Lessons in g-tube dynamics

[Guest guest]

Dear Friends,

Please feel free to laugh your heads off at me. Mind you the other

day when it happened I wasn't laughing to much. Now I can smirk

about it. That is an improvement, I assure you all.

Anyway, you all warned me about not overloading Connor at night time

with his feed. Many of you suggested ramping the dose very, very

slowly. I thought I was doing that.

Apparently not.

Connor had a bad eating day so I thought I could catch him up

completely at night. I put in two and a half cans of formula.

That's 600 mls.

Are you all laughting yet? Do any of you know what's going to

happen? I found out the hard way.

At precisely 7:38 a.m. I go into Connor's room and I can tell

immediately that he's " off. " My mommy sixth sense picks up on the

fact that he's kind of groaning. His color isn't to great. In

fact, he looks like he's about to barf.

So (here's the funny part), I immediately unhook him from the

feeding bag but what I forgot to do was clamp the line that goes

into Connor.

He started to leak...profusedly. When he squirmed it came shooting

out. Imagine a hose turned on at full throttle and it's whipping

around. That was similar to our experience. I call out to my

husband, " Honey, bring me a baby wipe will ya? " He comes in and

get's me a wipe. By then, Connor has drenched me, himself, and the

crib. I look at and say, " Umm, maybe a wet wash cloth? " He

runs to get that. Connor squirmed and passed some gas. More

formula came shooting out because silly me still hasn't clamped the

line. Jess comes in with a wet wash cloth and gets a squirt from

the line. He has to change his suit. By then the room smells like

vomit although Connor never gagged once. I guess opening the line

to his tummy took care of that. Connor was maxed out on formula and

had to let some loose so to speak.

To make matters worse (or better, or funnier depending on your point

of view), our brand new CNA walks in, looks at the situation, with a

swift move clamps the tube and says in a droll kind of voice, " Would

you like me to give your son a bath? " My response was rather droll

also. I replied, " Perhaps you could go hook up the garden hose and

hose us all down at once. I think it would save some time! "

That was on Monday. Today is Saturday and it just now is starting

to not smell like vomit in the house.

I now am only giving Connor 500 mls over a ten hour period. We

haven't had any geysers since then.

Boy do I feel sheepish. Laugh away. If this can make any of you

feel better with what you all have to deal with on a daily basis,

please feel free to have a well deserved guffaw at my expense.

The good news is, Connor is just shy of 21 lbs. He's almost gained

back all the weight he lost in only two and half weeks. Wow! I

love our g-tube!

Mom to Graham 8 ADD (who said, " Cool Connor do it again); Cameron 5

(who said, " EWWWWWW! " ); Connor 2 RSS who has amply demonstrated that

his tummy can only hold 500mls at this time. After it was all done,

Connor looks at me, smiles and says, " I did it Mommy! "