Not again Brida!

Brida has made it very clear that she doesn't like her feeding tube.  Last night as we were getting her ready for bed she pulled out her NJ tube for the second time.  Erin and I called the on-call high-risk nurse to see if she can call in the orders to the ER for a new tube placement.  She wasn't able to get the orders in after hours, but she directed us to the more local branch of the hospital in Riverton and said the ER department can write the orders and have it placed.  This was to save us time from having to drive the extra 20 minutes to Primary Children's in SLC.

We drove over to the Riverton Hospital and they registered us and checked us in.  After waiting 10 minutes, a nurse called us in and checked her vital signs, took her weight, and checked her out.  We were then escorted to another room where we waited another 5-10 minutes until a doctor came in to talk to us.  He then informed us that they couldn't help us there because their radiology staff left for the day.  After waiting another 10 minutes for release papers, we were on our way to Primary Children's ER.  I was a bit frustrated at this point since there were several opportunities in the communication chain where they could have told us they couldn't help us and limit how much time we wasted there.

At Primary Children's, they checked us in pretty quickly and we were able to head directly to radiology.  While we were waiting for the radiologist, I talked to the rad. tech about C-arms (the type of x-ray medical equipment my workplace develops).  I learned some things about their product preferences.

Brida had a tough time with this new tube placement.  The Radiologist had some difficulty getting the tip of the catheter in the jejunum, so it took longer than the other placements.  The whole process took about 20 minutes.  For some reason, the radiologist decided to put in a smaller catheter than the previous tube (from 8 Fr to 5 Fr*).

We eventually made it home around midnight.  Brida was wide-awake when we got home, but she eventually went to sleep and slept through the night.

Brida also had her first pediatrician appointment on Monday.  That went well.  She continues to gain weight every day:

   7/19: 3.77 kg
   7/20: 3.775 kg
   7/21: 3.79 kg
   7/22: 3.845 kg
   7/23: 3.935 kg
   7/24: 4.030 kg

(*Note: Fr stands for French units.  It is the standard unit for catheter diameter measurements.  1 Fr = 1/3mm.)