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CADEL EVANS GREAT OCEAN ROAD RACE, PAGE 8.
6 - 19 FEBRUARY, 2026
BELLARINE’S NUMBER ONE NEWSPAPER
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Living with a tube By Jena Carr Ocean Grove’s Tess Swift is drawing on her lived experience to raise awareness about Feeding Tube Awareness Week. The 31-year-old was diagnosed with gastroparesis, which means her stomach is partially paralysed and can’t digest food properly, after a trip to Thailand more than 10 years ago. “The gastroparesis was caused by a really rare parasite, and it has done a lot of damage to other parts of my body as well,” Ms Swift said. “I first got sick in 2015 after a family holiday to Thailand and battled with hospitals and doctors for the first two and a bit years before I was diagnosed with gastroparesis.
I would so much rather have a conversation about my feeding tube and why I have it and what it’s for than deal with people speculating - Tess Swift or judging “I got my first feeding tube in 2018. I thought it would just be short-term, and here I am eight years later, so it was a pretty big adjustment in the early days.” Ms Swift now has a permanent surgical tube that goes into her small intestine so that her stomach doesn’t have to try so hard to digest food. “I’ve got some pretty gnarly scars now, but I guess the biggest thing for me was just reminding myself that without having it, I wouldn’t be alive,” she said. “I enjoyed not having it visible on my face, but I had to go through a large open abdominal surgery for that, and I was only 23 at the time, so it was a big change to my body. “Unfortunately, my health is still in a pretty terrible position as, on one hand, having a feeding tube is great because it has helped keep me alive this long. “In terms of tube feeding, it’s very up and down as it is kind of hard to live with
Ocean Grove’s Tess Swift lives with a feeding tube and bag after she was infected by a parasite. (Ivan Kemp) 532214_09
a medical device that you need to survive, but can also cause a lot of problems at the same time.” Ms Swift said it was important to help educate the wider population about feeding tubes and there were a lot of different reasons why someone may need a feeding tube. “There’s probably a lot more people in the world who have feeding tubes than people realise,” she said. “I have no issue if people out in the real world or on social media want to ask
questions because humans are curious by nature. “I would so much rather have a conversation about my feeding tube and why I have it and what it’s for than deal with people speculating or judging. “My advice for people who have either recently started or are starting on a feeding tube journey is not to be embarrassed about it, as everybody needs to eat and drink; it just looks different for some people.” Geelong’s Catenary Lighting will continue to light up purple until Saturday 7
February to raise awareness of tube feeding for the annual Feeding Tube Awareness Week. Many location across Australia and New Zealand light up blue and purple for the week, which is held by charity ausEE. “Purple is a common colour of feeding tube supplies, while blue represents what flows through the tube; whether that’s formula, blended foods, breastmilk, or water,” chief executive Sarah Gray said. Visit feedingtubeaware.com.au for more information and support networks.
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