+ 0 - 0 | § ¶So far, so good.
Our little g-tube experiment is going very well. We got Alex's feeds up to their normal speed in about a day, and he's been tolerating them without any signs of trouble (gagging, throwing up, etc) since then. Hopefully, they will let us try bolus feeds after the next time we see the docs, which is at the end of the month. Yeah!!+ 0 - 1 | § ¶More cute pictures!
I've posted some more pictures from March and April over in the gallery.I also have some movies that we took, but the files for them are huge. I haven't worked out the kinks of finding a way to shrink the files down, so I would only recommend watching them to people with high speed internet. (The average file size is about 6 megs).
Alex being cute and laughing
Alex being cute and laughing again
Alex playing with a balloon
Alex playing with a balloon again
+ 0 - 0 | § ¶A little time off for Kari .... and the web server
Kari's mom and sister, Angie, came over today, and they went to a large annual auction that they have to benefit the firehall around here. Apparently we were very close to getting a very nice rocking horse, but after Kari won the auction, and it was closed, someone came along and offered a higher bid, and they opened up the auction again, and we lost it. :( That's just wrong, and downright rude.On another note, our web hosting server pooped the bed last night into this afternoon, which is why you might have had problems visiting the site recently.
+ 0 - 0 | § ¶The big experiment...
We went to Hershey this morning to have the GJ tube issue straightened out. Alex slept pretty well, but only had about an ounce of food from 8PM last night until about noon today. Surprisely, he wasn't all that cranky though. As for the GJ, the clog was a doozy and the docs were also unable to get rid of it. They tried a lot of the same things we did...pushing, pulling, and almost every combination of the two we could think of...then tried the GJ tube "Drano," which is some enzyme solution. NOthing worked. They were planning to have Alex go back to the main hospital to have a new J tube inserted, but Dan and I convinced them to do a trial with just the G tube in. This way, we could get an idea about whether or not his reflux is so bad that they'll have to wait for a while to try again or...ack!...do surgery to help the reflux.So, we're home now, the j tube is gone, and Alex is on continuous feeds at about half the rate he was at yesterday. We plan to ramp it up gradually as long as he is tolerating it. So far, he hasn't done any throwing up, but he's been pretty cranky. Of course, he's always cranky in the afternoons, and he's had a pretty rough day, so it remains to be seen if we'll be at Hershey again later this week. Wish us luck! If we are able to feed him continuously by just the G tube, they might allow us to try giving him bolus feeds...in other words, feeding him a couple of ounces at a time every couple of hours. And all of this is progress towards normal oral feeds.
+ 0 - 0 | § ¶A clog
Unfortunately, Alex's GJ-tube has gotten a clog in it. Kari and I tried to get rid of the clog, to no avail. This means that tomorrow morning we will need to run to Hershey to get this taken care of. That means that Alex will be without food until we get this problem taken care of, with the exception of whatever little we can give him by mouth. :(On the upside, we found out that he's capable of taking his medicine by mouth. After three hours of trying to clear the tube, we decided that he needed his medicine, and he took it with minimal resistance. I hope that we are able to get this taken care of ASAP.