Something so little...

How can something so little be so important and cause so much stress?

This is a Mic-Key button for those of you who have never seen one.  The problem with this one is if you look at the lower left portion of it, you can see that it is split open.  That tiny piece is a balloon and the job of this balloon is to hold the button in place for Ethan's tube feeds.  If the balloon breaks, the button can pop out and the stoma (site of the Mic-Key) starts to close up in 20 minutes.  And let's not overlook the fact that if it is not anchored where it should be, then we have no safe way of feeding Ethan.  As you can see from my notes, this button lasted less than a month.  We seem to be going through them like crazy lately.  They typically are supposed to last 3 months.  And I think Ethan had one or two that may have lasted that long, but lately we're averaging about a month with them.  We've ruled out anything internal perforating the balloon, so are at a loss as to why we're going through them so quickly.  We've taken to keeping two spares just to be sure we always have one.  A lesson we learned over the long weekend when his last one broke and we only had the one spare.  In this case I feel it is better to be prepared for the worst (what if the spare is broken or malfunctioning?).  Another mom I know said that she always keeps two on hand as there was a time the newly inserted one broke while they were out of town and someone had to rush home to get the spare.  I guess it might have been easier to learn that lesson through her, but I suppose we all blunder through life at times.  ;)

Despite his Mic-Key requiring replacement, he is doing very well and had some oral trials restarted today.  Here's hoping he handles them well and 'passes' his modified barium swallow study later this month so we can offer him more food by mouth and know he is able to safely handle it.