J/G Tube

I know that there are no sane people in this world that are begging for a feeding tube. Perhaps a kid or two who is thinking about all the extra play time and the ease of clean-up, but no reasonable person would want a tube of any type sticking out of their body.

Unless, of course, it is necessary.

When Dennis had just the gastric tube, he suffered from acid reflux. He was continuously spitting up and vomiting. He stomach is much more settled with the J/G tube, but it is constantly getting plugged. The food is thick and sticky. It actually looks quite a bit like Elmer's Glue. I am sure, in a pinch, it could be used for glue. In the past week it has been plugged twice and last night it even turned off the feeding pump.

Yes, this is another one of those waking up in the middle of the night stories.

In the middle of a school dream, where I was one of the most ineffective teachers ever, the alarm started to beep. This time I didn't mind being woken up. I really hate school dreams.

I got out of bed and looked at the message - "No Flow." Everything was hooked up properly, the food was going through both the bags tubing and into the jejunal tube, so the only reason I could surmise for the alarm was that Dennis was plugged up once again.

Hot water works most of the time on getting the tube unclogged, but I need to push and pull the water in and out until a break through occurs. It took a while, but I managed to push to clog into his intestine where it could be taken care of through whatever way the intestine takes care of such things.

It's wonderful that Dennis gets all of his nutrition without having to fight with food. Actually, he would waste away to nothing if he was depending on food for his caloric intake. But why can't they make the canned nutrition less sticky? Or thinner? Or make the tube wider to accommodate what is going through it? And why in the world is it vanilla flavored?

It's not a big deal bringing him in to the hospital to have it replaced, but it could happen while we are on a trip, and that would be a fairly big nuisance.

By the way, Dennis slept and snored through the entire episode last night.


Until later,
Ann and Dennis

PS: I was injecting water into the tube on Saturday night, two days after this post, when it burst wide open. Sunday morning back to the hospital. This time they put a slightly larger one in, so maybe this will help? Time will tell, I guess.