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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...

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