Still Here (or, Button, Button, Who's Got the Button?)

Sorry; I had to leave for work today, and didn't have a chance to update till now. Discharge was postponed till tomorrow, to wait to see how the chest x-ray and labs look.

Dr. H. came in while I was out, and put in the cool new g-button, though. I cannot wait to see what a difference it makes in the skin on her tummy. I'm with Jessica; I hate the Mic-Key®!

She got this button. It's called the Mini One, and has the best features of a Bard® button (low profile, has anti-reflux valve, has the silicone anchoring plug) and the Mic-Key® (the feeding tube locks in place), all rolled into one. SOMEONE apparently knows how to listen to parents! In one fell swoop, Dr. H's description of this button dismissed all my reservations about making the switch. And I was asking about putting real foods in through this button ('cause Dr. H isn't all issue-laden about things like that), and he said, no problem. And then I read this in the Caregiver's Reference Guide: A gastrostomy tube is a convenient, comfortable and
effective means for delivering nutritional formulas to the body. These formulas are either commercially available or homemade using a food processor. This is in reference to feeding through a g-button, guys. Cause we know some people have the thought that this wouldn't be OK.

And also on the website, it says this button is compatible with the Mic-Key® feedsets! We won't even have to figure out which supply company will get extension tubes for us! I can hear the sound of the crowds running out to their pedisurgeons' offices for these things!

Yeah, I know. I sound like a crazy person g-button sales rep. But it's that exciting. Though I guess you gotta have a life that revolves around tube feedings to get that. Wait, no. Dr. B's colleague who was covering today, the inimitable (other) Dr. H was pretty excited about it, too! I distinctly recall him using the phrase, "really cool" when we were talking about it this morning. It's not just me.

Oh, the answer to the question you are thinking of asking: I found the ® on the website, too, and thought it was fun to put to use in this post.


I have to add this addendum. I went to check out the g-button site from the link I put here, and realized that they show one scary-looking contraption, and no one would know from that what the button really looks like! The button is like the drawing on the left side of that page, and not at all like how the blue and white photograph looks. The blue/white bow&arrow contraption at the top of the buttons is actually an applicator that the doctor uses to place the button into an opening that already exists in the tummy of someone who's had a tube. The actual "button" is the smaller portion at the bottom. Here is a side view of Mallorie's new button (the bottom picture). The actual visible portion is the very top, the horizontal part of the "T." To look at her tummy, it sort of looks like she has that little tab that you see on blow-up beach balls. It's see-through, soft silicone, and if you had ever seen her other button up close, you'd notice it's much less obvious. And since Mallorie is preferentially a belly-sleeper, a soft, flexible external portion of a button device is much kinder to the skin of her belly.

I know; way more than you needed or wanted to know. But you have to trust me. The pedisurgeon Dr. H is Mallorie's new hero.