2 heart surgeries with another one in just a couple of weeks, that she spent the first 4 months of her life in the hospital.
Isabella is doing well with thickened feeds; she is now allowed to take as much by bottle as she wants to, with the remainder of her feed being pumped through the G-tube.  Yesterday she was taking 45-60 mL by bottle, almost double her previous amount.

All in all, we’re anxiously awaiting the next surgery (scheduled for November 8th).  After that surgery, she won’t have to have the pulse-ox monitor, and we can work on getting her to eat everything by bottle so we can get rid of the G-tube.