Have you ever woke up one morning to find your feeding tube completely out and laying next to you? Probably not, LOL! Well, that’s what happened to Suzanne the day after her last trip to Rush. Let me rewind the last 8 months to bring you up to speed.

Suzanne originally had a feeding tube placed last December because her radiation treatments had made it too difficult to swallow. At that point, it was considered to be temporary. Over the next couple of months, she used it completely for her nourishment, but then, at about 2 weeks before her surgery, the Dr’s told her to eat all she wanted as it would probably be her last solid food by mouth.

Feeding tubes, depending on the type, are replaced regularly; Suzanne’s every six months was common. Now at three months with this tube and while she was recovering in the hospital, Dr’s decide to replace her’s for the first time. At Rush, a feeding tube replacement is an extensive surgical event requiring a preparation period, surgical operating room, and then recovery time. Each time the total cost was around $14,000.

At home now with her second tube, Suzanne was struggling to learn to swallow and her feeding tube was her lifeline. It worked pretty well until late April when one of the ports on the tube started to leak keeping her clothes always damp. “Never seeing this before” the Dr’s decided to replace her tube again the first week in May. Frustrated, Suzanne went through the whole surgical rigmarole again. This time, during recovery, I was there to feed her before we went to other appointments. When I started to use the new tube, we discovered that this one leaked too! Can you say defective? With the help of the attending Dr, I came up with a fix.

That brings us to our August 16th visit to Rush for Suzanne’s PATHway infusion. She had been having some leaking around her tube in the past week, not the normal type, but of a food product. This concerned us so we decided to visit the Department at Rush that deals with her feeding tub. They looked at her tube, tugged and pulled on it, and said all looked fine. We had a discussion and all agreed that having her tube managed more locally was a good idea as it had nothing to do with her cancer

The rest of the day, Suzanne experienced new problems with her tube. There was pain every time we used it and as the day went on, just general pain around the sight. That night before bed, Suzanne asked for some Tylenol so I knew things weren’t right. The next morning as we awoke, I asked her how she was doing. “No pain,” she said as she pulled back the sheet, and you guessed it, her feeding tube was lying in bed next to her.

In a panic, we called her Dr who told us to go to the emergency room at Gibson Area Hospital. After having the nurse look at it and then the Dr on call came in, it was decided to put a temporary one in until a surgeon could put in a new one. The nurse got a ‘Foley’ tube, the Dr put it in, and in 20 minutes we were out the door. Where have these people been the last nine months? We drove to Gibson City, had her temp feeding tube replaced, and home before we could have been checked in at Rush.

The next Monday we met with the surgeon who will insert the new tube, but unfortunately, he has to order one. He said he’ll do it right there in his office; no fanfare, no surgical room, no recovery, and just like the old Dean Martin song Wham ! Bam ! Thank You Ma’am ! It’ll be done. He even told me that if the temp or the new one falls out, I should reinsert it. Self Serv feeding tubes.

Suzanne is looking forward to the new tube. It’s supposed to be a newer technology than what she had and will not have a protruding hose to deal with all the time. No way around it, we are happy to be back to a simpler way of doing things here in rural Illinois.

Blessed are those who find wisdom, those who gain understanding

Proverbs 3:13

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