The Fun Never Stops

Like I said last week, there is never a dull moment around here...

Abby had a terrible cold at the beginning of the week. Just when she was starting to get better and we were getting back to normal, her feeding tube came out. I don't actually know how it came out. She was fighting me while I was trying to sit her down in her chair for a tube feeding. The next thing I knew, I looked down and saw it sitting in her lap. I pulled up her shirt and stared at the hole that went directly into her stomach. Gross. I immediately laid her down on the floor to minimize the amount of stomach contents that could leak out and covered the hole with some gauze. The pediatrician said to call the GI. The GI said to go to the ER. So we went to the ER. (Emergency rooms all smell the same. They smell different than the rest of the hospital, but they all smell the same. I wasn't ready for that. It's been 6 months since our last ER visit but it is still painfully fresh in my mind.) The ER didn't have the right size feeding tube to replace it with (we didn't go to the Children's hospital, we just went to the one closest to us. We figured anyone could put the old one back in - we didn't realize they would want to use a new one) so they ended up putting in a catheter in order for us to be able to give her meds and fluids, and said to call GI in the morning to get a new tube. To make a very long story short, I spent all of the next day waiting for doctors to call me back and none of them would put in a new feeding tube. So I had to take her down to the Phoenix Children's ER on Friday - two days after the tube came out. They popped in a new one and we were out of there within an hour. Amazing. The fun just never stops! And lesson learned: if you ever need to take a child to an ER for ANY reason, go to a children's hospital the FIRST time.

And just in case you are wondering exactly what her feeding tube looks like... I took this picture while we were waiting to find out where to take her (because I'm weird like that). The balloon goes on the inside of her stomach and is what keeps it in place. It popped out fully inflated too - you would think that would hurt!

Abby missed all of her therapies this week because of her cold and her feeding tube trouble. But she has still been working here at home! She is determined to sit up. She has been working on this for a while and is getting so much  better. When she lays on the floor with her toys she will roll onto her side and then push up so she is sitting on her hip, propped up on her arms. It's pretty cool. I love seeing her upright! She will usually fall over after a few seconds but that doesn't seem to deter her. She will roll around for a while and then just try it again. She is going to be just fine :)