Surgery One And Two

We decided to follow the gastroenterology Dr's recommendation  and get Lexi a feeding tube. This can feel like a step backwards for a lot of parents but for us it just felt like the logical next step. I could not continue to exhaust myself trying to give her the nutrition she needed and I could not watch her slowly fail to thrive as she got bigger. We decided to have it done as soon as possible to give her a little recovery time so that she was used to it by the time she had her hip surgery.

The placement surgery went really well. Then came the time for us to be taught how to feed her. Our nurse came in with the proper equipment. She plugged the extension into the G-tube and poured 4 ounces of formula straight into Lexis empty belly. There was a moment of silence from Lexi before she screamed a horrible pain scream and threw it all up. I was very upset when I found out the nurse that was supposed to be teaching us had never actually done it herself. That nurse avoided us the rest of our stay and someone else who knew what they were doing came and showed us what needed to be done.

The feeding tube changed our lives for the better. It was so nice to be able to give Lexi medication through the port rather than her mouth. She has acid reflux (explaining the throwing up several times a day) and her medication was actually staying down consistently to start the healing of her esophagus. I was able to hook her up for a meal to the pump 4 times a day and sometimes even get things done. It freed me up in a huge way to no longer have to give her a bottle every 3 hours round the clock. There were still times she needed to be held through meals but she usually did pretty good during breakfast and sometimes lunch.

It made things a lot easier during her hip surgery recovery as well. That surgery was very difficult because Lexi was in a lot of pain afterwards and confused. They cut into her muscle and broke bones so we knew it was going to be rough but the reality was worse than we anticipated. We also had to share a hospital room with other patients and all the crying kids woke each other and us parents too many times to count in the night. Not to mention the nurses coming to do vitals on each of the kids. I was 6 months pregnant at the time and Daniel could not take time off work because he needed to save it for after I had the baby so he only stayed one night with Lexi and I stayed the other 4. Hospital stays are never fun but it was by far our worst surgery experience. It was our only Shriners surgery and while I am thankful for the service they provide I prefer Emmanuel for comfort of Lexi and parents a hundred times over. Shriners does have better ice cubes though.

The sad thing about orthopedic surgeries is that healing takes a long time and the casting is it's own form of torture. So after a week in the hospital we still had 7 weeks more of body cast. She would continue her recovery at the child center for medically fragile children. Her time there had a huge impact on me and Daniel both.