Tube Free!

As of this morning, Janie no longer has a feeding tube of any sort! We're certainly grateful for the lifesaving help her feeding tubes have provided and now we're thankful they are no more. As we've shared before, we have not used her feeding tube for nutritional purposes in more than 6 months, so it had become unnecessary. The medicine we'd been running through the tube can be done orally.

We need for the hole to heal up naturally over the next week so that another procedure isn't necessary in order to seal her stomach/skin.

I'm not going to suggest that we've lived in constant fear of needing to make an unexpected trip to the ER to have her tube fixed/replaced as we did 4x when her feeding tube was in her nose. (The fact it's been in for 6+ months without a hiccup is remarkable.) However, we've grown accustom to feeling her belly each time we pick up her up in the morning to make sure it's in place. We've been careful when we hold her and ask others to watch where they place their hands. Janie has rarely worn shirts that could allow her fingers unabated access to the tube. When we've left her with a babysitter, family member or friend, the concern that it come out on their watch has been top-of-mind (not that it would have been their fault). For the first time, Jensen can squeeze Janie where ever she wants to! Janie can now crawl over an obstacle without a nervous thought that she's going to snag her tube and dislocate it. Therefore, having this out is a breath of fresh air for all of us and a significant step down the road of greater independence. Oddly, we got this same breath of fresh air 13.5 months ago when Janie first got a feeding tube. At the time, we got relief from the round-the-clock force-feeding we were attempting. It's amazing the difference a year can make!!