as small as a world and as large as alone

3:48am June 25, 2014

cryforthefuture replied to your post: So I have…

If you don’t mind me asking, what is it that causes the tube to clog? Or does it just do that— kind of like when a computer freezes up?

The j-tube usually clogs because pieces of Osmolite (liquid food) harden up inside it.  They look kind of like long worms.  Someone started calling them tapeworms, and then tube worms, and now we make all kinds of disgusting worm jokes when we pull them out.  (And we even call the declogging routine in the morning “the tapeworm routine”.  And there was the time I tried to make a tongue-twister about “how much worm could a worm tube tube if a tube worm could tube worms” or something like that.  Recently there was a whole bunch of clogs that came out at once, and a staff person was like “wow it’s a whole family of them!”)

The g-tube usually clogs because either some kind of food has gotten into my stomach, or chunks of my stomach lining have come off, or there’s a blood clot, or some combination of the above.  It doesn’t usually clog badly, because less stuff goes through it and it’s bigger.  Today it clogged really badly, and I don’t know what to make of that.  You don’t want to know what we call the blood clots that clog it sometimes.

I’m going to be keeping an eye on both of them tonight, I’m uneasy.

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