Thursday, March 18, 2010

The NG tube... from hell



Since being pregnant, I have LOST 38 pounds. This is great to take off some weight, but unfortunately, I am starving me and my little baby. Kidney, liver, and pancreatic failure starts to happen and well - the end is not life. The 38 pounds was lost in a little over 2 months when I should have been GAINING weight. The reason for all of this loss? Severe Hyper-Emesis. In other words, I barf, barf, barf all day. We're not talking about stomach flu sick, but throwing up bile which I don't recommend. However, being an expert on the puke, it's a lot better than dry heaving.
So, doctor doctor what do we do? A feeding tube! Yes, that's right. All of the nutrition is in a bag that is fed in a tube that is put into my nose, goes in the back of my throat and ends up in my small intestine. In theory, the "food" misses the stomach and won't cause vomit. HA.
Now, I can't put into words the absolute pain that occurs when the tube is shoved up your nose and down your throat. I won't even try.
A few days after the food tube was placed, I asked to take a shower. The nurse happily obliged (I looked/smelled/felt uhhhh.... not humanly). We unhooked the tube and I sat on the hospital shower floor with warm wet towels while Mom washed my hair. It felt SO good to have water cleanse me. I felt so refreshed. Tired from the movement, but alive. Mom and Daddy had bought new PJ's for me and I climbed in them, paged Julie (RN) to come hook me back up to my feed bag. I'm being hooked up, the pump started and.... nothing. Despair. The tube that had food in it still had turned into concrete. LITERALLY. She tried flushing with saline for 15 minutes. No budge. This means that the line has to come out and be re-inserted. Tears. It wasn't Julie's fault for not knowing to flush the line before I was unhooked. I'm in the antepartum dept. of the hospital, not ICU. I'm not aneorexic or bulimic, I'm pregnant. Julie panics and pages ICU. A few minutes later, a chubby nurse comes up to look at the scenario. "You're screwed." No!!! Please, find someone that has experience with clots and clogs of cement in a tube and send them to me! A few more minutes later, my knights in shining armor appear... with a coke can. They are going to insert coke into the line and see if the coke will break down the cement. Now mind you, this is just coke, what you drink. It is going to dissolve cement... and lo and behold, it does! Tears of joy! The feeding tube has been saved! I'm so ecstatic, I want to kiss the ICU knights. They leave and I'm left saying thanks to the Lord.
Well, the Lord works in very VERY mysterious ways. Not 10 minutes later, I start to vomit vigorously. The feeding tube.... comes up in my mouth. I am choking on the feeding tube. Julie quickly pulls the tube out of my nose. It's over. The feeding tube is not going to work for me and my child. Back to square one.

1 comment:

Bekah Jennings said...

Oh Di! What a bummer. Have to tell you though: tonight Avery said family prayer. After we all left the room she called us all back and said, "I forgot Aunt Didi!" Madeleine, hearing this, said "Didi!" and then Avery said another family prayer, starting with "Please bless Aunt Didi."