CT Scan and Mic-Key

We had a good day today and all went well with James' sedation, CT Scan and G-tube change. We are happy to say that James is now sporting the "cadillac of g-tubes" (or so we were told) called a Mic-Key. The tube is actually not as flat as we had thought, but regardless it doesn't have the extension on ... no more taping stuff to his tummy.

I must say things went really smoothly today and didn't take a whole lot longer then a regular Mac appointment takes. We arrived at the hospital shortly before 10:30 and left around 1:30, I had expected to stay much longer. These procedures get harder and harder each time as James gets a bit older and wiser. When we arrived we didn't even get to sit in the waiting room and they called us in, all happy that we were early because they were ahead of schedule. We had to go to the same room for set-up as the last time and James stopped dead in his tracks before we even entered the room and there he stood crying and calling for daddy, and saying over and over "all done, all done". So I had to go through all the questions etc with a rather upset, crying little guy who knew full well what was ahead. And when I finally get him settle down a bit they realized that they had their scheduling a bit out of order and say we could go back out to the waiting room ... lovely, now I would have to go through this all again. James quickly relaxed, probably thinking he had escaped the torture session.

When they called us back in they brought us directly to the CT Scan room, but James is no dummy, one look at the bed and all the equipment and he knew there was trouble ahead ... there starts the crying and pointing at the door, calling for daddy and saying "all done, all done" again. We have been told that James will always need to be sedated by IV as he has been diagnosed with reflux and it is safer to do it this way. Whenever sedated he will also be intubated (insertion of a tube into his airway) to keep his airway clear since he may aspirate once his muscles relax. They decided to give him some gas "just to relax him" so they could put the IV in ... or so they said. Well I'm not sure what the difference between relax and sleep is because he looked pretty dead to the world to me by time they took the mask off. I prefer the gas as it is so much faster and I don't have to look into those pitiful eyes that are yelling help for more then half a minutes.

Everything went quickly and smoothly and James woke up for the anesthetic nicely this time ... none of this screaming and crying and crawling out of my arms for a couple hours. He woke up like he had been woken from a nap - grumpy, but responsive, and very shortly after they said we could go. He was miserable and irritable, crying and getting upset at the funniest things, but he was also hungry and asking for food. By 5pm he had passed the "test" of his stomach and we allowed him to eat what he wanted, which happened to be Pringles chips.

Considering the lack of food, the lack of a true nap, and the effects of an anesthetic you would never have guessed anything by the way James was playing after supper time. We seen him rolling around, horseplaying and everything as if nothing had happened today. So it would seem that the yanking out of the old g-tube did not hurt him all too much. He isn't all too pleased the this new object in his stomach, getting upset whenever we look at it or try to feed him and pointing at it like he wants it out ... but he'll adjust.

Hopefully this will be the last of the procedures and tests for a bit. The Mickey g-tube is something that we can change ourselves at home, so James will not need to be sedated again when a new one is needed. They informed us that if this tube falls out we need to get a replacement into him within the hour as within 1-2 hours the hole begins to get smaller and by 24-48 hours it's gone. This means we have to carry a extra Mickey with us at ALL times. So I made sure I got my prescription filled this afternoon (each Mickey is specially measured to fit, so a prescription is needed) so that we are all set.