Notice anything missing from this picture?
No, that big red hole is not Alex's belly button - that would be the hole where her feeding tube NORMALLY is. Friday night she was in her bed watching a movie and having a tube feeding. I was on the phone with my mom and when I went in to check on her I initially thought she had thrown up because there was a lot of formula in her bed - but then I saw her extension tube laying on the side of the bed with her feeding tube attached to it, and the pump was still running. Yikes. I hung up with my mom and went to get Aaron who was trying to get some yard work done (and had been for the whole day with a million different interruptions). I told him Alex's tube had come out - no big deal for him - he had replaced it just two days ago (her tube has to be changed out and replaced every three months and Aaron is the one that always changes it out - it's not one of my favorite things to do!). Only thing is I wasn't home when he changed it out so neither of us realized that was our last one and we didn't have a back up tube. Whoops.
This is what her feeding tube looks like - the long stem is placed in her stomach and then it's anchored in place with a balloon...
This is what hers looked like - the balloon had burst so there was nothing keeping it in her stomach.
No crisis really, it was after hours so we called the medical supply company who had to call their on call person. It took a bit for them to call us back so I called my friend Christy to see if she had an extra one I could borrow in case - I joked with her because the conversation was so "normal" for us... "Hey, do you have an extra Mic-Key feeding tube? Is it an 18 French, 2.0?" It's like calling and asking your neighbor to borrow a cup of sugar or something :) The main thing you have to worry about is keeping the site sterile, and getting another tube back in as soon as possible. The hole will start closing after about four hours. When the company finally called back they said they had to drive to the warehouse - which was about 30 minutes away from where they were - so we were looking at about an hour and a half at least before they could get the tube to us and they recommended we call the hospital closest to us to see if they had one in case they didn't have any at the warehouse, which they did. There was nothing to do but wait - I was laying in her bed and she and Aaron were laying on the floor on her bean bag and we watched Beauty and the Beast - just another day in paradise :) To make a long story short, they finally got to our house and....they brought the wrong kind of tube. Ugh, seriously? We put it in anyway and we're waiting on the right tube to get here. This tube is SO much more of a pain - we had in once in the past and it was a nightmare - I really don't know why anyone would want to use this type - you have to have an extension in just to be able to give meds...and we do that a lot during the day - so it's an extra step, and extra 'thing' I need to have ready and very annoying to me!
Back in and back in business!
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