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Gratitude

This year, one of the many things I'm grateful for is Camille losing her feeding tube!  After ten years of dealing with it, this is HUGE. 

Last Christmas she got the norovirus and she just could not get rid of it.  Finally, after three months of diarrhea, her doctors decided to change her medicine.  This got rid of the virus AND it improved her appetite significantly.  She gained 10 pounds in 10 weeks.

I told the kidney transplant dietitian how well Camille was doing and she said that lots of kids feel better on this different medication.  Which made me wonder, Um, why didn't anyone tell me that sooner?

So after she gained all this weight, we spent the whole summer without using the feeding tube.  The challenge was to drink all her fluids--9 cups a day--without it.  We had a little glitch when she felt some pressure with school starting but finally we decided it was time. 

The feeding tube was essential when she got it and we couldn't have kept Camille alive without it, but it leaked (sometimes horribly) and I was oh so ready to move on.

Here she is, shortly after her surgery:





She's not totally healed yet but getting there.  And here she is today:


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