A few days before surgery Casey met with a surgeon to discuss her G Tube. It had been leaking so much and the site didn’t want to heal. The surgeon does not want to rush to have the G Tube redone. That’s a major surgery for anyone. Then when you add Casey’s pulmonary issues it is a really huge surgery. We did not want to rush into it either. There are a few other low profile tubes that fit different. Casey was using a Mic-key from the beginning. The surgeon suggested we try a Mini. The way the balloon fits inside the stomach is supposed to help reduce leaking. If the Mini doesn’t work then there is another one, but I don’t remember it’s name.
The Mini is new and not many people carry it yet. We found a place local that could special order it for us. It came in yesterday. The surgeon suggested that the night before we switch it out to take out her Mic-Key and leave it out over night. This would help the site tighten up a little. Then in the morning put in the Mini. That sounded easy enough.
Casey finished up her food for the day around 11:30 last night. About 1:30 I took out the Mic-Key. I wanted to give her food time to digest so it didn’t just spill out everywhere when I pulled it out. Around 7 this morning I got her all cleaned up and put in the Mini. The water balloon port was really hard to get the syringe into. I thought I had it, pushed the water, and ended up just pushing the water onto the bed. I had to really cram it in there and hold it tight to get the balloon to fill. The Mic-key I could do in my sleep. The tips and ports fit so easy and perfectly. After we finally got the Mini on and the balloon filled Tim took Casey to start her breakfast. The extension (a plug that we put into the GTube that allows us to connect feeds, medicine, etc) was impossible to get into place. We had to really cram it in as well and hold it while we twisted it to lock in place. I really hope after a day or so of use that the port connection get easier to use.
Once we finally did get everything in it does seem to work okay. Casey had some leaking this morning. We will have to just watch closely over the next few days to determine if it does what we need it to or not.
