Skip to main content

My Life is Not Boring

Nope, no one can ever use boring to describe my life!

Here I am, tonight, watching Anna for a little while.  Everything is going so smoothly and the girls were playing really well in the playroom.  I take them upstairs for bath time, get Anna undressed and into the tub, then turn to take Abby's clothes off.  I notice her shirt is wet, but didn't think anything of it...until I put her in the tub and thought, something is missing!


Her g-tube was out, and I had no idea how long.


Now, the g-tube coming out isn't life-threatening like the trach coming out, but the hole does close up very quickly.  You don't have a lot of time to get the tube back in, and I had no idea how long it had been out.  It could have been up to 2 hours, since I disconnected her last feed.

I turned the water off, called Caleb to stay with Anna in the bathtub (there was no water in the tub, so she was just playing with the toys!), and ran downstairs with Abby.  Since I had no idea where the tube was and didn't have time to look for it, I just got a new one and tried to put it in.  It wasn't easy. The tube had probably been out for a while, and Abby was definitely hurting when I forced it in.

Once I got it in, I looked for the missing tube.  I couldn't find it anywhere!!!  I decided to just go ahead and bathe the girls, since the tube was in and there was no imminent danger.  I sent Caleb back down to search for the tube some more, but he couldn't find it either.

After their bath, I began to get a little worried that the balloon had popped and that was why her shirt was so wet.  I really wanted to find the tube to check, but it was still nowhere to be found.  It was a needle in a haystack...or a gtube in a playroom!

I decided to call Peds GI, since I still couldn't find the tube and was really worried about the balloon.  The fellow I spoke with was equally concerned, and then he asked if I was sure it didn't fall in instead of out.  In, as in in her stomach.  Wonderful.  Since I couldn't find the tube, I really wasn't sure!  He wanted to see her and have xrays done.  JUST as I was getting ready to hang up, I gave the ball pit a cursory glance, moved some balls around, and spotted the gtube--in tact! 

I was so relieved, although poor Abs must have felt some pain when the inflated balloon popped through her gtube stoma!  I looked at both girls and asked who pulled the tube out, but neither girl is talking!

This just goes to show that you should never get into a public ball pit.  You never know what you'll find in there--used drug needles, knives, gastrostomy tubes...

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Cerebrocostomandibular Syndrome

If you happen to pick up the latest Reader's Digest, there is an article in there about Piper Breinholt , a four year old with CCMS.  If you've been around here a while, you'll remember wayyyyyy back when we first received Abby's diagnosis that I was able to speak to Piper's mom, Reagan.  The article is more about their story and not as much about the ins and outs of CCMS, but I think it's probably enough to get some people googling it and I'm hoping a few will end up here. Every once in a while, I give a blog post the title of Cerebrocostomandibular Syndrome so that it would show up in Google.  My ever-present hope is that people will stumble across my blog and 1) be encouraged by the hope we have in Christ, 2) feel a connection with someone in a similar situation as them, or 3) get excited over the miracles that have been performed in Abby's life!!  (a combination of all 3 is great too!)  :)   Notice that it's not to get famous and it never wi

The Potty Man

Caleb LOVES to go potty! I have never heard a potty training story like this one....Caleb tells us when he needs to go, we take his diaper off, and he goes! Now, is it perfect? No, not at all! We aren't trying to potty train at at all, but we figure every time he goes is one less diaper we have to change! The only time we consistantly put him on the potty is when we give him a bath (he always pees in the tub, so we know he needs to go!) He almost always goes on the potty now instead of the tub though. When he's not "really" going potty, he's pretending to go potty! He's such a funny kid!

Lego Party: Favors

I'm a little slow in posting the Lego Party pictures, but I think I have a few excuses I could use.  At any rate, I wanted to share what I did for the party!  It will take a few posts, so stay with me.  I'll start with how I did the favors. These are the goody bags I made.  I just bought solid colored gift bags and matched scrapbook paper to each bag.  Then I punched circles and attached them with the 3D foam tape so that the circles were raised. I used the keychain (explained below) as a name tag on the outside. These are Duplo blocks.  I put a round magnet on the back and...voila!  A magnet!  (note:  hot glue doesn't work so well...I ended up reglueing them with my apoxy because the magnets fell off.) I made crayons using Lego man crayons.  Yes, I know this guy has lost half of his leg.  The others were already packaged and I didn't want to open one up just to get a picture.  I used a Lego mold  to make the crayons.  Caleb put small pieces of crayon in each m