Learning to Feed Differently

The NG tube saved Lloyd’s life.

I hated it. The tape across his soft cheek, the tube threaded down into his stomach, the machine doing the job I once did. Feeding my child had been taken from me and replaced with something that looked so foreign, so clinical.

But slowly, I began to see it work. His colour came back. His seizures lessened just a fraction. He stayed awake longer. My boy, who had been starving, was finally being nourished. The NG tube wasn’t what I wanted. But it was what he needed.

The first days were terrifying. Beeping pumps. Tangled lines. Instructions that sounded like a foreign language. I learned how to prime, flush, tape, reset alarms at 3am. By the time we came home, I had already organised a home IV pole. Because that’s what mothers like me do—plan, adapt, fight.

But we weren’t the only ones learning. Lloyd’s little sister, just two years old at the time, had to understand what all of this meant too. We didn’t want her to be afraid, so we gave everything names.

The NG tube became “Trisha”. The tall IV pole with the pump? “Patricia” after the brand name, Nutricia.

She would toddle up, pat the pole, and say, “Hi Patricia!” giggling, as if it were a new family member. That tiny ritual brought light into a world that felt so heavy. It was our way of making the unthinkable a little more bearable.

But the relief didn’t last. A stomach virus sent Lloyd crashing back into hospital just weeks later. More tears. More feeds. More exhaustion.

The NG was our lifeline. But it was also a rollercoaster that never let us rest.