Birthday Balloons

We just got home yesterday evening after being away 4 days visiting Elaine's parents and other family at the farm.   We had a great time there and a good trip home.   Yesterday was my birthday but we were mostly just traveling and had already celebrated my birthday early.   While traveling I started having problems with my trach tube.  It has an inflatable cuff (the light blue balloon that is down inside my trachea) that I deflate during the day and inflate at night to connect to the ventilator.   As shown in the pictures below there is a tube with filler valve (dark blue) that sticks out that I use to inflate and deflate the balloon cuff using a syringe. 

While traveling I would take air out of the cuff with a syringe and a few minutes later the air would leak back in restricting my breathing.  At night when I inflated the cuff to connect to the ventilator it would not stay inflated, the equivalent of a flat tire in my trachea.  I was not able to use the ventilator to assist my breathing for the night and got very little sleep.  So first thing in the morning I phoned the respiratory therapist (RT) to arrange a  trach tube change.  Usually I have trach changes at ambulatory care (out patient rooms)  at the hospital every 6 weeks.  Rather than arrange this at the hospital on short notice, the RT phoned back and said he will be right over to my house to do the trach change.   He was at my house in 20 minutes with new trach tubes and all his supplies and had the procedure done in short order.  Now that is real health care service.