Now With Bonus Port

CW: Medical talk and pictures of my J tube. If you don’t want to see, don’t keep reading. Your Internet experience is tailored by you, and you can choose what to see or not see to make your experience better or worse.

I had to wait a little bit from my last post to get to Radiology, and in the meantime something rather untoward happened: my tube balloon popped all the way out of my body. >.< I had woken up in the morning and just saw it, the little balloon just poking the entire way out of my tummy. Luckily, the tube was still somehow feeding me, and had not popped out the rest of the way yet! I woke up though, because this was pretty uncomfortable, and I put my hand over it and ran to the bathroom so Master Pravus could take a picture of it, so we could send it to the doctor. (Telehealth is nifty sometimes.)

Of course, he wanted me to go to the emergency room, and my experience with emergency room has been less than stellar so we said we would just deflate the balloon and then tape the tube into place. We did, and then we had to wait not really knowing when we would get in to Radiology. ::Sigh::

The next day we got a call back saying they could see us on Friday morning! And also not to worry, anesthesia would be there. Oh, good- we said. No worries, we decided. All is well with the world. Just a couple more days of hanging in there because my tube is on its last legs right now.

Thursday rolls around and guess what? They don’t have the gauge feeding tube I need in stock. That’s nice. >.> They said it would probably be another week. We hung up the phone disgruntled but I mean, not at anyone in particular. Sometimes shit happens. Just had to wait for the right tube to come back from the vendor.

A little while later we got another call from IR telling me they were going to put in a GJ tube, and that they already talked to my doctor about it and it would work the exact same as my current tube. Then they hung up and I sat there kind of nervous. I mean, I would be happy to fix the problem, but I thought you needed another hole in our stomach to make a GJ tube work. So I called back to check. (I wanted to make sure I understood because that would be a lot more invasive and I didn’t want to get a new hole punched in me without warning!) They said nope, don’t worry, no new hole, just come in! Ok. Cool, I said. Sounded like it would be fine.

So we went down and they wouldn’t let Master Pravus in. (Due to COVID. Understandable.) And as soon as he left they told me there was no anesthesiologist “Because you have to book those ahead” (I DID BOOK A WEEK AHEAD OF THIS) but that they were going to do twilight sedation, and I was automatically distressed because, Twilight sedation never works for me, and that’s why we always book an anesthesiologist. ::Sigh:: Why is this always the dance we play? Like. I’m so tired and I just want them to fix this. I don’t want to constantly be laying flat with a bum tube.

But, this was a different state, and a different hospital, and I was kind of between a rock and a hard place. I had no choice but to let them just do it. I mean yeah, I could have left, but if did I wouldn’t get my tube fixed and we were going on literal months as it was.

But you know what? It actually went the way it was supposed to go. Like. They sedated me and if I was even marginally uncomfortable, they just gave me more meds. They would ask me how I was and I would say I was able to tolerate it at this level, and they would be like “You shouldn’t have to tolerate it, that’s why you’re up here!”

O.O

So they kept me pretty comfortable, changed my tube, and then they did let Master Pravus back in to pick me up. But overall it was night and day than dealing with any other hospital before we moved here and I’m really relieved that we moved. I really am. Thank you flying spaghetti monster I am just relieved that things worked out.

So I’m home now, and had to sleep that day off but now I’m slowly getting things back to normal. The ball is rolling on the house, a little on the slow side, but we’re still on target to move into the house for the beginning of February. At least now I don’t need to lay around while Master Pravus does all the house stuff. I can go with him. We’re still not really doing much outside the house because COVID has been through the roof, but if it’s a house matter or something I hate to have to stay here alone while he goes.