@crohnsinct Bribery WORKS! I'm actually serious about the puppy or kitten - it helped my daughter's mental health SO much. It made something very hard bearable for her. No matter how sick she is, no matter how much pain she is in, the one thing that always makes her smile is her cats. Instead of focusing on the NJ tube, that summer she focused on caring for her kitten. And now whenever she is down or not feeling well, all the cats migrate to her room. I don't know how they know, but when she's having a bad day, they're there. And they truly always make her feel better. Her kitten actually is officially an emotional support animal, so she could take the kitten to school with her.
Anyway, back to being malnourished. It's absolutely true that it affects how you think. M was also not thinking straight due to malnutrition. She now says she really didn't understand how bad it was to lose so much weight. I think the only reason she agreed to the NJ tube was that her psychologist explained to her that her organs truly would shut down if she continued to lose weight - she had already been diagnosed with Refeeding syndrome and an arrhythmia, as I'm sure you remember. It was something one of her doctors had said, but I don't think she truly believed it till her psychologist (who works in the GI dept) explained that once your body has used up all your fat for energy, it starts using muscle. Your heart is a muscle. She was so, so thin - it was horrifying. She had lost 20+ lbs and she didn't have any extra weight to lose to begin with. Her life changed dramatically because of the tube. She could not believe how much better she felt once she was getting 2000+ calories per day and was actually absorbing them. Her bone density increased - from osteopenia to NORMAL bone density (on the low side, but still normal!). Bone density can increase into your early 20s for females - O does not have to live with brittle bones.
And she had all this extra energy!! She just couldn't believe how good she felt. She was almost bed bound - just so tired all the time. School became easier. She had been doing well, but once she got the tube, it was a lot less effort. She stopped losing hair. Her period came back after a year or two of no period. It really, really was life-changing.
In O's case, perhaps she could do 10% food to make it a little easier on her? M had a VERY hard time with EEN but part of that came from the fact that she has a J tube and so her stomach was always empty and she was always starving. It was absolutely miserable for her, but with a G tube, O should not have that problem.
Anyway, I think she agreed because she trusted her psychologist (in addition to the promise of a kitten, of course!). I honestly think O needs to start preparing for surgery and one of the ways to help her adjust is seeing a psychologist regularly. At first, they don't need to even discuss surgery. She just needs to be able to talk through all of this because it is a LOT for anyone to handle. It will take time for her to trust her psychologist, but she needs help processing all this. I actually think placing the G-tube is a great idea because once her weight goes up and she is able to think more rationally, then she may have an easier time with thinking about the ostomy.
An ostomy is hard at ANY age - it's a huge change for her. But it could greatly change the quality of her life. I know she has lived with awful symptoms for a long time, but can you remind her how her life was not controlled by the disease when Remicade was working? She will be able to do SO much more when her life isn't ruled by Crohn's. i mean, look at what she has accomplished with raging disease - without it, I think the sky's the limit. She'll be able to go running without having accidents. She'll sleep through the night. She won't be tired all the time.
Sending big hugs!
That's not right. Shame on them. They need to heal her before they can do that. I know they'd need to keep her in the hospital to do a port/TPN, but if that's what she needs, then that's what they should do. 
