The Chop House

The first place I tried eating out with my blender in tow was The Chop House on Kingston Pike in Knoxville. The Chop House is a fairly upscale, casual dining restaurant. We'd never been there but Betsy heard the food was decent. She really wanted me to be able to eat out on my birthday, so in December, 2011, she called the manager of the Chop House and asked if they could put my food in a blender. They said no problem, so we packed the Vitamix in a hard suitcase and wheeled it in the restaurant.

When I first started eating through a tube, I was very self-conscious about my eating. I avoided letting other people see me eat. I recall getting angry and upset when my father took a picture of one of my feeds in 2010. I hated the thought of people seeing that I was reduced to eating through a tube. I wanted everyone to remember me the way I used to be, not the broken man I'd become.

Gradually, I got over it.

In online groups, I read posts from other tubies and their caregivers. One elderly woman was the wife of a man who had recently gotten a PEG tube. He was despondent and believed that having a feeding tube meant that his life was basically over. His wife was wondering what she could tell him to lift his spirits. Another tubie, Bonnie, is a young, special needs girl who goes to public school in Oregon. The school will no longer allow her to eat through her feeding tube on school property. The school district considers tube feeding to be a medical procedure and has directed their aides to stop performing such a "procedure" on Bonnie. So, she can no longer eat with her classmates, which only serves to ostracize her more from her peers.

I recognized the stigma associated with feeding tubes. People like me are embarrassed to admit we have one, and the public doesn't fully understand that tubes are simply another way of eating. Eric O'Gorman was another tubie I met online. He lived outside Perth, Australia, and maintained an excellent blog about tube feeding, and life, called entropyandlight.blogspot.com. He also wrote a very informative book, Complete Tubefeeding. Over time, Eric's health and physical appearance changed more dramatically than my own. Yet he never let eating through a tube keep him from living his life. He finally succumbed to his rare illness last July. His death certainly was not a result of eating real food through a tube. Eric has inspired me to "come out of the tubie closet," so to speak.

So now I see myself as more of an ambassador for tubies.

Chicken marsala and berries (should've added wine to deal with the Chinese kid in the picture)

Starting with the Chop House, Betsy and I have explained my situation to each restaurant we visit. We also always leave a big tip at the end of every meal because we recognize that they are going the extra mile to make sure I can enjoy dining out with my family and friends. The big tip will hopefully also ensure that the restaurant will not hesitate to serve other tubies in the future.

Wouldn't it look better blended up with chocolate cake?

The food at The Chop House was great (at least Betsy and Grace seemed to like it; they could have fed me scraps and I wouldn't have tasted it), and the service was excellent. I ordered salmon. I usually get seafood because heavier meals like steak (or gluten free pizza) tend to make thicker blends that end up exploding onto my pants. They also offered a free dessert for my birthday so I cheated on my gluten free diet (sorry Ginger) and got a big chocolate cake.

We've been back to The Chop House since my birthday and it will always be a special place for me because it was the first place I was able to get back to living my life without feeling self conscious.