‘Normal’ for a day

Last weekend we went to our first Julia’s House family BBQ. We weren’t sure what to expect but we knew it would be a good experience for us.

Being honest, truly honest, at first it was a bit daunting. We had never seen so many wheelchairs or special buggies in one place at a time. There was a fantastic turn-out and the place was full of children with all manner of additional needs/medical problems/disabilities etc.

But that feeling literally only lasted a few minutes and as we looked around, we saw what seemed like every other family with a feed pump or some kind of equipment attached to their wheelchair. We smiled to each other and my husband said: ‘at last we are normal!’.

No one batted an eyelid at us. No one stared. No one wondered. No one stood looking awkwardly at Samuel wondering if perhaps something wasn’t quite right. No one patronised us, felt sorry for us, told us how brave we were or asked awkward questions. Everyone just got on enjoying themselves (and trying to keep track of the more mobile children!).

I’m starting to get to know more Mum’s from Julia’s House so of course it was wonderful to see them and have a good old natter about all the things that are part of our everyday life – gastrostomy buttons, therapists, seizures, ketogenic diet and so on.

It was also lovely to see the carers and nurses there too, who all took the time to come around and chat with the families and children. Quite often I’d look up to see one of Sam’s carers or nurses holding his hand and chatting to him.

There were fun activities for all the children and their siblings – bouncy castle, craft tent, music, a pet corner (I believe a snake was available for ‘cuddles’), play sessions with the Play Maker, face painting, BBQ, ice cream and to end the day there was an amazing (and brave) fire display.

This wasn’t a fundraising event for Julia’s House. They organise this every year for families to get together and just enjoy themselves and enjoy being part of a very special community. I think Samuel, his Dad and I fell in love with Julia’s House all over again that day.

James is the cousin of Sam’s Dad and is climbing Kilimanjaro to raise money for Julia’s House to help them continue all the wonderful things they do. If you’d like to support Julia’s House and what they do for children like Samuel and families like ours. You can sponsor James at: justgiving.com/James-Day1

To find out more about the wonderful work Julia’s House does watch this video.

Meal times

A friend of Samuel’s, Little H (his mum blogs at Little Mamma Said), will be having his gastrostomy operation tomorrow and it got me thinking about when Samuel had his operation and was finally able to get rid of the NG tube.

Samuel has never taken food orally. On his first day of life we were in postnatal with the scarily enthusiastic midwives thrusting him on my breast every five minutes. Samuel wasn’t having any of it. Literally. He would either get agitated and upset or go to sleep. Then on his second day of life we found ourselves in NICU. The (male) Consultants (who were lovely I must add) would say, ‘lets try him on the breast today’. We’d try but have the usual result. Sleep or agitated and crying. But then as days passed and they realised that his seizures were more serious than they’d thought, they started to sedate him more and I was just left to express milk.

As time went on Samuel continued to be sedated so breast-feeding, any kind of feeding other than NG tube feeding, was a no no. He was finally brought out of sedation and I started to ask about whether we could try oral feeding again. Problem was, by this time they needed the Speech and Language Therapist to come over and assess him before they gave him anything orally. But she was the only person in that role and she worked part-time. So we had to wait several days for her to come over and when she did, more often than not, Sam was sleeping, having a seizure or just not performing with his dummy.

The ridiculous thing is on his notes it says something like that he has a poor swallow. But that is simply not the case. Samuel has never once needed suction because of a poor swallow and excess saliva. He has always swallowed his saliva. He only dribbles very occasionally when he is teething or had a big seizure.

But we carried on feeding him via his NG tube and was delighted when in June last year (2011) he had an operation to have a gastrostomy button put in. It was the first operation he had ever had and he was absolutely miserable when he came around from the anesthetic. He was very sore and uncomfortable and he was having increased seizure activity, so our old friend Midazolam did make an appearance. I was also nervous about picking up him to cuddle him as I was so afraid of knocking his new button. But within a few days I was much more confident and before long he was back to having lots of tummy time.

Having the gastrostomy and getting rid of Samuel’s NG tube had so many benefits. I no longer had to pass a tube up his nose and down his throat which wasn’t pleasant for either Sam or I. The tube would be pulled out accidentally a number of times. The tape we had to use to stick the tube to the side of his face, would really aggravate his skin and he would always have a big sore red patch on his face when I’d removed the tape. We also of course got looks and questions too when out in public (by strangers). We were often asked how premature he was (he wasn’t, he was born full-term).

All medicines are given via syringe through Sam’s gastrostomy button on his tummy

Having the gastrostomy button now meant we could feed Samuel by a pump which was fantastic. I hated bolus feeding. With bolus feeding, you fill a syringe with feed or water, connect it to the NG tube and gravity takes the liquid down through the tube. However, hold the syringe too high and the fluid goes down too fas. If he gets agitated, cries, has a seizure, the fluid comes all the way back up the tube and syringe. I wasn’t very good at it!

We noticed quite early on that it was much easier to discreetly feed him when out in public (The pump is really simple to use and we have a specially designed bag that we can put the pump and feed in to take out and about and we use it everywhere!). We’d just hook him up to the pump and it takes care of itself. We only really get attention when the pump beeps or when we are attaching or removing the tubes.

I’m not sure whether we will ever get Samuel eating orally. I really wish that in the early days of NICU I’d insisted that we tried him with a bottle instead of trying to breast feed him. He may have had a better chance. Although in the past we have tried him with tasters, it has only been very tiny amounts of food and has been more for sensory than anything else. I’m hoping that once things are more settled with his new diet we can start the sensory tasters again. I’d love him to have that experience in his mouth. When we have to give him Calpol I always give him the syringe afterwards to suck and he does seem to like it. Perhaps because of his global development delay, he may never get the coordination right or not instinctively know what to do, but I’d like us to give it a good try.

This post has been included in the the #definenormal blogging challenge. Pop over to Just Bring The Chocolate to find out more and read other #definenormal posts.

Day in the life

Well there is no such thing really as a typical day for us. Sam makes up his own rules as he goes along – no two days are ever the same. But we do have to have a rough routine for his medicines so I guess that does keep us organised. This is how we roll:

• 8am – Turn off the pump feed & flush through with sterilised water.
• 9am – Give Samuel his medicines with flushes of water in between – Topiramate, Vigabatrin and Clobazam.
• 11.15am – Give Samuel his reflux medicine (this is a new thing and I’ll talk about this more another time).
• Noon – Sam starts his pump feed of good old Pepti Junior. After the feed we flush him through with water.
• 3pm – Sam starts his pump feed of good old Pepti Junior with a sachet of baby Gaviscon mixed in. After the feed we flush him through with water.
• 6pm – Sam starts his pump feed of good old Pepti Junior with a sachet of baby Gaviscon mixed in. After the feed we flush him through with water.
• 9pm – Give Samuel his medicines with flushes of water in between – Topiramate, Vigabatrin and Clobazam.
• 10pm – Give Samuel his bedtime medicine Chloral Hydrate which helps him sleep and flush with water.
• 10.10pm – Start his overnight pump feed (500ml to run over 10 hours).

This is of course a bog standard day for us. This doesn’t include if Sam has had a bad seizure

Infinity Pump bag

and we’ve had to give him some Midazolam. We medicate if his seizure has been going on for 10 minutes or if he’s clustered and had four/five in 30 minutes. Midazolam is squirted into the cheek and then you rub the cheek to make sure it is absorbed.

Also this doesn’t include if we’ve given him Calpol etc. It still feels strange when we give him a ‘normal’ medicine as we are so used to it being prescription only and doses tightly controlled.

In addition to this I have to do regular care of his gastrostomy button. Turn it every day and give the skin area around the button a good wipe. I also have to replace the water in the button once a week.

Sam’s pump is very portable, we have a nifty rucksack to take it in so he can have a feed anywhere – the boy has eaten in restaurants, cafes, shopping centres, parks and the car.

So there you go. That’s how we roll in our world. Updated to be included as part of the BlogHop #definenormal. Pop over to Just Bring the Chocolate to find out more.

New set of wheels

We picked up Sam’s new buggy on Friday, a new ‘special’ buggy. The Occupational Therapist wasn’t happy with how unsuported he was in his old one – we use to have to put in rolled up towels to try and improve his positioning – and he was growing out of it fast.

I think husband and I both felt a bit hesistant at first about it, as yes it does look a bit ‘special needs’ but that lasted about 5 minutes once we saw him in it and how well supported he is.

We took the new buggy out at the weekend but did make the mistake of picking a day when the German market was in town and it was absolutely heaving with people. I did feel extra protective of him as he seems much more exposed in his new buggy and people seemed to be walking really close to us. But we then went for a picnic in the park and set up Sam’s gastrostomy pump and we all ate al fresco. People walked past us and I did notice them looking at Samuel, but they didn’t stare in that awful way, but instead titled their head to one side and smiled. That’s Samuel’s magic, he can touch anyone’s heart.