On Tuesday Samuel had surgery, no worries, all is well and he is healing beautifully! I tell you this because I want to be sure it's noted there is a reason I was giving him pain meds - ha ha! They sent him home with some Tylenol with codeine, the good stuff :) He stayed home from school Wednesday, then, because he's a rock star, went to his Thursday morning class and home with Rachel for the afternoon. I debated giving him the pain meds on Thursday morning, but thought what the heck, surgery was pretty painful and it's his first day back at school. Plus, they didn't seem to affect his energy level or happiness at all... seriously, at all. One last dose for his first day out and about, go for it!
Here is the play-by-play of how I was rewarded for that decision...
Samuel gets lunch around 11:30, and then down for nap... I go in around 2 because I hear him stirring. Hi sweet boy! Love and kisses, then straight for a diaper change, apparently sleeping makes you pee more. Change the diaper, stand him up... something seems different but I can't put my finger on it. OMG there's no gtube button sticking out of his belly!!!
Frantic-ness sets in... how did this happen... where is the gtube... how long has it been out... holy cow, not another surgery. That's right, once the gtube comes out, the hole starts to close, so if it's out for any significant period of time, then it's surgery to get it put back. There's no magic time frame this can happen, just depends on the kiddo. And of course, since Samuel gets no nutrition through his mouth, the surgery to get it put back in would have been right away. Oh no my friend, not today!
The old tube is nowhere to be found, so I find the replacement gtube and start pushing. No, probably not protocol, but after a while, it works :) At that point I was happy for the meds still in his system. I test it, it's definitely in place... whew. Frantic-ness starts to decrease... now back to my original questions, one of which being where is the gtube and how did it come out? Not in the bed, not in the blankets, not under the mattress, not under the bed... oh, wait, yep, under the bed.
Here's the kicker, and why I knew the pain meds had to go... it was still fully inflated!!!! Seriously, the kid has never pulled it out before! Any time it's come out, it's either caught on something or the balloon had issues and deflated, but self inflicting this just makes me cringe. Guess someone was trying to tell me that the pain meds needed to go :)
Here are a few photos I found to illustrate...
This isn't actually Samuel's belly, but for describing a gtube,
might as well be... we have the exact same gtube.
This is the entire gtube... that's it, all of it! Seems so simple, I know!
So you can see from the belly photo above which part is outside the belly (the part between these fingers), and below is simply a tube and a balloon. The balloon is what holds this thing in place. To get it in, simply deflate the balloon, put it in the hole, then inflate the balloon and wah-lah! You have a gtube.
That said, you might understand my confusion and wincing when I realized Samuel pulled it out while the balloon was inflated! Ouch! Crazy kid, I love that guy :)
These photo have nothing to do with the gtube coming out, just some cute photos from a speech therapy session at ihop I've been meaning to post :) I suppose speech therapy/learning to eat and gtubes do have something in common, ha ha!
I think someone likes therapy :)
But, not necessarily eating... this is totally the "what's that over there" move to try and divert attention. Too bad mister, we're on to you!
Someone found a friend!
