What happened to Tammy Slaton? The 1000-Lb Sisters star has a health scare on the upcoming episode, which may finally give fans answers as to why she’s been wearing a trach tube in recent photos and videos.
In a preview for the Monday, January 31 episode, Tammy was sitting in the back seat of their van on a trip with her brother, Chris Slaton, and his wife, Brittany Combs. “Feeling OK, Tammy?” he asked her from the driver’s seat.
“Why am I so sleepy?” she asked as she appeared to not be feeling well. “How’s your oxygen?” Chris asked as Tammy placed an oximeter on her finger to check her blood oxygen level.
“65,” Tammy replied, which is dangerously low.
In her confessional, Tammy’s sister Amy Slaton shared her thoughts on the state of her health. “I don’t know how long her body will hold up.”
As fans recall, Tammy has been wearing a nasal cannula, which is connected to her oxygen tank, since the end of season 2. Around that time, Tammy had contracted COVID-19 and pneumonia, which landed her in the hospital. She shared an update with fans on her health journey in a YouTube video in November 2020. I was in the hospital [for] just about two weeks,” the TLC star shared. “I’m doing great. I mean yes, I’m on oxygen. That’s just to keep my lungs sturdy, strengthened — I won’t be on [oxygen] much longer. I was on 15 liters of oxygen and now I’m on three.”
Unfortunately, Tammy’s health took a turn for the worse in November 2021. She took to TikTok to reveal that she had been hospitalized yet again, this time for carbon monoxide poisoning, which took an additional toll on her lungs.
(@official_tammyslaton)“I ended up in the hospital because of carbon dioxide poisoning … which led in to pneumonia and I was septic,” Tammy said in a TikTok video at the time. “After I got off life support, they put a trach in, so, yeah. I’m trying to get used to that.”
Tammy added, “I’m doing better day by day. I’m supposed to be getting out of the hospital in a couple days. I’m going to another nursing rehab to get my strength back and loose more weight.”
A trach, also known as a tracheostomy, is a hole that is surgically made in the front of the neck and into the windpipe, or trachea, according to Mayo Clinic. After the procedure, a tracheostomy tube is placed into the hole to keep it open so that it can help the patient with breathing.
On January 29, 2022, Tammy revealed she is still wearing her trach and that she is still in rehab via TikTok Live.