[tri-med] Re: What do you do - feeding pump broke at night!

Irene,

>Last night her feeding pump broke. After about an hour of fussing
>around, we tried a gravity feed.  However, we really had no clue
>HOW to do a gravity feed...She ended up getting about 1/2 (maybe
>less) of her usual feed...Is there any official way to do this?
>...I think we really need to know what to do in case this happens
>again, or if we have a power outage...We are going to have to bolus
>feed today (and she doesn't do very well with that) so it will be
>very small bolus feeds ALL day long. UGH. Any thoughts or experiences??

I had declined the pump, and usually bolus fed during day time hours,
since Miss P was already 19 when she got her g-tube, and I was
determined to get her eating by mouth again.  But I know me too well,
and feared getting lazy if I had the pump option.  However, I did ONCE
early on attempt a gravity feed during the night, when we got behind in
her bolus schedule one day.

Ditto on the not knowing what I was doing.  You got off easy on this
scenario!!!  After about a half dozen failed attempts with next to
nothing going in, we ended up dumping about 16 oz into her in a matter
of oh say maybe 10 or 15 minutes, which then produced "dumping syndrome".
So we were even further behind in her feeds then if I'd just bolus'd in a
can and left it at that.

The problem with the gravity feed is that every time they move, the flow
amount alters, so you can NEVER REALLY tell what's likely to be going in
at any given time, unless you stand there and watch it, and that defeats
your purpose.  My solution was just to stick with the bolus feeds, and
push the real food issue with her.  But for your purposes you could see
about a back-up generator, or maybe battery packs?  I'd still suggest
working with her on bolus feeds though, cause it COULD be your only
option at times of true emergencies.  But actually, I seriously doubt
we'd even have a dumping problem these days if we had a repeat performance,
because she can suck down one of those cans in under 3 minutes through a
straw now, with no problems.


Fawna, mom to Philina 22yrs (PT6p & Moya Moya Syndrome), &
research coordinator for Tracking Rare Incidence Syndromes
(TRIS) Project http://home.mindspring.com/~fawna33/




                  Building ___ooOOoo__ Rainbows
                       www.trisomyonline.org
                  Families Helping Families On-line

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