Dear Feeding Pump

I hated you when they first handed you to me. It wasn't that you were complicated to figure out, because you were far from that. It was simply the fact that my son required you. 

Without you and his feeding tube he would of lived a life inside the hospital hooked to IV's until he withered away. 

I grew to, not love you but respect you. You were the trusty little machine that kept it all going, giving me less sleepless nights.

The you decided to cause problems. Alarming in the middle of the night when the world was sound asleep. You sounded off like a tornado warning, scaring the crap out of me. Giving me a heart attack, just to tell me there was a flow error. 

And after fixing said flow error, you would alarm again. I would fix you again and again and again and again. Yet nothing worked.

We started calling and having you replaced. Still the newly delivered pump would start the same process of alarming just a few days after delivery.

Your alarms have put much added stress onto my life. They've caused my PTSD and anxiety to soar high. I have nightmares of the pump alarming. I sit there at night listening to the gears wind, pulling formula through and pushing it into you. I sit on the edge of the bed, my heart racing, biting my nails knowing that no matter what I do the alarm will come. It's just a matter of time. 

Nothing can prepare me for your error alarms or the flood of emotions and anxiety that comes with each and every siren, because that's what it sounds like. A siren going off in the middle of the night warning us we are under attack and that the bombs are surely about to drop. That's how my body reacts anyhow.

Every night I sit on the edge of the bed, shaking and waiting. When the alarm goes off all I can do is silence it and go through the list of things to check. And try so hard not to cry in frustration. Of course there is nothing wrong with the line. There is no "downstream occlusion" as you warn there is. Nothing. Everything is fine. Yet you still alarm. 

Finally, after hours of fighting the pump, I turn it off and resort to bolus feeds through out the night. No longer am I getting any sleep because I need to be up every 2 hours to bolus my son and that's still not as much as he gets through the pump.

And I cry. Because I see that my son isn't gaining weight. In fact he's loosing it because he gets more through the pump than I can possibly bolus.

So dear trusty, dependable pump.....

Your a jerk. You've failed my son. You've failed me. You are no longer a useful member of our family. No longer a trusted piece of medical equipment. I no longer have any respect for you and just want you out of my house!

Note: The pump brand in question is the Kangaroo Joey and the Kangaroo E pump. The events posted above are true. I've spent years fighting with both the pump and the medical supply companies to replace the pumps. We've gone through countless and it's been frustrating. After 3 years and 5 months with a Kangaroo, I've requested my sons insurance to change out our pump to the infinity. I know many people who have made the switch and have had no problems at all with their infinity. I was also told by insurance and the supply co that the Kangaroo is no longer being made. My suggestion to you is to not wait it out and fight with the Kangaroo as long as I have. Because of this my anxiety runs high. What I wrote above saying how I felt is all true.