I’m having a feeding tube installed next Friday. It’s a tube
going directly into my stomach, which will enable me to “eat” if/when I’m not
able to swallow anymore.
Ew!
The procedure, my gastroenterologist informs me, is very
simple. (He’s a cutie – short, paunchy, salt-and-pepper, very bouncy). It
involves passing a wire from my mouth through my stomach, and – oh, you don’t
want to know.
Anyway, I’ll have a little tube going directly into my
stomach. I will be able to introduce food directly into my stomach via the tube
and some sort of syringe-type device. (The cancer treatments will burn my
throat, and it may be too painful for me to swallow – or I may lose the ability
to swallow altogether. Again, kids: ew!)
What do I feed myself with? According to Partner’s sister:
meatballs. According to Cute Gastroenterologist – “Oh, you know, like Ensure,
or Envive, or something else.”
Ensure is good, but expensive; twenty-four cans cost more
than a dollar apiece in BJs.
Carnation Breakfast Solutions (which was once called
“Carnation Instant Breakfast”) is much cheaper, and has all the same
ingredients – protein, vitamins, etc. I checked it out down at the local grocery. Ten packets were
five dollars and change, and weighed maybe half a pound. A bulk container of
the stuff, with almost a kilo of the powder, cost the same.
So I think I know what I’ll be buying.
How do I know it’s powder? I dropped the container while I
was checking out the contents. It went all over the place, and exploded like a
bomb on the floor in Aisle 10.
I got away from there as fast as I could.
Don’t worry: they overcharge, and we shop there regularly.
We get our money back.
But I felt like a silly old man as I legged it away from
there, rather than summoning a store employee and apologizing meekly.
Oh, who cares? They clean up messes all the time.
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