Vomitting Update

Ainsley had virtually stopped vomiting in February when I put her on a homemade pureed food diet. However, she still had a very sensitive gag reflex and we knew that if we fed her more than she could handle she was still likely to vomit. Especially because the vomiting seemed to be cough induced and she coughs a lot because of trach secretions. So even after it stopped we were still living with the fear that at any moment she would. And occasionally she would, every so often, but not 1-3 times a day, like she did for that first 16 months.

After going several months without it being so much of an issue it was horrible to find that it started again the first week of July just as quickly as it had stopped. That week we discovered she had some granulation tissue at the trach stoma under the trach that was causing her a lot of pain. We took her into the ER before the 4th of July weekend to have it removed. But even after she'd healed the vomiting continued. Now that I was not used to her vomiting I could see it was unacceptable. Truly I'm not sure how we lived with it for so long. It's like your child has a the flu but it never goes away. You never know when or where you will be when they vomit so it is constantly on your mind. And unlike for other kids there is a high probability that the vomiting is what is causing Ainsley's airway problem, the swelling. And since most of the vomiting was caused by coughing up secretions we had to jump to suction her the second she needed it which was about 50 times a day, sometimes every few minutes. If we didn't she'd have vomited much more often. Things were further complicated by the fact that she is tube fed and underweight. We could never really get all the fluids in that the dietitian recommended in part due to the reduced stomach capacity and sensitivity from the g-tube. So she was already getting less than she should so every time she'd throw up a feeding it just made the problem that much worse. Now I could see that we were going to have to do something so I started researching and reconsidering a Nissen Fundoplication surgery. Just when I was ready to schedule it, and was waiting on a referral from Cincinnati Children's, it stopped about as suddenly as it started.

I still believe there may be reason to consider the surgery but it's not as urgent.

We've even been able to give her some canned formula and it hasn't come back up. It would be nice not to have to make the puree every day but it does affect the digestion. This morning she was sitting on the bed while Evie and I read and as we finished we noticed she was sitting in a big pile of poo. It's so runny from the formula that it squeezed right out of the diaper all over the quilt. Yuck!