Don't Believe Everything the Doctors Tell You!

I've always been the type of person who trusted what the physicians said and I would always comply we their recommendations until I had my son Jaden. After they gave my son too much anesthesia and coded him he had cerebral palsy (lack of oxygen to the brain, before, during or after birth). They told me he would never walk or talk. I refused to believe them. They refused to feed him out of a bottle for fear he would aspirate.  They gave him a suck swallow test and said he failed but when they performed the test, they left the feeding tube down his throat. Now come on people, thats like us trying to swallow with a hose in our throat. Of course he would fail the test. So that is why mom son had to be tube fed, you would be shocked at the majority of babies in the intensive care unit that is fed with a tube in their throat, approximately 90 percent. The next bit of advice they gave me was to put a permanent feeding tube in his stomach before they would release him to go home. I had been sticking my finger in the formula while Jaden ate so he would suck on my finger and not lose that reflux. I refused to put a permanent feeding tube in his stomach after only one test and 4 days. They were angry at me and one nurse told me I wasn't acting in my sons best interest. The Doctor told me I could take him home with the temporary feeding  tube down his throat but he didn't want me asking him to do another suck swallow test three months later. Why not, I thought? He could improve. I thought he would have passed the test without the tube in and suggested they give him one without it but they refused. I thought that was odd. Did they want to do an unnecessary operation for the insurance money or were they just too lazy. So after much arguing I finally got him released from the hospital and he escaped without a permanent feeding tube in his stomach. Whew it was a nightmare. Well about 2 weeks later after many days and nights on my knees praying to God for a miracle, it happened. One Sunday after church, Jaden pulled the feeding tube out of his nose. Thinking of the agonizing chore of placing it back through his nostril and into his stomach made me sick. So my husband told me to mix up a bottle and give it to him. None had really proved he would aspirate if he drank from a bottle. He coughed the first few times, and I was scared but he never aspirated I had read up on the signs so I would know if he had. We never put the tube back in. He was drinking from a bottle it was a miracle. But now I had the problem of the nurse who came to the house each week. She would turn me in for not having the tube in and I could be in a lot of trouble. I made excuses for her not to come and called up to Iowa City for another suck swallow test from a different specialist. Find out in my next blog what happened. GOD BLESS!