The Blend Magazine

Offering a fresh, honest and empowering approach to tube-feeding, THE BLEND explores how people and families who rely on enteral and parenteral nutrition live, adapt and thrive. The magazine is a premium, coffee-table worthy resource brimming with beautiful photography, practical advice and stories that celebrate resilience, normalise medical devices and foster connection among those navigating life with feeding tubes.

The Blend Issue Four was created in partnership with…

A message from the editor, Melanie Dimmitt

Featured Contributors • Some of the creatives behind The Blend Issue Four share why they love creating content around tube-feeding.

Body Talk • In a culture obsessed with appearances, a rising number of us are feeling uncomfortable in our own skin. But what if that skin happens to be flaunting a feeding tube?

Family Stories

Soul Sisters • Born without eyes and with several other challenges, Evely Diaz was always going to have an extraordinary story. Her mother, South Carolina singer and not-for-profit founder Tameka Simmons – alongside Evely’s sisters, Luna and Skye – shares how tube-feeding plays a supporting role for their family.

The Sibling Bond • Feeding tubes can make brothers and sisters all the more tight, so we’re told. It’s time these special relationships – in all their rivalry, fun and fierce love – got our full attention.

Fun-size sib chats

Winning Formula

Gracie’s Carbonara

Everyday Miracles • How do we teach the world that tube-feeding is normal? By showing the world that tube-feeding is normal. And with two tube-feeding daughters and an online community of more than a million, Shannon Willardson is doing just this.

Push it • Syringes are a tube-feeder’s best friend – but have you mastered their full potential? It’s time to take the plunge with these tried and tested tips from our community.

Personal Accounts

Curated Care •  Tube-feeding is not a one-size-fits-all thing, so why settle for anything less than a custom-made support team? We hear two stories of self-advocacy, both with a very special nurse in a starring role.

Limitless • From TPN and tube-feeding to a bowel transplant, Garrett Taira has tried it all. We chat with the actor, dancer and chronic-illness advocate about self-esteem, support systems, and the dangers of door knobs.

Making Change • At 22 years old, with multiple organs failing, Celia Chartres-Aris was told she had a less than 10 per cent chance of survival. Today, she’s designing new laws aimed at levelling the playing field for the disability community.

Flying High • Not long after her feeding tube was placed, this cheerleader was back in the air, chasing her dreams, bringing thousands of supporters along for the ride.

Professional Perspectives

The G Word • Avanos clinical education specialist Robyn Wortel gives us the low-down on a very common stoma issue – granulation tissue – and how to wave it goodbye.

ARFID explained • It unpacks as Avoidant, Restrictive Food Intake Disorder – and it’s getting around. Dr Tessa Taylor, founder of Paediatric Feeding International, gives us the downlow on this feeding difficulty.

Dream Team • With collaborative care crowned the best approach for paediatric feeding issues, you’ll want to surround your kid with a fantasy league of specialists. Here’s one we prepared earlier.

Let’s Talk Lingo • Psst… is that really a PEG? Children’s Nursing Queensland founders Natalie Gentile and Lisa Gyselman help us get tube-feeding fluent.

The Business Of Bleand • Meet three entrepreneurs charting new territory in the commercial blended whole-foods space, each from their own corner of the globe, all inspired by their tube-feeding...