Terri is fed via the way I described.
I have much to learn on this case...I have only been following since very recently. I do know that there is something very rotton going on though. That is my gut instict. I saw Michael Schiavo on Nightline last night and he creeped me out. My instict was that he is lying and is hiding something.
Anyhow, what you described is Bolus feedings. It truly doesn't matter how she gets the feedings but bolus is more akin to a "normal" way of food intake - several meals a day rather than stretched out over a long time, as I said in my previos post. But, either way, IMO, it doesn't really matter in the sense that tube feeding is in NO WAY an "artificial" way of keeping her alive. It is the most practical and sensible way to be sure that she recieves the nutrition she needs. If her feeding tube is removed and she is not allowed to be fed orally, then she will starve - in other words those who remove the tube will be killing her.
By reinserting the tube at each feeding? NO.
Those tubes are inserted in a hospital ER special procedures room or OR.
Nursing homes and hospice do NOT withdraw and reinsert the tubes.
It is a surgical procedure. Very minor to be sure and only takes a few minutes, but they cut into the person and insert the tube and then inflate the balloon to secure, then stitch it into place.
Confused patients and caretaker accidents can cause the tube be pulled out, but it is painful, often causing skin tears and has a very high rate of infection. You don't just ram a tube back into them.
Give this a little thought if you don't believe me...Feeding tubes go through the external abdomen into the stomach. Think of the layers of tissue and the potential for infection.
Maybe you are thinking that one of those large syringes (50 mil) that are used to inject the nutritional formulas via the TUBE into the stomach. They are used to pull the fluid out of the stomach via the TUBE to measure how much was absorbed and then that fluid is re-injected (via the TUBE) gross, but that's what they do) and additional nutrition is added (via the TUBE)as needed to maintain calorie or fluid measurements.
The TUBE does not come out. It has a stopcock valve on it to open or close it, but the TUBE is sewn in.
Just as another poster explained to you already.