Infections and Granulation Tissue

Eli was suppose to go get his leg braces Thursday, but instead we had to make a trip to Houston for the surgeon to check out his G tube. Ever since we got home the G tube has slowly been getting worse and worse. He has just been so active since we got home compared to when he was in the hospital. Now that we are home he has got it caught on things, stepped on it, pulled at it. It was just not a happy g tube site. The surgeon took a look at it and confirmed that it was infected and prescribed an antibiotic. They also hooked us up with some tube stabilizer things and a mesh belt to wear around his stomach to keep the tube from hanging and getting stepped on and pulled on. The medicine and all the goodies they gave us have been working beautifully and the redness is already starting to go away. Now we just need to keep the site happy until June 5th so they can take that stupid tube out and replace it with a button. I am so looking forward to the button.

Eli's trach site has also been a little weird since we got home. When we got home we had to transition from having all sterile stuff in the hospital to just "clean" stuff at home. In the hospital we used sterile water to clean his trach site and g tube. At home we were told to use a mixture of half peroxide and half saline water to clean the sites. Well not even two days after getting home he started to get this white stuff around his stoma, or trach site (the technical term is actually stoma). Anyways I had his pediatrician look at it and was told to stop using the peroxide because some kids skin just doesn't like it. So we stopped using the peroxide and have only been using the saline water to clean during trach care. Well the white has been growing. I called his pediatrician and also asked a great group of parents on tracheostomy.com what they thought. We have an appointment to see the ENT on Tuesday to have the stoma looked at. The parents on the trach forum think its something called granulation tissue or granuloma. All the parents said they had dealt with it and some kids just grow the tissue and sometimes once its removed it won't ever grow again and sometimes it keeps coming back. I guess its one of those things where it just depends on the kid.

Possible granulation tissue

Here is to hoping that everything starts going smoother and Eli starts to have an easier time with things.