My Spiel

I came out of the hospital in the summer of 2007 with a seriously damaged esophagus amongst other things. While I was still in the hospital they tested me by putting some blue dye on ice chips and having me swallow them. I had been trached as soon as I hit the burn unit so when the blue dye started dripping out of the trach hole it was determined that I was unable to swallow (dysphagia); that I ran the risk of aspiration from food and liquids. At that time I had a nasogastric feeding tube running from my nose into my stomach. There was a machine that slowly pumped food into this tube throughout the day and night and while sleeping they would tie my hands to the bed bars because I had this subliminal desire to rip the sucker right out of me. In the rehab unit they told me that they wanted to give me a gastric feeding tube and that eventually I would be able to feed myself via gastro-tube.

I asked the doctor if it hurt to put in and she said it was minimally painful. Haha, that sucker hurt to high hell when they punched a hole in my belly and used a hot poker to run a tube into my stomach. When I got home there was a stack of boxes as high as my dresser full of high fructose corn syrup-based liquid "food". I pumped about 8 cans a day which provided me with fiber and 3,000 calories a day. It took about half an hour three times a day to consume my "meals". I also went to the radiologist about once a month to see if my swallow was improving. Finally I hooked up with this hotshot otolaryngologist who performed an operation that removed scar tissue that blocked my esophagus.

He then sent me to a speech pathologist who used this bio-feedback monitor to help me retrain my swallow muscles. Needless to say I failed to improve my swallow. I had one last visit to the hotshot where he watched me swallow water while visiting professors from Peru and Poland looked on and then the three of them left the room and he had the speech pathologist call me two days later and tell me I would most likely never eat again. A dear friend steered me to naturopaths and they recommended that I try a healthier liquid food source. I bought The Ultimate Meal at a vitamin shoppe and mixed it with berries and milk and cut my intake of corn syrup cans down to 2 a day. Now I can't scientifically show that this new diet was the cause, but I did in fact begin to swallow within the next month. Then I used another "far out" therapy that the hotshot had mentioned but didn't believe in, called VitalStim which is like shock therapy for your swallow.

I weighed 149 pounds when I left the hospital and my weight continued down to 140. I looked like I was auditioning for "Schindler's List" before changing my diet and starting my new swallow therapy. Soon I was eating solid foods again. The first time I was green-lighted to eat a meal I got a stale Baby Ruth and a pint of milk from 7-11. I now weigh 190 pounds, eat most anything except really spicy foods (my tastebuds are still raw - sigh, no more kim chee) and walk around the lake three times a week to battle mid-life metabolics.