Of all the things that I was put through during my treatments, this was the least discomforting procedure. It took all of about 15 minutes. I can't believe that I had such an apprehension of what turned out to be a really simple deal. I think that the part I found the most disconcerting, (before it was actually done) was that having a tube and a bag that attached to it when I wanted to eat, was....how I imagined really sick people to look. Is that dumb or what? Here I am with stage three cancer, and I'm thinking about looking like a really sick person. Unbelievable! Perhaps it was the visual confirmation that I WAS really sick that bothered me. It sounds really weird to think that you are going to have this moveable tube in the front of your body, but once it was there, most of the time it was just under my shirt and out of sight. When it was time to pour in my 3-4 cans of Ensure, (three times a day) the bag went on and I hung it up on a nail by my easy chair in front of the TV....that was it. By the time I had the tube put in, (by the way, this thing is smaller than a pencil in diameter), I had gone weeks struggling painfully to swallow things. I couldn't even get down canned protein drinks by the time my doctors said, "that

Brian, stage 4 oral cancer survivor. OCF Founder and Director. The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant.