Mary's G-Tube

The couple first times Mary started throwing up was in December of 2009, we thought it was just some kind of stomach flue or maybe a 24-hour virus so we all dismissed it.  However, the vomiting continued from days to weeks at least three or four times a day. It got to a point that every morning I would find Mary in a pool of vomit dripping from the left side of her bed onto the carpet.  Her hair and pillow would be soaked in vomit and her pajamas and blankets were also soaked. I would have to change the bedding and shampoo the rug and give Mary a bed bath because the vomit ran everywhere.

“Mary, if you wanted a bed bath all you had to do is ask me Mamas.” I’d joked.
"I'm sorry,"  Mary mouthed.
"Sorry?  What do you have to be sorry for?  It's okay Mamas, I'll just clean you up in no time,"

             It was the look on Mary’s frighten look on her face  that broke my heart.
However, I kept on smiling  and I started to clean her up and by the end Mary eventually would have a smile on her face then she would try to bow me a kiss.

Since Mary lost her ability to speak, she was not able to call for help when she needed it.   It was very frustrating for the both of us.  For Mary, not being able to call for help when you need it must have been so difficult for her. For myself, I could not stand the thought of my sister lying in a pool of her own vomit and I was always worried about Mary choking on her vomit and of finding my sister dead.  Mary wasn’t able to sleep flat on her back in her hospital bed because of the vomiting so from that time on she was always in an up right position.   Any time I would leave her bedroom I would ask her,

         “What do you do if you start to vomit Mary?”

                    Mary would just turn her head to the left and smile.

       “That’s right Mamas!  Turn you head to the left so you don’t choke in case you start to vomit, good job!"           

 Sometimes, during the day, as I would be watching I Love Lucy with Mary in her bedroom and she would start to cough and start choking, I would grab a small trash can with a liner and place it under Mary’s chin and lean her head towards the trash can. If I was quick enough to catch the vomit in the trash can, I would just have to replace the trash can linier, wiped her face with a warm wash cloth, kiss her cheek so she wouldn’t feel so scared.   There were times that I wasn’t able to reach for the trash can and vomit would spill everywhere.   At night I would cover the carpet with liners, her pillow was also covered with liners and a small trash was aligned under the left side of her bed.  I was trying to minimize any future clean up so Mary wouldn’t feel so shaken when she would vomit.

         What was so strange about Mary’s vomiting was the food the she threw up never seemed to get to her stomach. It never had a vomit smell, which meant there was no stomach acid mixed with her vomit.  It looked like if Mary had just eaten and the food was never broke down.  We tried at first chopping her food to small bites so she would be able to chew her food thoroughly.  Then we tried to mince her food and then we puréed it.   Then we stated to give her a dietary supplement shake but she vomited it too. At times Mary would vomit about an hour after she ate and sometime it would take up to six hours after a meal and Mary would vomit everything up.   Nothing seemed worked, Mary continued to vomit and her food. 

So we made an appointment with Mary’s primary doctor the first week the vomiting started because we were concerned about dehydration and Mary not being able to retain any kind of nutrition.  Her primary doctor, neurologist, GI specialist could not find any reason why Mary was vomiting so much.  She had an upper GI done and nothing was found.  The neurologist told us that “this is not typical MS symptom” so no solution was given.

The feelings of helplessness and frustration started to set on our family because we just wanted to know why, why was Mary vomiting and how do we stop it.

At the end, a feeding tube was given to us as an option for getting some kind of nutrition in Mary. 

“There is no guarantee that this will stop the vomiting but we have not other choice in trying to get Mary the nutrition she needs along with fighting dehydration,’ said Mary’s GI doctor.

At first we were hesitant about the whole idea of a feed tube or as it is also called Upper GI Tube or G-Tube.  It really scared all of us; jus the thought of a tube coming out of Mary’s body was unimaginable but slowly became a reality. 

We knew that meant another trip to the hospital and Mary would not be happy about it.  However, we were running out of solutions, we had to let Mary know that was going to happen to her and why the feeding tube was necessary.

I remember my mom starting to cry just on the thought of telling Mary that she was going to have a feeding tube coming out of her stomach.  So the next morning as I got Mary ready for the day I talked to her about it, 

“Hey Mamas, how you doing this morning?” I asked

“Fine,” I as read her lips

“Good to hear. You know I have to take to you about something and I know it’s going to be hard to hear but try to be brave, okay?”

“Okay,”

“You know how you hate to drink the nutrition shake because it taste to nasty, how you like to never have to drink it again but you can still eat all the yummy gelatin and pudding that you love so much?”

Mary just looked at me with a puzzled stare and I took a leap of faith and said,

“Mamas, you are going to need to have a little tub coming out of your stomach so we can give you water and nutrition.  You just have to be in the hospital in the morning and come out the same day.  You will not be there over night; dad and I will be with you and will bring you home when it’s done,” I said and tried to smile.

Mary just looked at me as her eyes filled with tears and just started to cry.  I hugged her and said,

“I’m sorry Mamas, I’m sorry but there isn’t anything else we can do.  The doctor said we could still give you small amounts of food through mouth like pudding, applesauce and gelatins.  It’s just the nasty nutrition shake will be put in your tube so you don’t have to taste it any more.” 

As I looked at Mary’s frighten face my heart just felt so numb with the unknown of what was going to happen to my Mary.

After the tears ended, I assured Mary that everything was going to be okay, that we were going to take care of her and that she is loved.  Mary looked at me with her huge brown eyes as I read her lips say,

         “I know,”

         “I know it’s scary Mamas but you are not alone, you will

never be alone.  Mom, dad and I was with you every step of the way because we love you so much,” I cried.

         “I know,”

On the day my dad and I took Mary to the hospital for the G-tube procedure my cousin came over and stood with my mom.  I am forever grateful for family.  We were there at six in the morning and were out by noon.  We brought Mary home and a nurse came that afternoon to show me how to care for Mary’s G-tube.

Even though Mary had a G-Tube she was at that time able to eat very small amounts of her soft favorite foods. 

The vomiting seemed to taper down but didn’t seem to stop completely.  We felt badly having Mary go through the g-Tube procedure and yet not solving the vomiting issue.  By this time, we were very scared for Mary because we were running out of options.   
At first a feeding pump was used so Mary would get the proper nutrition she needed but she kept vomiting everything up.  We called the doctor and the feeding pump was stopped and Mary had to be fed with a large 60 ml plastic syringe and little by little Mary would be fed by either my dad or I.
Mary would be fed every four hours and about 60 ml at every feeding.  We still gave Mary very small amounts of gelatin or pudding.  Sometime my parents bought a watermelon and I would make watermelon juice.  Mary LOVED watermelon juice, I would feed it to her from a small sponge attached to a thin straw.  I would dip the sponge into the juice and place it into her mouth, then Mary would just suck the sponge dry.  It went on for a couple of months but as Mary's health declined, she had trouble swallowing and would start to chock on the liquid or the dessert; at then end we were not able to feed her anything through her mouth because she lost the ability to swallow.   It was so hard not to give any kind of water or juice through a sponge.  However, when Mary would start to choke on something we gave her it go really scary so we had no other choice but to stop.