Percussion Therapy and G-Tube Excitement

12/26/21, 10p.m., erin and finn

Oops, I never finished that last message from Challis. Let’s see how far I can get tonight…

First, these headlines:

Percussion Therapy! Okay, apparently it’s called Chest Physiotherapy, or Chest PT. But Jon and I have been calling it Chest Percussive Therapy for weeks, and doesn’t “percussion therapy” sound terrifically effective?

In addition to his inhalers and nebulizer, we now give Breeny CPT twice a day. (RTs used to do this in the NICU, but we’re now doing it at home.) It involves a couple little palm cups, a specific order of positions and locations, and bop-bop-bopping around his chest wall for about a half an hour. Sometimes, he thinks it’s funny. Sometimes he finds it so relaxing he zonks out.

But a couple times he has argued convincingly that it would be MUCH BETTER to choose his own position for his body! Or to have a drink of milk (NOW) instead of all the thumping! It’s supposed to be performed a long while after eating to minimize vomiting. Trouble is, Breen gets hungry a long while after eating. And regarding Breeny’s hunger….

G-Tube Excitement: No, not that kind of excitement! THE GOOD KIND!

Breen Richard has been taking all of his meals BY MOUTH for ELEVEN DAYS!!! We have not used his G-Tube for any feeds.

Oh, wait. Sidenote. There was some of the other kind of excitement a couple weeks ago. Perhaps we didn’t type about it? When I went to change his diaper and discovered his G-tube button was not there? YEESH. YES. WELL. Kind of traumatizing.

Fortunately, Jon was home. Fortunately, we had a replacement button we’d been thinking about switching in. Fortunately, his stomach had not closed the hole. (Stomachs do NOT like to have holes, and if nothing is there to hold it open, it will close within hours.)

We don’t know when the button fell out, but we do know that the little balloon that is supposed to hold it inside the stomach wall had leaked. Now he has a new one, but has hardly used it because he’s grown so adept at the bottle.

Breen is 11 months old tomorrow. On Wednesday, it will be one year since my water broke.

Breen is doing ASTOUNDINGLY WELL. He only learned how to eat a couple months ago. We are amazed. Again. And, to be honest, we are in shock. We have been shocked by this life. The events this year have been shocking.

I hold my son, his sister clambers up too. I am stayed.

I have been practicing EMDR with specialists since April. I recognize that I have spent time with loved ones who are near death’s door. I recognize that everyone else kept going through the door. Breen stays.

11:40 p.m. now, little bear cub woke up hungry and wolfed 120ml with his eyes closed. Nora and Jon, they are staying asleep. Now, I am falling asleep.

There’s a nifty comparison out there somewhere- the way Breen’s body quickly patched his back laceration together so he could keep his vitals working.

This is the same way that Jon and Erin and Nora got through the trauma of the NICU. Now, if we let down our guard for a moment, the emotional laceration calls out for finer repair. For plastics.

I’m falling asleep. I fell asleep.