Saturday, August 19, 2006

Free from the tube

On Thursday morning I encountered a situation eerily similar to this. This time I saw the tube laying innocently on the floor. I made a half hearted attempt to replace it but had pretty much decided that it had been out all night. Evan's GI doctor thought that we should just not worry about it since we are not using it any way. If we need to have it replaced then it can be done fairly easily, all the tricky work had already been don with the initial placement of the tube.

It sure is nice not having to worry about it any more. It feels strange to hug him or play rough with him and not have to worry about it tugging. Evan's shirts do not poke out in a strange spot any more. We can get him one piece footie PJs this winter and not have to worry about adapting it so that we can take care of his tube. Our night time routine is changed and we can finally think about dropping that last bottle which was used as a bribe to keep him still while we cleaned the area around his tube. Of course now he is not a cool boy with his tummy pierced, but I think that he will not be loosing face with his nursery friends, he has plenty of scars to compensate.

6 comments:

bella said...

Congrats on being 'free'! We were lucky (stubborn) and never got the full g-tube route, though we dealt with an N-G tube in a girl with a sinus infection... so not sure the tradeoff was great!

But! Footie pjs!? And free-for-all rough-housing?? What else could you ask for!?

Congrats again!

--bella

Millie said...

Cute little guy... glad that you and he don't have to worry about the tube anymore (and have his shirt poke out in weird places).

That would be scary to have it fall out! Seriously!

Awesome Mom said...

It is not actually scary it is more gross than anything. Stomach acid and the like can leak out of the hole. Evan's closes up so fast however that there was not anything icky coming out.

Awesome Mom said...

Oh and Evan was on an NG tube for over a year before we did get the g-tube. I was very stubborn, hoping that he would get over his issues so I would not have to have yet another scar on his belly. Once he started throwing up because the NG tube was irritating his throat I had to admit defeat. He had the g-tube for almost exactly one year.

Anonymous said...

How nice that it does not have to go back in! What a relief for all of you! The freedom to hug must be priceless!

Anonymous said...

Yeah!!
The New & Improved Tube Free Evan!!
Congratulations lil' man!!
Hug, hug!!