I, too, REALLY did not want a PEG but was overruled. With it, I lost 40 lbs., which put me way underweight. Without it, I don't think I would have survived, or would have been unable to finish treatment, which is essentially the same thing.

Getting it is a matter of being put out and then waking up with it. There will be a couple days of soreness, not pain, just soreness. I used Tylenol to take care of that. It will not leak or smell.

The great advantages are these:

1. It enables the patient to stay hydrated, and thus out of the hospital, when swallowing the necessary amount of water is too painful.

2. It enables the patient to maintain the necessary nutrition.

3. And probably most important, when you need medication, it is much more quickly delivered via the PEG than by mouth.

Lots of people make it without the PEG. I am one very tough person, but I would not have been able to. I could not eat for several weeks by mouth, but today I can eat and swallow normally.

It was such a non-event in the grand scheme of things, that if I was ever told I needed another one, I would be first in line.

Now I will quietly step off the soapbox.