Tubie Talks

Haley Stewart was a teenager, tube-fed and living in a tiny town in Montana when her grandma convinced her to post a video. It changed everything. In the final episode of Tubie Talks: Hooked Up, Steph chats with Haley about growing up while her body fell apart, finding a community online that finally understood her, and the grief of losing a close friend. Haley also shares the hope and faith that&...

Lily-Rose "Rosie" Burnell has been septic 17 times and in ICU six times – and she's not afraid to talk about what that's done to her mental health. In this episode of Tubie Talks: Hooked Up, Steph sits down with her dear friend Rosie, recording just days after she came home from a month-long hospital admission. They talk about complex PTSD, the trauma of repeated ICU stays, and...

Freya Steindl has been on TPN since she was a baby – and it hasn't stopped her running half marathons, rock climbing or road-tripping across the US-Canada border for the Eras Tour. In this episode of Tubie Talks: Hooked Up, Steph chats with the 24-year-old paediatric nurse from Brisbane about growing up not wanting to be "the sick kid", working alongside colleagues who just get it,...

Missed prom, met her people online, and came off every tube she had. In this episode of Tubie Talks: Hooked Up, Steph sits down with 21-year-old Lilly Downs to talk life after a COVID diagnosis turned everything upside down. They cover feeding tubes in high school, finding friendship through illness, dating with medical baggage, and waking up one morning to a video with a million views. Tubie Talk...

Misbehaving feeding tubes, changing bodies and moving cities to breathe. In this episode of Tubie Talks: Hooked Up, Steph sits down with disability advocate Amelia Tang to talk ME/CFS, mast cell disease, Cushing syndrome, body image, dating within the disability community and what social isolation really does to a natural extrovert. Tubie Talks: Hooked Up is a Heart Out Media podcast proudly suppo...

Besties, feeding tubes, hospital drama and a bit of rule-breaking. In the first episode of Tubie Talks: Hooked Up , Steph sits down with her friend Coady Gillis to talk friendship, chronic illness, self-advocacy and the people who show up when things get hard. Tubie Talks: Hooked Up is a Heart Out Media podcast proudly supported by Medicina, supplier of the GFit Low Profile Gastrostomy Button and...

Steph Kelly is your host for season two of Tubie Talks: Hooked Up . She's about to hook you up with a cast of people who, like her, are living life – working, playing, travelling, dating and doing it all – with chronic illness, disability and feeding tubes. Tune in for weekly episodes from July 1. Tubie Talks: Hooked Up is a Heart Out Media podcast proudly supported by Medicina, supplier of t...

She's got a G-tube, J-tube, TPN and half a million social media followers. Meet Steph Kelly,  a Sydney nurse who's built a colossal community by candidly sharing what it's like to live with feeding tubes, frequent hospital stays and a lengthy list of conditions – including hyper-mobile Ehlers Danlos syndrome, POTS, and serious heart issues – all while leading a full, and often very...

This is a story about a girl called Riley. One of four sisters who, along with mum, Grecian, and dad, Justin, enjoys drawing, outdoor adventures and ice-cream treats in her sunny home of Perth, tube-feeding all the way. Join me as I chat with this charming six-year-old and her family, along with her school principal, who has personally mastered the art of schooltime tube-feeds, and her new support...

She blends up cheese platters with wine, pours espressos down her feeding-tube and calls Spotlight "the mothership".  Meet Kym Adams, a Brisbane local with a wicked sense of humour and, as her friend Skubi puts it, "mad crafting skills". In this episode, Kym and I spend a day at the Wholesome Blends office (is that a cameo from founder Sarah Thomas, we hear?) and chat about how...

Let’s visit Sydney’s sunny suburb of Gymea and spend a day with a charming almost-three-year-old and his family, shall we? Luke Joseph has been tube-feeding since the day he was born and while he kept his parents, Eliana and Michael, and many medical professionals guessing for 16 months, a super-rare genetic condition turned out to be why. In this episode I encounter a dreamy tube-feeding supplies...

He’s got the body of '80s-era Arnold Schwarzenegger, making him the polar opposite of what most people expect when they think of a tube-feeder. Meet Pedro Relvas, a former professional bodybuilder and personal trainer who faced enormous health challenges with a mindset as strong as his muscles. Tag along as I chat with Pedro and his family at their gym and home in Brisbane. You’re gonna love...

Welcome to Tubie Talks, a podcast series celebrating the lives of people and families who tube-feed. I’m your host, author, journalist and tube-feeding parent, Melanie Dimmitt, and in this series I’ll be chatting with a vibrant mix of guests about how they go about this little-known, but no less worthy way of eating. I’m starting  Tubie Talks close to home – quite literally – with my own family’s...

Welcome to Tubie Talks, a podcast series celebrating the lives of people and families who tube-feed.  Listen in as author, journalist and tube-feeding parent Melanie Dimmitt chats with a vibrant mix of guests about how they go about this little-known, but no less worthy way of eating.  Tubie Talks is brought to you by the team at InterMed Medical , who supply an extensive range of very useful Medi...