Emergency Foley When a G-Tube Falls Out

Oh my, it has been a week. Dennis and I managed to change out the ruined Mic-Key button with the emergency Foley catheter we had on hand. We learned a few things during the process.

1. People will give you weird looks if you go to a store and buy ace bandages and KY Jelly.
2. The resident on-call will tell you to change the Foley catheter, but omit vital steps that should be contemplated BEFORE the said change takes place.

The Mic-Key button was easy to remove - I tried to pull water out of the balloon and the syringe only returned gastric fluid. We pulled out the Mic-Key and saw why - it wasn't a slow leak, but the entire balloon had ruptured.

The balloon is on the end of the stem above, and you can see how it is split wide open. I think there was an intrinsic weakness to the balloon since I only added the recommended 5ml and it obviously had a catastrophic failure.

Anyhow, here are the important things the resident failed to mention:

1. The Foley has no clamp. Once you insert it, the tube is open and gastric contents are able to flow out. BEFORE you insert the Foley, cut a clamp off one of your extension sets and slide it onto the Foley. We didn't do this ahead of time, but managed to crimp the line with one of our extension-set clamps anyway - it isn't as secure as if it were on the catheter, but it will do for a short period of time.
2. Tape the Foley catheter up the belly. This allows gravity to help keep stomach contents where they belong.
3. Tape the Foley catheter well, so that it can't slide back into the belly. If it isn't taped well, it can slide back into the belly and the balloon can block the pylorus. If this happens, the child may start vomiting.

I found these problems (numbers 1 and 2) as we were doing the change. Fortunately, Dennis was able to take care of Nolan while I ran to the world's best medical advisers: other parents of complex kids. Within seconds, these amazing Parents of the Internet told me how to clamp the Foley and to make sure it was taped up. 

The third bit of critical information came from the nurse this morning. I called the clinic this morning and the nurse called back. We're set for an upper GI study at 8:45am in Rochester on Friday, so we'll go ahead with that study, then head up to the clinic where the nurse can change out the Foley catheter for a Mic-Key button.

In the meantime, we have a Kindergarten and First Grade open house to attend. Nolan is happy and feeling just fine, despite being taped and ace-bandaged to the hilt. His birthday party is on Saturday. On Sunday, we may collapse from exhaustion. 

I am mightily relieved that by this time tomorrow we should have a boy with a nice, secure Mic-key button in place and knowledge that his fundoplication is (hopefully) intact!