Baby Christina's Recent Surgeries: Eyes & G-tube

About a month ago Christina had her right eye sutured closed to allow the cornea to heal. Her right eye had been damaged due to glaucoma that enlarged her already large eye. Also the damage was increased by dryness and getting scratched because she cannot close that eye and it bulges out of her eye socket. These stitches have since come out and the cornea has healed with some scarring. Her doctor wants to more permanently keep that eye closed to prevent further damage but because of her most recent g-tube (gastrostomy tube) surgery that didn't go well any further eye surgeries are going to be postponed until she gets bigger and more stable. 

A week before Christmas Christina had surgery to insert the g-tube to aid in feeding to help her gain weight. We put off having a feeding tube until it was her last option. She continued to lose weight over a period of a couple weeks and after trying all sorts of methods to increase her food intake she was then categorized as "failure to thrive" and went in for surgery. The surgery its self went well with no issues, but when they tried to wake her up from anesthesia she went into respiratory arrest and had to be re-sedated and re-intubated to make her breathe and she was sent to the pediatric ICU.

Within 12 hours she was doing better and she was put on oxygen.

Her room overlooked where the helicopters land at the trauma center for the hospital! It was pretty cool to see them come and go all day. Too bad James wasn't allow in the PICU to see it!

After a couple days in the ICU she was stable and off oxygen and sent to the normal pediatric floor of the hospital. At this point I was pulling my hair out trying to get the doctors to let her come home! It felt like the NICU all over again! They seemed terrified of her with all of her conditions and issues which I think forced them to observe her for so long but at the same time I think they were happy she had a competent mother that wanted to care for her at home without all their "help"! But she did get to come home on Christmas Eve and everyone was much happier to have sweet baby girl home!

Here she is with the feeding tube setup. As she gets older she won't have this strange contraption but for the first couple months this is the "official" way to use it. They actually just use a rubber band and a paperclip and hang it on a string. It is so makeshift and I still cannot believe that this is how they do this and of course it comes apart and makes a mess! You would think there is a market for this to invent something better! But basically you just pour into that tube the food she doesn't intake orally. And I'm serious about inventing something more effective for the feeding! Okay enough of my rant! 

But we are adjusting to the feeding tube. It is not my favorite thing in the world and it seems to make Christina more fussy than she was before, but I realize it was necessary. She has put on some weight since the surgery but still not nearly as much as the doctors want, but I feel that this may always be the case for her!