G-tube drama

My baby has a G-tube. In many ways it has has been a blessing.  Henry has finally started to put on weight and is growing again.  His lungs now sound clearer than ever and that is a huge relief after months of coughing, congestion and wheezing.  The challenge now is, as a eleven-month-old boy, he is starting to crawl everywhere and is pulling up on furniture.  The feeds he gets throughout the day run over an hour; so every three hours I have to hang a new bag. He has an hour on the pump for his feed and then about two-half-hours off.  It makes for an interesting day. 

The other day he was crawling around and the tubing became disconnected.   He turned the corner down the hallway and I was following a trail of milk that was seeping out of his body!  It's hard for him to be mobile since I have to push the pump around with him all day long as he crawls around the house.  As you can imagine this also makes it hard for me to get much of anything done.  The day consists doing small spurts of quick mini-chores while attempting to avoid impending disaster. 

It goes something like this: Put Henry in his bouncy seat.  Start to empty dishwasher.  Henry starts crying. Stop what I am doing and put Henry on the floor.  Start to empty dishwasher.  Henry starts crawling away.  Push the pump towards him.  Take out a dish.  Push the pump closer.  Take out a spoon.  The tubing is stretching.  One more fork.  The tubing is stretching more.  Just put away a cup. QUICKLY!  AHH! The tubing is disconnected! Henry is off down the hallway.  Milk is leaking!  Catch Henry.  Reconnect tubing.  Carry Henry and the pump back to the kitchen.  Give Henry something to play with.  Hurry and clean up the spilled milk trail. Run back to Henry. Push the pump closer to him. Now hurry and empty the dishwasher.  Yeah right! Repeat everything all over again.

So, at that rate it takes about three hours to empty the dishwasher!  Ahh!

It's also hard to go anywhere because I have to feed him so often and it's not easy to take four kids and a feeding pump to the bounce house or the zoo for that matter!   So for those of you who come to visit me--THANK YOU SO MUCH!  And for those of you who are yet to visit me, you have fair warning--my house will not be clean, my laundry will not be done, BUT the dishwasher will be partly empty!