Tube is out for good (we hope)

We have been hopping lately and haven't had a ton of time to catch up, but there has been a lot of good, a little bad and some rare but serious ugly the past month or so. We started weaning Grasyon off of his tube after his Halloween visit with Dr. Escobar (what a great treat!). The trick was that as he spent more time off of the pump, the flow rate had to be higher while he was on it and this lead to vomiting whenever his position changed. So, there was spit up or vomit after the first diaper change of the morning, spit up or vomit after swinging or sitting in the high chair for a while and spit up or vomit around bed time. It was very frustrating when Grayson vomited just after a nice bath. However, when the pump wasn't going Grayson discovered hunger and that hunger can be alleviated by eating! So now he really does like to eat!

On the 9th of November, Grayson pulled out his tube again, which created the ugly. The ER staff knows him on sight now and fortunately he pulled it out at daycare about 12:30 so I was able to get him in during the day. Replacing the tube only took 3 hours instead of the usual 6. For the first time, Grayson got a bloody nose as the tube was being replaced (this is part of why I don't put it back in myself). It had stopped by the time I traded off with Tony, but when I got home that night the little guy looked like he'd been in a prize fight. Blood under the tegaderm, blood on his eyelids, blood on his jacket, blood on Tony's shirt. Grayson had rubbed his face on Tony's shoulder as he often does when he's sleepy and the nose bleed had started again. He felt fine, but I couldn't stand looking at my baby with blood on his face. Any mother-toughness I had managed to cultivate was gone until we had changed the tape and cleaned his face. So, that's the ugly.

Last Wednesday the tube came out again. Dr. Escobar had given the OK to try 24 hours off of the pump the day before, so we decided to leave the tube out overnight and see what would happen. My part of this decision was largely influenced by the nose-bleed the week before. Grayson chugged! He didn't necessarily take a lot at one time, but he wanted to eat. So far the tube has been out for almost a week. I'm a bit worried that he might be losing weight and I don't know if we'll be able to leave the tube out, but he's been a pretty happy baby this past week. He's been sleeping without snoring, he's still had some vomiting but he eats right after, and he's having a great time practicing standing up so I'm really hoping that the tube can stay out.