I didn't need another reminder of what my daughter had gone through, and in ten or so years, I imagined she probably wouldn't care anyway. I had already saved one from when she was switched from a cumbersome G-tube to a cute, functional button style feeding tube. Some parents keep the tube or button as a reminder. In the end, her G-tube was ceremoniously removed. I made demands and used such insane seventy-five cent words that even I have trouble believing such arguments came from me. I spent a lot of time writing a lot of e-mails to my daughter's pediatrician, pulmonologist, gastroenterologist, G-tube clinic nurses, and nutritionist. It was so emotionally taxing that much of it I don't remember. It took forever to get the doctors to okay the removal of her feeding tube. I wanted my daughter to just have some normalcy. She was just.average, and that was more than okay with me. She didn't eat with any more or less vigor than any other kids her age. When she finally ate, it wasn't some miracle. It also took a lot of repetition and patience. Different baby foods, different flavors, different silly songs, etc.
#WHEN I GET OLDER I WILL BE STRONGER TRIAL#
To train her to eat orally took excruciating hours of trial and error. She spent the first year and a half of her life on a feeding tube. My daughter has gone through three feeding tubes: an NG-tube, a G-tube, and a button. I'm not here to argue facts or opinions about this pandemic. New research is showing possible genetic pre-disposition, among other factors, both environmental and genetic. Now it's hitting girls and boys as young as nine. Once upon a time, doctors and scientists thought anorexia was a disease that affected white, middle/upper class society, specifically teenage girls. One of the newest copies of Newsweek has a scary cover story.