Re: trach question again....
annette (nete1(AT)midwest.net)
Mon, 29 Sep 1997 18:20:19 -0500
At 08:15 AM 9/29/97 -0400, you wrote:
>In a message dated 9/28/97 7:43:21 PM, Annette wrote:
>
>>I'm would like you to share some of your weird vent stories, etc. regarding
>>making trach, vent, etc more comfortable. Also whether you have a cuffed
>>or uncuffed trach.
>
>Hi Annette! I can relate to air leakage while on the vent. I hate it! It
>is very annoying and uncomfortable. I have not had this problem very often,
>thank heavens.
>
>I have a Concord/Portex Blue Line Trach Tube, cuffed, size 6. It doesn't
>have the inner cannula. At one point my dr. was trying to prevent scar
>tissue build-up around the stoma -- this seemed to bother him, but it didn't
>bother me; thus, I went along with his suggestions twice and had some surgery
>to remove it. He thought that by making the stoma a little larger and by my
>wearing a larger trach tube this would help to solve the problem. Well, it
>was pure misery! I couldn't tolerate the larger size at all. Finally after
>about 2 weeks of messing around with different sizes, etc. I ended up with my
>original type and size.
>
>During this process we tried one with an inner cannula. I remember that I
>had difficulty with suctioning while using that one. Furthermore, I wasn't
>able to use my old trusty Q-Tip trick while I was out and about. With my
>present tube, if I'm driving my car and I feel the need to clear my trach
>tube, I just take the red cap off, blow out the secretions into a Kleenex and
>use a Q-Tip to clean out anything that is clinging to the inside of the tube.
> (I hope that I'm not making anyone sick here, but I think that you're pretty
>used to this yourself if you're living with a trach.) I can do all of this
>very well while driving! I've even done this in a store (very discretely, of
>course, because I don't want to gross anybody out!). These times are few and
>far between, but I've learned the hard way to take care of these little
>nuisances immediately; otherwise, the problem snowballs! With the kind of
>trach tube I use, this is simple and easy. I couldn't do it with the inner
>cannula kind, and that was another thing that made me prejudiced against it.
>
>One embarrassing time I remember is several years ago in December when I was
>getting over a cold. I went to a Girl Scout craft fair in town. I coughed
>or something, and my red trach tube plug flew off and landed down underneath
>a table! I couldn't believe it! I really couldn't reach it, and I had to
>ask one of the Brownie Scouts to pick it up for me! She did, I thanked her,
>and plugged myself back up! I have no idea what the little girl thought, and
>I didn't make any explanations!
>
>One situation with my vent that created a few more gray hairs on my head was
>when my husband, daughter, and I went on a week's vacation to New Jersey and
>Penn. The day before we left home, my supplier brought me some more vent
>hoses. Unfortunately I didn't check them out before we left; I just grabbed
>several packages of them, and away we went. The first afternoon as we were
>getting everything set up in our motel room, we discovered that I had the
>wrong hoses. They didn't work at all on my vent! I was horrified! I was
>panicky! It was about 4:40 p.m. We looked in the yellow pages and found
>some home-health supplier who had on hand the kind of hoses that my vent
>used. They closed at 5:00, and my husband and daughter had to locate this
>office in a city where we'd never been before! They made it in time, bought
>the hoses, and came back to the motel to set me up. Thank goodness things
>worked out!
>
>I always fear the electricity going out. My vent is hooked up to a marine
>battery so if we do lose power, the vent immediately taps into the battery.
> I also have a concentrator that takes O2 out of the room air and feeds it to
>my vent, and this is on electricity. When power goes off in the middle of
>the night, all of a sudden all of these alarms are screaming, I awake with a
>jolt and panic in my heart! It's a mad scramble to try to find a flashlight
>and to hook an O2 tank up to my vent. Furthermore, when the power goes off,
>there goes my suction machine and my adjustable bed (which is electric).
>
>Does anyone out there know of a good portable suction machine? One that does
>not require electricity? I would really like to know.
>
>Bye for now.
>Carol
Carol..
As I read your post I laughed because the same thing has happened to me. I
was at a restaurant with my boyfriend and friends. As I was talking..which
at times can be animated, my red cap flies across the room. Pretty good
lung power for someone who has PPS and respiratory problems. Here you are
talking away...and suddenly no sound comes out...because the cap is off.
Good thing it didn't land in someone's plate or even their eye.
I also have found ways of suctioning etc. in public that seems nointrusive
to the people around me or draw attention. I also find toliet paper better
than Kleenex because it has less lint on it. I look real cute carrying my
roll of toliet paper. But with almost 4 years of trach use..I have learned
to except myself and the way things are.
Update on my trach...my vent supplier called Shiley today. Apparently from
the way it sounds to them .... the two trachs I have are from a bad mold.
Leave it to me to get it. Now if it was the lottery...it would be a
different story.
They are fed Xing two new trachs tomorrow...and after the change over I
have to send the two bad ones back to California for inspection. I have
trachs in baggies all over the place.
Until I get the new one...I am still using the rubber bands on the inner
cannulas.
Take care...
Annette Hanna
nete1(AT)midwest.net