Saturday, January 29, 2011

One for the Road

T minus 4 days until surgery and Jacob decided he needed one more visit to the emergency room before his surgery. 

Luckily, it wasn't for anything major.  On Thursday morning I was doing the usual....drive Elisha to seminary, come home, and if Nathan is extraordinarily generous (and he usually is - the sweetheart!) he will take care of Courtney while I get and extra 1/2 hour's sleep.  Then the a.m. frenzy of feeding the kids, getting everyone ready for school and the day, loading everyone into the suburban and getting Nathan to school. 

After dropping Nathan off, I came home and was beginning to clean out the suburban (yes, occasionally I do clean) and heard a little coughing sound from Jacob in his car seat.  I went over to check on him and he was in a full-blown gag-and-vomit fest.  As I hurried to get him out of his car seat he proceeded to vomit about 2 oz. of formula.  Funny thing is, he hasn't been eating anything orally in days, and his feeding tube bypasses his stomach and goes directly into his intestines. 

It didn't take long to figure out that his ND (Nasal Duodenal - ie. goes in through his nose and into is duodenum which is located in his intestine) tube had dislodged and was spilling into his stomach. So, I called the pediatrician's office to let them know his ND Tube had dislodged and to find out if they wanted me to go in that day, or if I could wait until Friday when I would be in for his pre-op. A few hours later one of the nurses called and said that I needed to go in that day.  So, as soon as KC got home, off we went to the emergency room to have Jacob's ND Tube taken care of. 

We went in, they X-Rayed him and guess what? You guessed it.  The Tube was dislodged:
Jacob's tube - just barely in the top of his stomach

They showed us a copy of what his tube had originally looked like in his stomach when they put it in the first time:
By looking at the picture, you could easily tell that the tube had originally gone into his stomach, looped around and then into his intestines.

But the new photo (top) showed a straight shot to the top of his stomach.  All KC and I could ask was, "Where'd the rest of his tube go?".  Come to find out that the ND tube is labeled with numbers so that you can gauge where the tube is in the body.  The first time, the tube at the opening of his nose was at "46".  But, when we brought him into the hospital on Thursday, it was at "22".  Apparently, without us even  noticing it, his tube had been gradually migrating out of his nose over the course of the month and had essentially come out by about 8". 

Luckily, we had a great doctor in the Emergency Room who was able to re-insert his tube right there on the bed in the room - no anesthesia, and only a couple short minutes of crying by Jacob.  Radiology double checked that it was inserted, and then they sent us on our merry way.  We were in and out of the hospital in a lightning-fast 4 hours!!!  And, with no pokes!!! :)

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