Thanks for feeding tube advice!

cher76

Many of you have read my posts about our doctor at MDAnderson not believing that a feeding tube was necessary yet,while our doctor here at home has suggested one since day one. Rickie has been reluctant to consider it, but as his weight has dropped over 100 lbs and he has been having more difficulty eating,he has become more open to the idea. The other night I read to him everyone's postings about jtubes and how they would help him get the nutrition he needs to fight this dreaded disease. (Susie, I even read him the ones about the tube clogging and the cola trick!) Today while we were at our doctor here at home Rickie told him he wanted more info about a feeding tube, what kind j or peg and how it would be inserted. Our doctor started talking about the peg tube and we told him I had read about j tubes for ec patients. I explained to him that I have been conversing with people on this website who actually have this cancer and they mostly had the j tube. We discussed it a little more with him and he made an appointment for us to see the gastro doctor. I want to thank all of you for being in that room with us! Your expertise is invaluable. I feel like there are not many, if any, ec patients here where we live and I'm not sure they have treated any. Rickie is pretty sure that the j tube is the way he wants to go, but he wants to hear what the gastro dr. has to say. We are also scheduled to return to MDA the first of May and we are considering having the tube put in there. I am leary of having anything done at our hospital here. When he was in for a few days last month for hydration it was a real battle. I could not make them understand his dietary needs, and I had to insist that the nurses wash their hands or put gloves on before handling his pick line. I finally told one guy we had worked too hard for the last 6 months to keep him healthy and infection free and I was not going to have him catch something while he was in the hospital! Needless to say I am sure I did not have a very nice name at the nurses' station! So I will keep you all posted on how things go. Thanks again for all your help. Prayers to all!
Cheryl

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BMGky

Hand washing and sterile environment
You were exactly correct on insisting they practice basic hygiene. The nursing profession is one of great honor and service, and they are our guardian angels when in the hospital. However, sometimes I wonder if the nursing schools are stressing the importance of such care or is it that the nurses are over-worked, understaffed, and not provided with the essentials they need to do the job they wish to do. You can have all the room sanitizer and gloves that you want, but if a hospital employee comes in uses the sanitizer, puts on the gloves, and then brushes back her hair with her now gloved hands and/or proceeds to move about the room touching non-sterile surfaces, to what avail are the gloves. An EC patient post Ivor-Lewis is a delicate person and only experienced personnel need work with them. But to general sterility as a whole, our daughter was in intensive care with severe rhabdo and a physician came in and did not follow sterile procedures to insert her pic line. She contracted systemic MRSA and came very close to losing her life. Fortunately, she was in the hospital when the MRSA attacked and immediate vancomyocin (spelling?) was intravenously supplied. What saved her was that her attending was not suspecting MRSA but thought her delirium and vagal breathing was due to the rhabdo and took aggressive action. If they had waited on the blood samples taken (which later revealed the MRSA), she would not have made it.