The interesting case of a woman who gets eating satisfaction through a gastrostomy tube

Abstract

Aim of this study is to show how people are getting accustomed to alternative ways of eating in cases of illness and eating disability. Case report presentation: A 60-year-old woman was admitted in the Intensive Care Unit due to an acute upper airway obstruction. The woman was tracheostomized before entering the ICU and presented a large goiter and thus she was operated two days later and a thyroidectomy was executed. Post-operatively, it was diagnosed that a tracheo-esophageal fistula was present and the patient was obliged to live with a gastrostomy for months. During the first attempts for eating via a nasogastric tube at first and later via a gastrostomy, she had various problems with enteric nutrition, most prominent of which was osmotic diarrhea. The patient asked soon to stop eating enteral nutrition and preferred to eat food of her choice according to her appetite. She insisted that she was able to receive eating satisfaction, even by eating through a gastrostomy, because her bowels gave to her a positive feedback with the form of abdominal comfort after lunches. She said that the only food that would not harm her was real food and she chose food on her own with the help of her sister. This woman never presented any kind of psychiatric disorder in the past, neither she lost her courage inside hospital, although she was forced to live with a tracheostomy and a gastrostomy for more than 6 months.

Disclosure of interest

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.