Moving Forward with the G-Tube

After closely evaluating the William and John-Raven, the speech therapists at Our Children's Hospital have officially recommended G-tubes for long-term feeding purposes. They feel there are too many risks involved in trying to give the boys the nutrition they need by mouth at this time. We have decided to go ahead with the procedure, which will likely happen early next week in Dallas at Our Children's Hospital since the boys are already admitted there.

In just the week since they've been at OCH, the boys have already gained weight because of the feeding process in the hospital: We feed them for half an hour, and whatever's left, we gavage through the NG-tube. In fact, they've gained more weight in the week since they were admitted than they have in recent months.

But an NG-tube is temporary (through the nose), whereas a G-tube is long term (directly through the stomach). Seeing their gains in the last week, we know they'll have good growth once the G-tube is in place.

We knew the G-tube was a strong possibility. I think that, more than anything else, we weren't so much bothered by the idea of the boys getting feeding tubes as by needing feeding tubes. Like any parent, we want their development to be in the positive direction, and needing a G-tube felt like a step back.

But we've done what we can. We are confident that eventually, we'll get the boys' feeding back on track and off of the G-tube. Doing so will be a long-term process, of course, and in the meantime, they'll get the nutrition they need safely and efficiently to power their little brains and bodies and to give them more time and energy to play and put that nutrition to use. I imagine we'll soon see the G-tube not as a step backward, but as an important tool to help us move forward.