Noah's Surgery

Last Thursday was the day we have been looking forward to for a long, long time.  Well, it was actually a year and a half but that seems like a very long time when you are dealing with a sick child.  I mentioned in a previous post that Noah (my 2 year old) has had swallowing problems and has had repeated respiratory infections and trouble gaining weight since he started baby food at six months old.  We had one doctor tell us it was laryngomalacia and another doctor told us it wasn't.  The third doctor repeated the bronchoscopy and said he definitely did have laryngomalacia and she also found a fish bone embedded in his tonsil!  (This was part of his surgery.)  It is still hard to believe that all his problems could be caused by laryngomalacia because children typically outgrow this by the time they are two and 99% of children do not have major problems with it. 
The other problem he has been having since being on tube feedings is chronic vomiting.  He would vomit sometimes twice a day and sometimes twice a week.  The surgeon decided that when he placed the gastric tube he wanted to do another procedure called a Nissen Fundoplication.  This is where they take a part of the stomach and wrap it around the lower esophagus to create a high pressure zone that reflux cannot get past.  This was supposed to fix the chronic vomiting.
Well, Noah came home from the hospital Sunday after having all this done on Thursday.  The whole time he was in the hospital he was too sick to get out of bed.  He walked once during his hospitalization.  We thought maybe when he came home he would feel better and want to play.  He didn't.  Monday I ended up taking him to the emergency room.  They did a chest and abdominal xray and found that he has pneumonia and was severely constipated.  After miralax, enemas, and antibiotics he is finally feeling better today and has actually been out of bed playing!  Now we are just dealing with nausea and vomiting.  Except he can't really vomit since he had the fundoplication, he just wretches.  When he starts retching we have to attach a tube to the "button" on his belly and open it so the vomit can come out.  I feel so sorry for him!
 The next few days will be spent trying to adjust his feeding so that he doesn't get nauseous but doesn't have to be on slow rate feedings all day.  It's a huge pain to be on continuous feedings because he is attached to a backpack all day.  That wasn't a big deal when he was laying in bed but now that he is running around again it's very difficult.  The backpack is too heavy for him to carry on his back so he drags it around.  If it lays flat then it gets air in it and starts beeping.  So we have to follow him around and make sure his backpack stays upright.  We will be praying that he tolerates his feedings for the next couple of days so that he doesn't have to keep doing this!