[quote=Mysonny]Today they wanted to remove his trache for a smaller step down one and do a procedure to move his feeding tub from his nose to his stomach - they beleive he will have this for 2 months or so. He refused both procedures the minute he found out they involve needles or another surgery. Dr's tried to talk him into it, but from what I understand nothing they said helped.[/quote]
Removing the first insert of the trache and replacing it with a smaller one is part of the process of getting the whole thing removed. It is a progression and he'll need to allow this to happen in order to heal. Steve is probably at the worst part of the trache experience right now if he has a similar setup to what I had. Luckily I didn't have the anxiety issues that he seems to be having (other than the fear when the trache felt like it was starting to clog up), nor did I really have trouble with my NG tube (& therefore didn't need the PEG) so I can't really comment on those issues.

My first trache insert had the full cuff and they supplemented some oxygen as well. Once they moved me to a smaller one, the oxygen was removed and I had to learn to breathe on my own, unassisted. While it was really, really nice to get one of the tubes removed (actually two because they had removed the catheter by then as well), it was obviously harder to breathe at first. Combined with the tendency of the trache to clog up, it was quite disconcerting. But it took another day and then I started to improve quickly. A few days more and they can put the plug in the end of the trache & if he does well, they can remove that nasty thing.

Good luck with the next steps of the process and take care of yourself too!