Fun with Tubes and Drains

Buried just under the surface I am a 13 year old boy who has a morbid fascination for gross stuff and head and neck cancer is gross. Of course, gross isn't any fun without a reaction. We expect our body fluids to stay inside our bodies but when we have head and neck cancer we learn to accept otherwise. Unfortunately I learned I could get a laugh and I admit I'm shameless. I'll always go for the laugh, the cheaper the better.
The hole in my palate got some good laughs. I could spew a glass of milk out of my nose! I'm not kidding. Chunks of food would come out if I sneezed while I was eating. One day I blew a scrambled egg across the kitchen. Torie, my niece, loved that part. I took the obturator out of my mouth before going to bed and cleaned it and put it in a glass of water, like dentures. If she was with me, Torie would stand by the sink and watch. I kept a little flashlight in the bathroom so we could look at the hole together and marvel about what might be in there. What little kid wouldn't love that? Dr. Suen made the residents and interns look around in there too. Not every patient offered an unobstructed view of a sinus cavity. I'm a bit of a sponge and Dr. Suen is always instructing so I picked up some anatomy over the years.
Then there were the drains. Drains are plastic cups attached to small tubes that are sewn into an incision to gather the gross stuff that comes out of a wound. The object is to measure the gross stuff at intervals and when the cup stays empty for x number of hours the drain can come out. If the drain was in a large incision I stayed in the hospital until the cup didn't collect any gross stuff. If it was a small incision I could go home with the drain and take care of it myself. You know I shared every chance I got.
An NG or nasogastric tube is a real ice breaker. This bright yellow tube threads through the nostril and into the stomach. Mine was for food, medicine, and water until I healed enough to swallow. I poured cans of liquid nutrient into a bag, hooked the bag to a gravity pole and fastened the end of the tube to the bag. I called that eating. Eventually, to entertain myself, I experimented with other liquids like coffee and beer. This tube was highly visible because it literally hung out of my nose. To keep from snagging it on something and dislodging it I hooked the tube over my right ear and let it dangle down in back. I was going for casual but smart. I refused to hide for weeks at a time while I healed so my tube went everywhere I went. People worked so hard to ignore it. Bank tellers, cashiers, people in the grocery aisles became preoccupied with something on the floor or over my head. Not so with little kids. They stared with frank fascination and curiosity. If the parent seemed receptive I'd explain why I had a yellow tube hanging out of my nose, if not, the kid and I just acknowledged one another with a nod and a wink.
This approach doesn't work for everyone. Some things are just not funny but I know that I have to find humor, no matter how grim the situation, before I can cope. Without laughter I'm lost.