My Tubey Books

February 20, 2013

The latest book in the My Tubey book series, There's More Than One Way to Eat!: A My Tubey Book, was a finalist for "Favorite New Special-Needs Children's Book" in the 2013 About.com Readers' Choice Awards! Thanks to everyone who voted!

The Oley Foundation ran a book review of My Tubey Books in their November/December 2012 LifeLine Letter. See the review below, or click here to access the entire newsletter, including the review!

From Lifeline Letter:

Book Corner:  My Tubey: A Day in the Life of a Tube Fed Girl, by Rhiannon Merritt-Rubadue
Review by Nancy Sinkus

"The picture book My Tubey: A Day in the Life of a Tube Fed Girl, by Rhiannon Merritt-Rubadue, portrays some very basic mechanics of feeding tubes, told as a young girl with a feeding tube goes through her day. Ms. Merritt-Rubadue wrote the book so her own daughter could see another child with a feeding tube like herself."

"My son J. D. has had a “tubey” for nearly all of his eight-plus years of life due to swallowing difficulties. We’ve always tended to emphasize to J. D. that no one else he knows well has a feeding tube—that it’s not the norm—because we want him to increase his oral feeds. It took us by surprise to see how excited he was to see the girl illustrated in the book with what looks exactly like his low-profile feeding tube (or button). J. D. has definitely taken ownership of the book, continuing to be interested each time he picks it up, telling us the title, pointing out the tubey picture.The book is great for kids for its very simple explanation of how a tube works. It would make a great show-and-tell for a tube-fed child in preschool or the primary grades. The same simple explanation, along
with the glossary of feeding tube terms listed in the back, would also work as a great primer for the adults in J. D.’s life who were previously unfamiliar with feeding tubes. Well-meaning but uninformed family and friends would get a quick lesson in the basics, all while just doing
a good deed by reading J. D. a book. He will happily sit through another reading of the book with the “tubey” girl just like him."

My Tubey: A Day in the Life of a Tube Fed Girl, My Tubey: A Day in the Life of a Tube Fed Boy, and There’s More Than One Way to Eat are available at www.mytubeybooks.com or by calling (253) 205-4281 ($12.99 each).

2011
A candid interview about tube feeding and tube weaning, the decision to get a G-tube for our daughter, and the personal story behind how My Tubey Books came to be.

Below is a snippet from the interview. Click here to read the full interview:

"How did you come to the decision to give your child a tube?"

"When I go back and relive that decision, and all that led to it, I can’t help but get choked up. It has been over 4 years and it still feels like a raw wound. Deciding to tube feed your child isn’t what’s the most difficult, it’s wrapping your brain around a baby that won’t eat, and around the feeling of failure you experience as a mother. A baby’s job is to eat. A mother’s job is to feed. What happens when no one can do their job? I was so determined to do my job; I ended up pumping my own breast milk for 17 months. I had to take medication to increase my milk supply (which I purchased from out of country and felt like a drug smuggler for). I gave up a promising career and put my older child in daycare just so I could take care of Ainsley. It pretty much felt like the end of the world to me at the time."

Continue reading:

Complex Child E-Magazine, July 2011 issue

A mom of a young son on tube feedings reviews My Tubey: A Day in the Life of a Tube Fed Boy.

July 2011 Edition
Feeding Tubes
 

Parenting Children With Special Needs Magazine, May/June 2011

Check out the May/June issue of this Kansas City area magazine for our personal story and how it led to the creation of My Tubey Books!