Random pics of Pumpkin with her NG tube

In the safety of her own home, no holds barred!
 

Pumpkin gets her haircut short.  She looks super cute, but this creates a problem for a tall, thin, young lady with Crohns:  other kids mistake her for a boy...  She overheard one girl say to another at a store that she thought "the boy over there (refering to her) was cute..."  Pumpkin told me she thought, "THEY BETTER NOT BE TALKING ABOUT ME!"

 

Notice the great artwork in this pic and the first one!  All her originals.  She made the earrings too.

The beginning of Pumpkin's Ensure can castle

It even has a draw bridge with a working pulley system!

Up 5 pounds in two weeks!

Pumpkin is doing better than ever!  She's drinking the 2150 calories daily, along with some food each day.  She doesn't have much appetite for anything else, but she's gained 3 lbs a week ago, then 2 lbs this week.  In one week she grew .75 inches as well.  This put her up to the 50% for height and she is now actually on the growth chart for weight (still about 2% :) ).  At the doctor's office, she did not have any abdominal pain, which is the first time that I can ever remember.  Her gas has improved, too, since we took Peptide out the the drinks.  Currently she is drinking 4 cans Ensure Plus mixed with 3 cans Peptamen Junior.  She can't drink either of the formulas plain, but mixed together seems to do the trick!

Pumpkin loves to have fun!  Here she is dressing like a ninja!

My panda-angel maker!

NG tube pulled

Friday night Pumpkin pulled her NG tube (nasty process).  She is now tubeless and doing well!  8 cans she'll have to drink to keep up, but she's done it two days now.

Friday we started some table foods - liquids anyway.  She had a glass of apple juice - probably not the smartest.  It gave her diarrhea (just a little) and made her already foul gas worse, but it wasn't a long-time problem.

Saturday she got some beef broth made from organic beef bouillon.  This was her first warm, salty food in over 2 months.  She said it tasted like "liquid steak" and she rated it "hugely good" or something like that.  No side effects!  Double thumbs up!

I think today we may move to strained vegetables or potatoes.  We'll steer clear of the fruits, lactose or gluten yet.

Foul gas is our problem right now.  Not sure if it is from the Peptide or from the Peptamen with Prebio.  We'll eliminate the Peptide first and see how it goes.  The stinky gas started before the Ensure or other foods.  We'll also consider probiotics, perhaps water kefir, after that if necessary.

Great start to oral formulas

Right now Pumpkin is doing well drinking 1/2 Ensure, 1/2 Peptomen shakes.  She is drinking 4 a day.  We are cancelling the surgery for now and hopefully she will be able to get up to drinking 8 shakes a day and we can remove the NG tube and start oral feeding!

The girls and I needed a change, so we went to a movie Saturday night.