Life with a tube....

How do I put this in words that are adequate enough to describe the full spectrum of emotion one feels when inserted with a 150cm tube? IT SUCKS!!! Not adequate enough? I'll give more detail...

Imagine you have a sore throat. Not just a little tickle, or an irritation that you can ignore most of the time. This sore throat has spawned from the very depths of hell, threatening to choke you and cut you off from the very air that you breath. Strep throat......child's play. The pain reaches to my ear so I can't lay on my right side. I think they scratched my throat on the way down and it swelled and for a few days. It was all I could do not to go screaming in madness...if I could have screamed, which I doubt. I could barely talk above a whisper. Water barely made it down.

Imagine a smell that you have come to associate with nursing homes, being thrust down your nose for 19 hours a day. I have worked in nursing homes. And I do NOT like vanilla Ensure. Then you have to flush the tube every 4 hours with water so it doesn't get plugged and a new wave of nursing home floods the tube once it's reinserted.

Imagine you have a tape adhesive allergy. You wake up from the tube placing procedure and find medical tape strapping the tube to your face. Now when you get home and collect all your senses, you take the tape off and find a nice red patch where the tape had been. Brilliant. And it's still there.....over a week later. Lovely.

Imagine that the doctors don't want this tube to be pulled out, so they tie some string around the tube, pull the string around your nasal septum and come back around to the same spot and tie it off. Great thought all on it's own, but sometimes the tube gets heavy and you cannot strap this tube to your face with tape to keep it in place. If the tubing falls, or you forget how the tube limits your movement, this causes a great pull on your highly sensitive nose ring. You might say $%*&!!! (Don't imagine this part too hard, I don't want your eyes to water.)

Imagine that you still can't tolerate food by mouth and are throwing up several times a day, or in most cases dry heaving since you don't dare attempt even apple sauce, and a few inches of the tube comes up every time you do. This makes you heave more, especially when you have to shove the tube back down, hoping that it is still in your intestine and not in your stomach.

Imagine that this tube has created some gnarly, super stinky, green boogers backed up into your sinus cavity that like to drain down your throat and gag you. It is like swamp thing has checked into a nursing home.

Imagine that after a week long horrific bout of constipation because of all this "nutrition", you find that you have lost more weight (while receiving 1900 calories/day)!! Down 25 lbs and not sure if this thing is working at all!!!!

Then imagine that you go to the doctor for all this hassle and they are showing about as much sympathy as a maimed clown holding a homeless sign. Then they can't find the babies heart beat, which only makes your heart beat race, and they pull out the ultrasound machine and there you see your little baby moving around with heart beat and all. Almost 16 weeks now. Serendipitous.

For those of you who were wondering what it is like to have a feeding tube, I hope this gives a little insight. For those of you who weren't wondering.....why have you read this far?

Not sure if this post had any comic relief properties for you like it didn't for me, but this might help.....

Regan wants a brother and Sophie wants a sister. They just know I am going to have two in my tummy. During the ultrasound I said, "See girls, there is only one baby in there." Sophie replies, "Let's just pretend there are two, ok mama?" Hahaha

Regan asked me if I wanted a girl or a boy. I said it didn't matter, I would love a girl or a boy. Knowing she wanted a brother I asked if she would love the baby if it were a girl. She thought for a minute and said yes. Then I asked Sophie if she would love the baby if it were a boy. She pretty much immediately said no, only a girl. I told Regan that if we were having a boy, she would get ALOT of baby holding time since Sophie wouldn't want to hold a boy. Sophie pipes in, "Umm I think I like girls and boys." Hahahaha.......thought so.