Jakey’s G-JET®
“Thank you all for the wonderful, amazing, lifesaving products you make!”
Jakey’s Mom
Jakey’s NG and GJ-tubes have saved his life more than once.
Being a micro-preemie born at just 24 weeks and two days, he was extremely sick at the beginning of life, weighing only 1 pound and 9 ounces, and being only 14 inches long.
He went through an incredibly long NICU stay – 147 days – experiencing many codes and surgeries throughout his time there. I spent countless sleepless nights with him, praying he would gain weight and become healthy.
At just 3 weeks old, they started him out with a Q-tip and then moved him to an NG-tube, pumping only .1mL an hour. With time and lots of patience, Jakey was finally strong enough to come home with his nasal tube.
For a short time, he was able to gain weight very slowly without using a tube. By 2019, he was 3 years old and still only weighed 24 pounds, so we decided to try the NG-tube again. After using the tube for about a month, he had gained 3 pounds – the same amount of weight it had taken him a year to gain without the tube. Knowing tube feeding could have such an immediate impact on his health, we rushed to get a G-tube placed.
On October 2nd, 2019, Jakey had his first surgery to be placed with a G-tube. While we’ve had our challenges finding a formula that works best with his allergies and sensitivities, he truly started thriving after his G-tube was placed.
In 2022, Jakey’s body stopped tolerating G-tube feeding after he contracted MRSA. While this infection slowed his progress and required him to revert back to TPN and lipids for a while, we were eventually able to get him placed with a GJ-tube. Thankfully, the process of switching to a GJ tube was simple – interventional radiology just placed the GJ where his G-tube was before TPN.
After being placed with a GJ-tube, Jakey was able to steadily gain weight and is now a healthy 10-year-old, weighing in at 90 pounds. While the challenges that being non-mobile can bring are tough at times, Jakey is happy and healthy, and we couldn’t have gotten to where we are now without the amazing AMT NG, G, and GJ-tubes.
We love to use our GJ-tube with an infinity pump! We just throw it in a cooler bag with an ice pack and hit the road. We have been using AMT products for over a decade now, and if it wasn’t for AMT, my son wouldn’t have been able to finally achieve the weight gain he struggled with for years.
We continue to choose AMT over MIC-KEY® products because of how low profile and durable the tubes are. These things, along with how much easier it is to lock in an extension set, make feeding times and training new nurses on his button a lot less challenging.
Thank you all for the wonderful, amazing, lifesaving products you make!
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