My Baby Lost His Button!

Dominic, in many ways, is just a regular little (yet slightly delayed) sweet boy. We are constantly going to PT/OT/SLP appointments, with the occasional peds, cardio, gastronomy, or neurology thrown in there... so... I guess he's still a pretty complicated little guy, but generally we come out with smiles and positive feedback whenever we go to appointments these days.

Now that things are not so big and intimidating (no surgeries in the books in the near future!), little things seem to be bigger deals again. Our newest update is that Dominic has officially gotten rid of his feeding tube (otherwise known as a G-button)!

Last picture with his button. So long and thanks for all the help you gave us!
(Also a little glimpse of his weird ass belly button. This is what it looks like after a hernia repair before he grows in to all that extra skin!)

He got it put in during the same surgery as his cleft lip repair last May in order to stop him from having his NG tube (the one that went through his nose and was taped to his cheek). We were told if he didn't use it for 6 months, and it was within a year of getting it put in we could get it removed without surgery. So Dominic and I have been doing everything we can to not use it. He has been eating like a champ since last November (just before we went to Edmonton for his cardiac cath procedure), which put us on target to get it removed this month. With only the slight hiccup of his oral aversion after his palate surgery, he has eaten his full feeds without use of the tube for a long time. So when we got booked for this appointment, I was ready to push to get it taken out. I wasn't sure if it was so simple that we could do it at this appointment, but if it wasn't that simple I was going to push to get an appointment made to make it happen.

I didn't really need to push as hard as I expected at the appointment. The Gastronomy nurse and I were really on the same page. Since we had already talked about my plan when I was considering using it to get Dom out of the hospital back in January (which she OKed and got us home), things went exactly according to plan. Her only concern was if Dominic were to get ill and go off food how we would keep him hydrated. This seemed like a pretty weak argument to me. I mean, other kids get sick and get dehydrated and it's not rocket science what you do... you take them to the hospital if it gets bad enough. Seemed like a silly "what if..." scenario to try to get me to keep it. But I won anyway. It's gone! My baby is completely line free!

Good work my little man! You are getting stronger every day!