I had the "PEG tube" (the belly feeding tube) surgically inserted into my stomach. At the time I still felt like it was premature if needed at all because I was still managing to eat solid food. But over the next week or so I found out just how wrong I was. A little less than a week after getting the belly tube, swallowing and even chewing food became difficult. Placing tasteless food in my mouth became like trying to chew and swallow wet paper towels. In the fifth week of radiation treatments my neck looked like one of those Hirodshima atom bomb victims. My chemo and radiated system began to reject anything solid that I put in my mouth and I instantly would hurl when I tried swallowing.
I could still drink water and cold black coffee but swallowing solids became impossible. So I made several attempts figuring out how to fill syrenges with the supplied baby-formula without spilling it, inserting said syringe into the belly tube nozzle and injecting my empty stomach with the liquid nutrition that I desperately needed. Figuring out how to use the PEG tube syringes to feed myself mostly involved learning how to contain spills and leaks. The chilly feeling in my stomach when blasting a full syringe of formula was also a little traumaticat first but I became accustomed to that fairly quickly. I was starving. It all seemed like I was watching myself as a character in a movie. . . not real at all, just something I managed to move through mechanically. Survival works in wonderful mysterious ways.
In the last week of radiation. I used the PEG tube in my stomach as my only source of nourishment. Two weeks since my last round of chemo and the fits of nausea stopped except usually after a radiation treatment I spend a few minutes dry heaving before I can drive myself home. Funny thing, despite my aversion to food, I went on a cooking binge – making food for Ciara when she's here and the neighbors (Tyler and Madison) – a very nice couple who live down the hall.
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