Thursday, November 5, 2009

Microvasive Button

We got to come home yesterday shortly after lunch and all is going well so far. We gave Anna a bolus feed yesterday afternoon and then ran her on the pump throughout the night. She woke up once asking for a bottle and once with pain. She drank about 3 ounces when wanting the bottle and then we gave her Tylenol for pain and she did fine with those solutions. I expected her to be hungry because she had not had anything by mouth in almost 2 days. She had Cheetos for breakfast today (her choice) and ate some jello for lunch. I just gave her another bolus feed since she didn't take much lunch. She is already getting used to it and just laid on the couch and let me feed her. For the past month or two that we have been toying with the idea of the tube I had googled a million things about the tube and never really found the specifics of what I was looking for. I am going to try to provide some of that information here so that maybe the next person who ends up where we are will have a place to go and have some answers to their questions. Anna's Gbutton is called the Microvasive and it is manufactured by Boston Scientific. It is small and feels like it is made of silicone (not sure about this though). Here is a picture of it..

I had just given her a bolus before this picture and LOVE that her belly looks so full!! So anyway, to fed her you just open up the little flap and hook the feeding set to it.




The little blue piece just plugs into the hole in the button. We taped the tubing to her stomach last night just to prevent it from pulling. The button has come open without us knowing it a few times for whatever reason (I think the car seat has something to do with it) but the button has some type of one way way valve so things will not leak out unless we use the tube that is to vent the gas out. We haven't had to use that yet though. So even if it comes open it will not leak which is nice. The pump is tiny and comes with a little backpack that the pump and food bag fit in it and we just hang it up on the wall by the bed. The blackberry by the pump is just for size reference, it really is a much smaller pump than I expected.

Thank you again for your continued prayers. We have been blessed beyond measure!

3 comments:

  1. Hi. I saw your comment that you left on Better Than Normal's blog, about your daughter getting her feeding tube 2 days ago!
    Welcome to the world of tube feeds.
    Just wanted to let you know that
    www.parent-2-parent.com
    is a wonderful resource online for tube feeding families.

    Nice to "meet" you.
    Amy

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  2. Thanks for the detailed info!! I'm so glad it all went well and Anna is home. Does she bother with it at all? I think Katie would be pulling at it all the time.

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  3. To my surprise, she is not messing with the button at all. If you ask her where her button is she will raise her shirt up and show you. Otherwise she leaves it alone. I was expecting to have to keep onesies on her to keep her from messing with it but I have not had to.

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