"I knew there was a better choice"
Cash used Nourish for many years. He had his tube closed 2 weeks ago. Congratulations Cash!
Nourish helped change our son’s course of failure-to-thrive. I knew there was a better choice than what was being prescribed.
After 2 major surgeries and recoveries, it was time for him to “learn to eat.” I naively thought this would be the easiest part of our NICU journey. It became evident it was too dangerous to keep trying, and conversations of a gastronomy tube began. So many tears in those first days and weeks. Tears of fear and the unknown, tears of guilt. I cried as we met with his team about the tube and why he needed it. I cried when they brought the baby doll to practice on and when they brought the feeding pump in for the tutorial. I cried when your GI doctor said he may need it for 2 or 3 years. The most raw and painful realization was welling up internally: I had no idea how to take care of my son. I was thrilled to finally bring him home, but I was scared out of my mind.
Like everything else in his life, he did this in his own time. He threw the average timeline out the window. 6 years later, I can reflect on the whys and the hows. I accepted that this tube provided what my body or a bottle could not. It gave him the nutrition he needed while he learned to safely swallow. I spent so many hours searching for the best nutrition I could possibly give him through the tube, and a plant-based formula in addition to home-blended food gave me hope and peace that he too could have real food.
Now he is on that elusive growth curve we have been chasing for years. He asked me if I missed his “button” the day of his closure. And I had to think about it. I do not miss it and all of the complex issues that came with it. But I will always be grateful and outspoken about how it changed our lives and the big part it has played in his story.
When I asked him what he was most excited about after taking it out, he said, “I’ll be just like the rest of you.”