This morning we started Ellie on food again to see how well her gut has recovered and whether it can tolerate some food, which would be a great sign for her progress. At about 11 AM our stellar nurse, Carol, hooked up a tube to Ellies G-tube and fed a tiny bit of breast milk (1 ml/hr is just a very slow drip) directly into her belly.
Since gas has been a problem for Ellie that we think has caused her to regurgitate the food that has gone into her stomach in the past we attached a new feeding apparatus to her G-tube, called a Farrell Bag. This allows the food to go into her stomach but, in theory, any gas will be allowed to vent out in the process.
Unfortunately, what we ended up with was a whole lot of food in the tube, the gas stuck behind it and no way for the gas to effectively get out or the food to get in. The physics that make a siphon work were in effect and we got a stale mate for most of the day.
At 6:30 tonight the food that had reached her belly was not agreeing with her and showed that she was still not ready for food. she burped up a bit of the milk with some gas and we got the word from the doctors to stop her feeding for the night.
Another failure of Gut Girl's parts, but no to fear. The doctor told us more or less to expect this and that it was not of great concern to him if it worked or not but was worth seeing if the open tube in her gut was ready.
We will give her a day or so and try again. Apparently even if the milk doesn't go down the tube all the way it is still good for her to have it there for a while and bath her stomach and some of her intestine with milk.
So we wait and try again in a day or so.
SSDD.
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