Kerry, A low grade fever can be normal after all the stuff his body has been through. I was told if it gets above 100.5 you should call someone right away, though, because of the compromised immune system from the chemo.

Tom's experience with the PEG and gauze pads is the same as mine. I keep the skin around my PEG cleaned well and let the damn thing drain as it sees fit (which means I have gotten icky stuff on several shirts but it washes out). When I did gauze pads all the time I had two problems. First, as Tom said, the stuff would stick to the guaze and kind of form this hard crust that made things worse. Second, I needed surgical tape of some sort to hold on the gauze pads and even the stuff that isn't supposed to irritate your skin started to irritate my skin (I have really sensitive skin) and I started to have raw patches where the adhesive from the tape took skin off with it.

So like Tom, I usually do not wear gauze pads (the only exception is when I am wearing a noce blouse that I don't want to get PEG drainage goop on) and just keep the site clean by washing it well and using disinfectant towlettes. Works for me (also it helps that I no longer have a compromised immune system thought my WBC is still on the very low end of normal).

Nelie