The short answer
This page helps readers organize tracheostomy supplies, humidification, communication, suction teaching, and emergency preparation. It cannot set a personal emergency threshold or replace the plan your care team writes.
The goal is to organize tracheostomy supplies, humidification, communication, suction teaching, and emergency preparation.
Identify the tube type, size, cuff status, and reason for the tracheostomy.
Practice routine care and emergency steps with the specialist before discharge.
Keep prescribed spare equipment and emergency contacts together.
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An opening in the neck, and a tube to keep it open
This page is for people going home with a tracheostomy after cancer treatment, and for the family who will help care for it. A tracheostomy is a surgical opening through the front of the neck into the windpipe. The opening itself is called a stoma. MedlinePlus describes what follows: "After the hole is made, a plastic tube is placed in the hole to keep it open. A ribbon is tied around the neck to keep the tube in place."
In cancer care there are two common reasons for one. MedlinePlus lists "cancer of the neck, which can restrict breathing by pressing on the airway." The other is surgery around the voice box (larynx) that stops normal breathing and swallowing.
Most of what follows applies to anyone with a tracheostomy. One distinction comes first, because it changes what happens in an emergency.
Tracheostomy or laryngectomy: know which you are
These are not the same. A laryngectomy is surgery to remove all or part of the voice box. MedlinePlus says that after a laryngectomy "you will breathe through your stoma. It will never be removed."
The American Cancer Society says that with a tracheostomy you breathe through the stoma in your neck instead of through your nose or mouth.
Ask your surgeon which operation you had. Ask what it means for an emergency. Make sure the people you live with know how you breathe, and can tell emergency responders.
When to call 911 and when to call your team
- Call 911 right away if the tube comes out, blocks, or breathing becomes difficult. Make the call first, or have someone else make it while you act. MedlinePlus says to call 911 if the tube falls out and you cannot replace it. A blocked or displaced tube can block your airway, so do not wait to see if it settles. Do not drive yourself.
- Call 911 or go to the nearest emergency department if bleeding from the stoma or tube is heavy or will not stop. MedlinePlus says to get medical help right away when bleeding cannot be controlled.
- Call your team right away, at any hour, if you are having chemotherapy and have a temperature of 100.4°F (38°C) or higher. CDC says to call your doctor right away at that temperature. It says fever may be the only sign of infection, and that an infection during chemotherapy can be life-threatening.
- If you are having chemotherapy, also call right away, at any hour, for chills, sweats, a new cough, or redness or swelling around the stoma. CDC lists these as signs of infection. You do not need a fever. A normal temperature is not a reason to wait. See CDC.
Only put a tube back in if your own team has trained you or your carer to do it. Even then, only follow the plan they wrote for this tube.
MedlinePlus tells you to carry an extra tube "in case your tube gets plugged." Keep your written airway plan and the spare tube with you.
Call your team right away for any of these, and do not wait for the next day, if they are not already covered above. MedlinePlus lists them as reasons to contact your provider during tracheostomy care:
- Fever or chills, if you are not having chemotherapy.
- Redness, swelling or pain around the stoma that is getting worse.
- Bleeding or drainage from the hole, especially drainage that is thick, colored or smells bad.
- A sudden increase in mucus, or mucus that turns thick and hard to clear.
- A cough that will not settle.
- Nausea, or anything else that is simply not usual for you.
For comparison, the American Cancer Society says a healthy stoma "should look pink or red. It's warm, moist, and produces mucus." That is your baseline.
Write down what you have
Keep the details of your tube with you. Write down the make, the size, whether it is cuffed, and the reason you needed it. Ask your team for this information if you do not have it.
Ask your team to teach you how to care for the tube. Some tubes have parts, such as a cuff or an inner tube, that need specific handling. Do not change cuff settings or take parts out unless you have been trained and told to.
What has to stay within reach
MedlinePlus is blunt about leaving the house: "You should always carry an extra tube with you in case your tube gets plugged."
Ask your team what else to keep with you, and how to get replacements.
Cleaning, day by day
For the stoma, MedlinePlus says that once the area is no longer sore from surgery, "clean the hole with a cotton swab or a cotton ball at least once a day." It says the gauze dressing between your tube and neck helps catch mucus, and to change it when it is dirty. Change the ties whenever they are soiled. Ask your team how to clean the tube itself, and how often.
Check the skin for redness, drainage and swelling every time you clean.
Suctioning and mucus
Ask your team to teach you suctioning and to write your own instructions down. Do not change your suction depth or pressure on your own.
Before anything else, MedlinePlus offers a gentler first step: "A few drops of salt water (saline) will loosen a plug of thick mucus. Put a few drops in your tube and windpipe, then take a deep breath and cough."
Humidity
MedlinePlus explains the problem in one line: "Your nose will no longer keep the air you breathe moist."
MedlinePlus suggests humidifiers and keeping gauze moist over the tube opening. Ask what your team wants you using.
Water, dust and everyday life
MedlinePlus is specific: "Do not breathe in water, food, powder, or dust. When you take a shower, cover the hole with a tracheostomy cover. You will not be able to go swimming."
Speaking and eating again
MedlinePlus says most people need "1 to 3 days to adapt to breathing through a tracheostomy tube." It says most people can learn to talk with a tracheostomy tube, many times by using special speaking valves.
After a laryngectomy the route is different. MedlinePlus says a tracheoesophageal puncture with a voice prosthesis may allow speech after the voice box is removed, and that speech rehabilitation helps you relearn how to speak. It says you may be allowed to swallow food as soon as 2 to 3 days after surgery, though waiting 5 to 7 days is more typical.
MedlinePlus says to ask your provider for a referral to a speech therapist. Ask before you leave the hospital.
Sources
Common questions
What should I know about the tube itself?
Identify the tube type, size, cuff status, and the reason the tracheostomy was done, and keep that written down. Practice routine care and the emergency steps with the specialist before discharge, not afterward. Keep prescribed spare equipment and emergency contacts together in one place.
Can I change the tube, suction depth, oxygen or cuff settings myself?
No. Do not change any of those unless you have been trained and instructed to. The safest next step depends on severity, speed, diagnosis, recent treatment, medicines, devices, and the person's baseline, and other conditions can cause similar changes.
How do I know when something is urgent?
Ask the treating team to write three separate levels: what can be discussed at a routine visit, what requires an urgent same-day call, and what requires emergency services. Record the exact contact numbers and instructions alongside them. Do not wait for a portal response when someone may be in immediate danger. Call 911.
What information should be kept together?
Keep the diagnosis, recent treatments and dates, medicines and last doses, allergies, devices, recent laboratory or imaging information, the symptom timeline, any measurements the team requested, location, transport plan, and advance directives in one place. That is what makes an urgent call fast instead of frantic.
Questions to ask your doctor
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Your next step
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Get urgent help
Fever of 100.4°F (38°C) or higher during chemo, severe pain, or trouble breathing: call your cancer care team right away, day or night. Call 911 for an emergency.
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Where to get help with this, by name
A hospital social worker or financial navigator is the best first call if you have one. If you do not, these organisations help at no cost to you.
- Patient Advocate Foundation — (800) 532-5274. Case managers take on insurance appeals, denials and medical debt with you. Free.
- TotalAssist (Patient Advocate Foundation's copay programme, merged with the PAN Foundation in 2026) — 866-512-3861. Help with medication copays, coinsurance and deductibles, insurance premiums, and office-visit and administration charges on the day of treatment, across nearly 150 conditions.
- CancerCare — 800-813-HOPE (4673). Oncology social workers, free counselling and support groups. Limited financial help with transport, home care, child care and lodging for people in active treatment who meet their income guidelines — funding is first-come, first-served, so call to ask what is open.
- Triage Cancer — 424-258-4628. Free legal and financial navigation: insurance, employment rights, disability.
- Blood Cancer United (formerly the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society) — (800) 955-4572. Information Specialists answer questions on treatment, insurance and financial problems.
- HealthCare.gov — 1-800-318-2596. For questions about the external review process — the independent review your insurer is required by law to accept.
Your state Department of Insurance regulates insurers and takes consumer complaints. On Medicare, your State Health Insurance Assistance Program (SHIP) gives free one-to-one counselling. If a specific drug is the problem, ask the manufacturer about its patient assistance programme.
Phone numbers checked 31 July 2026. Programmes and eligibility change — if a number has moved, please tell us.
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Sources last checked: 2026-08-11 what this meansLast updated: 2026-10-01Next planned review: 2027-01-22
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Cancer Explained does not originate medical claims. Every page restates guidance already published by the National Cancer Institute, the CDC, the USPSTF and the FDA, in plain language, with the source cited so you can check the original yourself. AI does the translating and organizing; automated checks test claims, citations, clarity and safety before anything publishes, and this is translation and navigation, not clinical judgment. Nothing here is personal medical advice, and no page can account for your particular situation.
Editorial status: Editorial review complete — This page completed Cancer Explained's editorial checks (sources, safety, plain language, duplication). It has not been reviewed by a physician or other healthcare professional.
Human medical review: not completed. Pages here are not signed off by a clinician before they publish. That is not an oversight we are quietly working around: we restate published guidance and cite it, so the authority belongs to the source rather than to us, and every page names where its claims come from — you can verify us instead of trusting us. Where a volunteer clinician has reviewed a page, their name and credentials appear on it; where no name appears, no clinician has checked it. We are glad to have reviewers and are recruiting them, and we do not hold pages back waiting for one. Use this site to understand your situation and to ask better questions of the people treating you.
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