Hospital Take Two

Sorry, it's been a few days since I've updated the blog. Between going home and trying to establish some sort of pattern, work, and then returning to the hospital, it;s been a bit tough. But to backtrack a bit, we only lasted 3 days at home. The fun began Wednesday night. We just finished one of Declan's evening feeds when his feeding tube came out. Don't even ask how. We  have an amazing Doctor who came and helped us insert a new tube. A short while later Declan threw up with such force that his tube came out of his mouth.  We were able to put the tube back in. I thought all was well and Thursday morning I was off to work. The day went fairly well, but then Tammy called me just after 5 and let me know he threw up his tube again and the doctors wanted us to return to the hospital for observation and to get his feeding back on track. I rushed straight to the hospital from work and I met Tammy at the ER  Of course like any other ER visit - the process was VERY slow. First we had to wait to get the new tube placed. Then of course we had to get an X-ray to check the feeding tube's placement. Boy was that fun. We were wheeled to the "holding bay" for the x-ray department. All three "bay's" were full so they positioned us against the wall with an insightful view of the poor moaning man in bay 1, the gentleman contending for the worst case of pneumonia in bay 2, and the mystery lady in bay 3. Needless to say, Tammy covered Declan in a sheet in her best effort to protect him from every manner of bacteria and disease. Thankfully, the x-ray technician rescued us with a quick x-ray so we could be admitted to the 7th floor.

Because of the increasingly frequent feeding tube displacements, on Friday the nurses gave us instruction on inserting a new NG tube . We practiced a few times on a small doll before attempting the real thing under the watchful eye of the nurse.  Although practicing on the doll was good for understanding technique, it just isn't that same as trying to feed the floppy, thin tube through Declan's nostril as he gags and thrashes around. But I survived, or should I say, he survived. An x-ray after the fact showed the correct placement of the tube and his feeding was off to the races.

The primary purpose of this hospitalization has been his frequent vomiting. He hasn't thrown up the tube since we arrived but he has continued to throw up, including some odd yellowish bile almost immediately after he had eaten. (But no milk came up, so that was weird.)  They haven't been able to pinpoint anything specifically that might be causing everything. He may just have the tendency to spit up more so than other babies and/or have a type of re-flux. But we will see. We hope to be able to leave tomorrow - assuming no additional episodes. We will keep our fingers crossed.