8:57am February 24, 2015

Mr. Big Flange is back!

No, I didn’t come up with that name for him.  Medical objects (including various things I can’t post about without making this a TMI post) just get names around here.  My feeding tube is Charlie. I’m getting him swapped out this week, apparently, so we’ll have to find a new name for the next one once we get to know its temperament (and they all have a slightly different one).

[Me holding a syringe, you can’t see the flanges well, but I assure you they are huge compared to any other feeding syringes we’ve gotten. Flanges help your fingers keep a grip on the syringe.]

[And this shows the back of the package.  Which reads:  McKesson Medi-pack™ Performance.  Latex free.  Irrigation syringe.  Flat-top piston.  60 cc.  Catheter Tip.  Protective cap.  Sterile.  Single use.  Disposable.  Latext-Free.  1 per Pouch.  Reorder No. 37-6007.  Contents sterile in unopened, undamaged package. Caution:  Federal (USA) Law Restricts this device to sale by or on the order of a physician.  Suggested procedure:  Follow physician’s instructions in opening package and using contents.  Marketed by McKesson Corporation.  McKesson Medical-Surgical, Richmond, VA 23228.]

We get a lot of feeding tube syringes coming through here.  Most of them get sticky after repeated use, or even start out sticky, so that I’ve actually torn muscles slightly trying to use them.  This is the only one that doesn’t do that.  It is easy to use with one exception:  Most syringes, if you pull them back too far, will just stop.  This one doesn’t stop.  So you have to be careful or you’ll splash water or meds all over the place.  But once you get used to that, this is by far the best syringe we’ve ever used.

Last time we got one, I kept the packaging so that someone could tell the hospital which ones to order for me.  But then someone threw out the packaging during the move, so we were making do with just the one we had left, and a bunch of inadequate syringes.  

(Does it sound like “single-use only” only works in theory?  Yeah.  If I had to buy over and over everything that said single use only, I’d be broke within a couple days.  But I’ve talked to nurses about ways to safely clean these things, and talked to doctors as well, and invented some of my own ways to make “single use” drainage bags last for months at best and weeks at worst, and everyone has pretty much told me the same thing:  If you can’t afford to keep paying for certain items, there are ways to safely reuse at least some of them.  Note the bolded text.  I would never reuse rubber gloves if I’d used them to insert a butt pill, for instance.)

Anyway now they’re all getting called Mr. Big Flange, so I’m assuming that he invited all his brothers and sons and cousins and other relatives over.

7 notes