QCH Day 5: Waiting for a Plan

It was a day of waiting. The gastro team were meeting this morning to discuss Frankie. We knew they wouldn't arrive until after midday so Chris went home to work and Mum and I took Frankie out for brekky. There was only so many laps of that damn ward I could stand.

To everybody's surprise, Frankie sat in her highchair while Mum and I ate our whole breakfast. She waved at passersby and sat entertained by the buses that came and went from the terminal behind her. It was a delight. She was a delight. And her delightful mood continued all day.

The doctors came around at 2pm and basically told me that they couldn't tell us anything. That the head consultant wanted to speak to us and would be around later in the day. After some pushing I got one of them to tell me that the only plan they had really arrived at was a possible g-tube insertion. They were intrigued by the fact that, when Frankie went the 30 hours without a tube or food, she hadn't been sick. But...more waiting.

Finally about 4:30pm Dr Thapar arrived to talk us though their decisions. Essentially, the gastroscopy had shown nothing of interest and their only theory was that the tube was irritating her pylorus (the valve between her stomach and duodenum) and perhaps that was causing the retching. He would meet with Frankie's team at Gold Coast Uni Hospital on Monday but wasn't confident on our being able to avoid a g-tube if the committing continued. While he's like to simply wean her onto solids, she wasn't showing any interest so our options were limited. It would continue to be a 'watch and wait' game.

We packed up our room, said goodbye to our 17 year old roommate Darlene, and braced ourselves for 5pm traffic leaving Brisbane on a Friday. Somebody must have been shining down on us though because it was the best run home we could have dreamed of. Needless to say, Nuptse was very happy to have the pack back together and Frankie enjoyed her first bath in almost a week before passing our in her cot for 12.5 hours.