Jim, I am working towards drinking everything right now. It's a slow process for me partly because I wasn't able to swallow much for a long time because of strictures in my esophaugus. It takes a lot of time each day and often I just don't have the time. So on any given day I get between 50% and 100% of my nurition orally. I also have issues because I can't swallow pills and I am, taking medication (including tamoxifen to prevent a recurrence of breast cancer) that I now grind up and flush through the tube.

Actually, my MO just prescribed me a new form of liquid Tamoxifen to see if I could use that. However, it's in an alcohol solution and it completely set my mouth on fire when I tried drinking it. So that doesn't work too well.

So anyway, they aren't going to remove the tube until they and I are abolsutely totally sure that I can get adequate nutrition each and every day without it. And to me, adequate nutrition is not 4 cans of Carnation VHC, though I don't mind using some of that sort of thing every day, I want to be able to have adequate amounts of fruit and veggies every day, and fiber, and protein, and it's just hard putting it all together right now. My mouth is also still very sensitive and usually quite sore by the end of the day so there's a fair amount of stuff I cn't eat because it stings or burns.

Which is why I hope you won't take this the wrong way but talking on the phone, after a full day of talking (I am advising entering students right now at work) is pretty hard for me right now. If you want to send me a private message, though, please feel free. I am quite busy at work right now, though, as well as I have a relative not ding too well in the hospital so if I don't answer right away that's why.

Also, if I were you, I would not post my phone number anywhere that's a public site on the internet. You might want to erase that post up there.

Nelie