September 4-Feeding Tube Presentation

Ellie was able to give her presentation to her class today. Not only was she excited but she did very well.

The list of items we took for her include:
Poster titled: Pictures from My Childhood (Pictures of Ellie from her NICU days to now)
Mini Buddy™ she helped make for her class
AMT training doll
NG tube, Non-functioning G-tubes (4)
Duoderm (cut into 4 pieces)
several pieces of Tagaderm
Grip-lock (for Ellie)
Foley Catheter- to replicate a J-tube inside the training doll
List of questions from the suggested questions found from our FB groups and Ellie's to each question.
IV pole, extra bag of formula,
Unopened can of Formula and Pedialyte
Empty feeding pump and Ferrell bags

She started out saying that she was going to read a book to the class about her that I wrote when she was in kindergarten. Very quickly, I realized she was taking off by herself without even looking at her book. Periodically, I would ask a question such as "what makes you just like your friends and classmates?" "When you are outside, what do you like to do?" These simple questions kept her on track.

She talked about eating, what she can and how it makes her feel to not be able to eat much at all. Her teacher asked if she has always been able to only a few foods. With this question, she looked at the floor and looked sad. She told her entire class that when we moved here, her doctors told her she was not allowed to eat anything and for a year, she could only have small drinks of water. The school nurse who was also in the room, let the kids know that when she was finally allowed to start drinking again, that she had to mix something in her drinks to make her water really thick.

The kids in her class really like being able to touch and handle the feeding tubes, tagaderm, and duoderm. There were wonderful questions asked today. While the kids loved the cushion-y feel of the duoderm, many thought it was very stinky. They were all fascinated with feel of the tagaderm. When I told them it was a like a 2nd layer of skin, they were not sure what to think about that.

We talked briefly about what a stoma is. I let them know that a stoma is a hole placed in the body on purpose, for a specific reason. I then asked, "Does anyone have your ears pierced?" I let them know the ear piercing hole is also a stoma, because they have to take care of their ears and keep their earrings in or the hole will close up. I also let them know that there was never a need to use the word stoma with them.

We then showed them the training doll, I showed them the tiny hole (stoma) in the front, and then the big hole in the back. They all giggled at the doll with a huge hole in the back. At this point I let them know that Ellie has a special kind of feeding tube that the doctors have to put in and when they do it becomes coiled in her body because it follows her intestines. At that point I passed the doll around so the kids could all see how far down in the doll the "J-Tube) (aka foley catheter) would be in the doll.