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Insatiable: A life without eating

When my Crohn's disease took away food, it took what it means to be human.

Doctors thought it was impossible to bypass the digestive tract and get enough nutrition into patients through a vein, believing it required so much liquid, and such a high concentration of chemical nutrients, that it would cause inflammation and burning when administered. When he kept a beagle named Stinky alive, nourished only with the nutrient combination infused into his vena cava (a large vein that returns deoxygenated blood to the heart), Dudrick was convinced it would work for humans. I recently found a note on my computer titled “Food to Eat,” that listed what I was craving when I was on TPN: black pepper crabs, pecan waffles, meat pies, Turkish delight, and, of course, roast chicken.

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