As a mother of two tube fed children, my son four-years and
my daughter has now been tube fed just over six-years. Initially when I came
across the K.E. or feeding tube diet, I was very disturbed and very emotional.
The fact that people are using this diet to lose up to 20 pounds rapidly
through a forced state ketosis while having a feeding tube, typically reserved
as last resource medical devices.
While my emotions have calmed down, I still do not
understand why people would want to force their bodies into a state of ketosis
or use a medical device that is known to cause pain, infection, and uncomfort,
for the sake of losing weight.
Our family has faced heart issues, multiple surgeries,
feeding difficulties, and severe ketosis causing near organ failure. Feeding
tubes have saved the lives of our two youngest children, and ketosis nearly
took my life.
Backing up six-months ago, I was in the hospital with severe
idiopathic non-diabetic ketoacidosis. Test results could not provide answers as
to why my body was shutting down and I suffered severe hypoglycemic episodes. Daily
potassium and glucose IV bags barely balanced out sugar and potassium levels.
Eight-years ago, our son was born with a heart disorder,
severe reflux, and needed an abnormally high caloric intake due to his body
burning nearly as much as he was taking in just to breath and heal his heart.
Our son used his feeding for four-years and his eight various surgeries his
body endured.
Just over six-years ago, our youngest and greatest blessing
entered our family. From day one, she has fought hard for her life. For the
first five-months, she bounced between bottle and NG-tube feeds. It became
clear she would not tolerate the painful NG-tube feeds for long and found
creative ways to remove her NG-tube requiring a permanent tube placement.
Suddenly I found myself handling two young children with
feeding tubes, feeding pumps, and backpacks. One could eat some foods by mouth
one could not. With time, my son learned to eat and had his feeding tube
removed. However, our daughter now nearly seven-years old, still requires all
her nourishment from her feeding tube and is not allowed to eat anything by
mouth and is hoping that soon she can start trying to eat foods again.
While our family story is very condensed in this brief write
up, you can find more about our family our struggles as we help our daughter
cope with not being to eat anything by mouth by visiting our family blog at http://sixlittlemonkies.blogspot.com
you can also learn more about her early struggles at our Carepages at http://www.carepages.com/ under the name
ChantelleRose.
Thank you for taking the time to read this collection of
stories, we hope you feel the strength we get from sharing our stories.
