Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Ring of Fire



Have you seen the his and her KY Jelly commercials?  You could say that they are nuanced at best.  Let's get down to the brass tacks on this one: Man and woman are in the bedroom looking frumpy, unhappy, and bored. Their faces are dotted with zit cream and their bodies are adorned in flannel.  The screen changes and they are swinging through the air as acrobats or swimming with alligators in skimpy outfits suddenly toned and bronzed.  Once again the screen changes and our frumpy, unhappy, and bored couple are now stunned, teased, and exhausted.  Their faces show pure astonishment at what has happened and their flannel nightclothes hang from the ceiling fan and bedside table.  You guessed it.  That his and hers KY Jelly changes lives!!!  The commercial claims that special sensations are what differentiates the product.

And so it was this commercial that hit me like a wall of fog as I sped down Lookout Mountain headed for Walgreen's.  Just an hour before, Emma Virginia and King were splashing in the bathtub together and I was acting as paparazzi.  I finally got an adorable picture of them that showed the pure delight in what we all know to be childhood bath time.  An instant later, King deftly pulled his feeding tube out of his stomach.  Just so you know, it is not meant to be pulled out.  Instead it should be removed by releasing the water in the latex balloon that holds it inside the abdominal wall...and then pulling it out...very carefully.  Let's be honest, you feel sick to your stomach.  That's ok.

This also happened to be the first time that it had been taken out since the surgery.  We were only 3 months in to the process and headed to have it changed in the next week.  Did we freak out? Yes.  Too much? Looking back, yes.  We had a new G-button (feeding tube) kit here at home, but had not even opened it.  I remembered that we needed lubricant to get the new button in place. Did we have that? No.  In the meantime, the surgical site had swollen almost completely shut.  I had also understood that the maximum amount of time that the surgical site could be open was two hours.  After the yelling, shaking, pacing, hyperventilating we had wasted 45 minutes.  The panicking was taken to new heights!

Naturally, since we do not have KY Jelly at our house I decided to text message my neighbors to see if I could borrow some.  I always learned that as long as it is less than one cup, you should be able to borrow it from a neighbor.  What was I thinking?  To make things better worse it was a Sunday morning.  Since my neighbors were already at church they received these text messages there.  The cherry on top, right?  I didn't hear back from them immediately, and decided I needed to find some product of my own.  Hence the drive to Walgreen's.

As I raced into Walgreen's headed for that section I spied a helpless cashier.  This is not a product on the weekly grocery list, so I begged her to help me find the original KY Jelly.  I was terrified that I would take King the cayenne pepper tingling sort that "changes lives."  Can you imagine???  All I could think of was his poor little swollen surgical site and the his and hers commercial.  The cashier was really confused as to why I was so desperate for KY Jelly on a Sunday morning (mind you it was 10:00 AM-the church bells were tolling all over town) and why I was intent on it being the original one.  Of course I wound up telling her the whole button-yanking tale which sent her into a fit of prayer.    I have tremendous appreciation for prayer, but King and his button were waiting on me and Mr. KY back at home.  Eventually, I walked out of Walgreen's with the desired product.  No tingling sensations for my little Prince.

Once I got home the opening was even more swollen.  We had a very hard time getting the button in, but finally my husband got it to go through the opening.  What a relief?!?  Wait?  The thing has to be changed once every three months.  For the next month, I pretended that I would not have to change the button.  The two months after that I had nightmares about having to change the button.  Finally, I decided to bite the bullet and go for it!  I wanted to do it while my husband was at work to be sure that I could do it alone.  My mother was in town and silently stood by while I demanded that she NOT help me.  In fact, that sentence summarizes a lot of what my poor Mama has to put up with...she's a Saint...no doubt about it.

After four suckers to keep King occupied, a migraine for me, and enough hyperventilation to round it out, the button went in.  I felt like I was back in Ecuador jumping off a 30 foot cliff.  Hey, at least I didn't lose my bathing suit top this time.  King has only done this once, and we have changed his button as scheduled several times by now.  Each time I am a little less nervous and my cliff gets a little closer to the ground.

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