I usually make detailed outlined for my blogs, but today I’m going to try writing from the hip.

When I first got my breathing tube at age seven, chronicled here, the doctors told me it would only be for six months.

But here I am with it still, thirty years later.

A Series of Unfortunate Events

I’ve had multiple reconstructive surgeries over the decades, but something always went wrong. After the first surgery—which involved them harvesting rib cartilage to use as a stint in my airway—my doctors were able to reverse the tracheostomy. But my airway collapsed because it hadn’t yet healed before they woke me from the medically induced coma. I had to have another tracheotomy, and when I had the next reconstructive surgery a few years later, the same as the first one, it failed too.

The third attempt involved my having a two breathing tubes, one in the throat and one down it to open my airway. It failed too, and I had another case of Stevens-Johnson syndrome due to the post operative antibiotic my doctors gave me.

I had my last reconstructive surgery at sixteen and it involved my surgeon removing a section of my windpipe where scar tissue kept forming and reconnecting it. This one worked—kind of.

Afterward, I could partially breathe through my mouth and nose, but not enough to have my breathing tube removed; my surgeon said my airway was now open, but it was twisted, and I needed a series of surgeries to straighten it out. Also, I again had an allergic reaction to the postoperative antibiotic.

Since then, the last surgery I had was at 25 to have my vocal cords unfused.

I’ve given up hope of ever getting rid of this hunk of plastic in my neck; I’ve had it for most of my life, so what’s the point of more surgeries that probably won’t work anyway?

I’ve made peace with this. It’s who I am, and I don’t want to risk destroying what ability I have to speak and breathe through my nose and mouth.

In another decade, I might revisit the issue, if medical technology has advanced to the point it’s feasible to reverse my tracheostomy.

Conclusion

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