Friday, December 22, 2006

feeding tube

My grandpa's food, which is pumped into his stomach through a tube, is a mixture of vitamins and other nutrients. It sustains him. It is made by Nestle's, like the crunch bar i bought my boyfriend. A gift hoping he would continue loving me. So Nestle's makes liquid food for feeding tubes and candy. The two seem so distant from one another and I wonder if they are made in the same factory. Take a wrong turn on your tour of the Nestle's candy factory and you could be standing by a huge vat of feeding tube food. I imagine the process of making feeding tube food to be sterile and squeaky, with no love involved. Who makes this food? There are so many jobs in the world. Feeding tube food maker, making the bags that the feeding tube food goes in. The bed in my grandpas hospital room, the sheets on the bed, the gauze that is soaking up the phlegm that he coughs up through his trach, someone had to make, sell, market, and distribute these things. There are millions of jobs in the world, and yet, i can't find a one.