Goodbye NG, Hello GJ!

First photo out of surgery. 

There is the GJ tube.

Our poor little guy. This will leave another scar on his belly. :/

Caelin's GJ Procedure went well. It was scheduled for 7:30 AM but did not take place until 11:50 AM because the hospital did not have the CORPAK tubing to complete the procedure. Caelin was takem to the 2nd floor at 6:55 AM for the procedure and at 7:40 AM they informed Mommy that they did not have the tubing but were trying to locate some. They said his procedure may need to be delayed until Monday but Mom was not going to allow it. In preparation for this procedure Caelin had been NPO since midnight, had to get a new IV for the fluids he needs to keep him hydrated, and did not get his extremely important anticoagulant, Lovenox. We did what we needed to do, so Mom told them that they needed to do what they should have already done- get everything they need for the procedure. (If there was one thing I could recommend to improve about All Children's Hospital, it would be their communication. There have been more than several instances where the communication broke down and poor decisions were made, i.e. Upper GI track with tube ND, wrong time schedule for Bronchoscopy given to anesthesiologist, times of medications, written orders, etc. Regardless of the frustrations we have experienced with their poor communication skills, we are eternally inexpressibly grateful for their knowledge, advocacy, and dedication to Cael.)


At 9:45 they still had not located one but were waiting to hear back from another hospital. So during rounds Mom explicitly said a decision needed to be made. She made it clear that if they could not do the GJ tube then she wanted him to get a G tube because he was not going to wait until Monday for the hospital's mistake. Since the doctors preferred for  Cael to get a GJ tube because of risk of aspiration with his vomiting, the doctors took it upon themselves to contact GI to make the GJ tube happen... and it worked. Thirty minutes later a lady from GI came to tell us that he was scheduled for 11:30 AM. ... So everyone is satisfied. Although his GJ site is painful and agitating now, hopefully Cael is happy having that darn tube out of his nose!


Cael did excellent during the procedure and had no complications, as I was told. Thankfully he did not have to be intubated and has been breathing well on room air. Also, he has had no desaturations. So far he has had two doses of Morphine and one dose of Tylenol. I suspect he will get at least one more dose of each throughout the night to keep him comfortable because he has the shunt. As long as the sight looks good tomorrow, they will start feeds at a slow rate. Over the next couple days they will opefully be able to get Caelin back to full feeds.