Everyone heals at their own pace but if it is capped it should be removed after 24 hours of being capped. If the drs are keeping it in I'm sure it's for a reason so a good thing would to be just ask the drs when they make their rounds smile I hope your husband has a speedy recovery! And to him cleaning the trach, again ask the dr if that causes a problem but from my experience (which I'm still in the process of experiencing) my trach hole area is oozing stuff out while it is healing so it might be healing around the trach and oozing hence him cleaning smile. I got mine out about a week ago with my surgery on the 27th of December (keep in mind I'm 19 and a quick healer). Having a trach in is scary and if he wants to clean it and its not causing problems, let him clean it smile just as long as he's cleaning around it. If he's uncapping it then that is probably why they aren't removing it. It needs to be capped untouched for 24 hours before removed.

Hope this helped and good luck!

Shelby, 28 yrs old, stage 3 tongue cancer, non- smoker, not HPV, 12/27/12 partial glossectomy and neck dissection, 1 lymph node positive, Chemo and Rad 5 days a week, 32 treatments, feeding tube in, finish treatment 3/22/13 smile back to normal basically