As I described to you in one of my last posts, there was a time in my life with PEG when I consciously avoided eating food orally altogether. However, one early summer’s day, the afternoon turned out a little differently than originally planned. Everything took much longer and ended with dinner at a restaurant with friends.
Return to the world of oral eaters
In itself, this was not a problem. I would have sat down at the table, had a drink and we would have chatted and laughed. Over time, I had also gained some experience in sitting out while the others ordered food in a restaurant on occasions like this. Over the years, this led to one or two interesting stories, but I will tell you about those another time perhaps? Today, I will tell you about my return to the world of oral intake. Because now, unfortunately, I was without feeding tube nutrition, but with a healthy appetite. So what to do?
My stomach was growling
Since all the accessories, such as transfer sets and syringes, were also missing, it was not an option to give anything through the tube from the restaurant kitchen. Of course, depending on the medical history, there are exceptions. But basically, a PEG does not automatically mean that you can no longer eat anything. Especially since I had imposed the complete Oral Diet on myself anyway. Because my stomach was really growling, I decided to break my resolution. So I recalled the special swallowing technique that my speech and language therapist had taught me and ordered soup.
Beef broth or tomato soup
The selection in this restaurant was, however, limited. As I was to learn over the next few years, this was by no means an exception. But more on that in a moment. So I had the choice between beef broth or tomato soup in Tuscan style. Given that broth is really just hot water with flavoring, the decision was an easy one in view of my rumbling stomach. So I didn’t exactly celebrate my return to being a oral eater with a feast. But after all these years, even tomato soup tasted pretty good.
My soup phase
Given the fact that I didn’t aspirate thanks to concentrating while eating, coupled with the special technique for swallowing, I wondered if soup wouldn’t be an option every now and then. Especially since it allowed me to be more flexible at my appointments. So if I didn’t have any tube feeding with me, I didn’t have to starve. I was traveling a lot on business during this phase of my life, my soup phase. So when I went out to eat, I explored the soup section of the menus. It wasn’t just practical, it tasted pretty good too.
Tomato soup sommelier
Although I quickly realized that the selection of soups in most restaurants was quite similar. In addition to beef broth (which, for the reasons mentioned above, was only an option for emergencies, to get something into my stomach), cream of asparagus soup was very often on the menu. Unfortunately, I was never a big fan of asparagus. So I usually went for the classic: tomato soup. Over time, I could have retrained as a tomato soup sommelier. Because I knew them all. The good ones and the bad ones… Believe me, unfortunately, there were quite a few of the latter. I had the best tomato soup once during a vacation in Austria. In a small, family-run restaurant on the way back from the ski resort to the hotel.
From soups to sauces
Nevertheless, I eventually got tired of tomato soup. So when I went to a restaurant, I started looking through the rest of the menu and just ordered the sauces instead of whole dishes. This also led to a variety of reactions from the service staff (and sometimes even from the kitchen). But it was definitely more variety for me. My soup phase thus became a soup and sauce phase. At that time, I had no idea that this was the beginning of a new journey in life with PEG. But more about that in one of the next posts.
