Today is Rare Disease Day. Ivey falls into this catergory. With her known diagnosis as a deletion to her 21st chromosome, she is a rare little bird. There is no assigned name to her genetic abnormality, no small group of children to connect with, no parents to get advice from, no associations what-so-ever, none of her doctors have seen this before. So please take some time to think about how this rare genetic abnormality affects Ivey, her family and all of us who know her.
A simple sentence. No one said it to me in the beginning, but boy did that tube cause a lot of chaos. The NG tube graduated to the G-tube which morphed to a GJ- tube…. A brief history of Ivey's feeding tubes: *The NG tube was in place the first time I ever saw my daughter in the NICU. My only memory of her without a feeding tube is them placing her in my arms immediately following her birth. *The G-tube, well, that is a story within itself. That decision did not come lightly. Another hole in her. Another decision on our plate, but not really on our plate, it was apparent it was a medical necessity for her survival. Literally to give her a chance to live. A permanent decision. A 5am panic attack in the Scottish Rite elevator that happened to coincide with Dr. Meyers arriving at the hospital at the same time as me.... Our intersection in the elevator set the stage for the years to follow. From that point on, he knew I was a little nuts and a lot...

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