BY Barbara Issacs
Nov. 28, 2003

Four times a day, Tina Jackson connects her feeding tube to the wooden stand built by her husband.
The liquid food keeps Tina alive but she has found Mark's devotion more nurturing.
That bond inspired the creation of Mark Jackson's patent-pending feeding-tube stand, thought to be the first of its kind. It is portable, adjustable and operable with one hand, so users can eat without assistance. Normally, liquid food hangs from an IV pole, but that apparatus is bulky and difficult for one person to handle.
"When I got this, I knew I would be OK," Tina said. Needing help every time she ate was unthinkable. "I would feel so handicapped. I know I am, but I have not felt handicapped. It would have stopped a lot of my activities."
The device, the Jackson Peg Tube Stand, is being evaluated for a state $7,500 Rural Innovation Fund grant, which supports new business ventures. Eastern Kentucky University's department of technology is building a full-size plastic prototype.
"Mark saw a problem his wife was having and was able to invent a solution," said Me! White, who helps Kentuckians in 46 counties bring ideas to market. "A lot of these inventions, people say, 'Why didn't someone think of that before?' They didn't - and Mark did." White is
executive director for the Innovation and Commercialization Center-Eastern Region.
Understanding each other
Tina Jackson, 47, was born with cerebral palsy, and in 1981, she had a stroke, which gradually left her unable to swallow or speak.
She has a portable keyboard that can talk for her, but most often her husband interprets her American Sign Language for others.
Mark Jackson, 39, had a motorcycle wreck at 16 that bruised his brain, putting him in a six-week coma.
"I've spent better than half of my life with a handicap," he said. He has difficulty with balance and lost some dexterity in his right hand because of the accident. "This is normal for me now. I can remember running and riding motorcycles, and I sometimes still have dreams about it."
"He's had his own challenges, so I thought he would understand mine," Tina said.
By 1998, even swallowing pureed food was difficult for Tina, then newly married. By June 2000, Jell-0 blocked her airway. That persuaded her to get the feeding tube.
Giving up food was difficult. Sometimes, she still sends Mark for a foot-long hot dog with slaw from nearby Dee's Restaurant. "Just so I can smell it," she said. "It still bothers me to go to the grocery store. I see stuff I love to eat."
But hardest was being tethered to the IV pole.
Tina's family suggested that Mark devise a solution. He is a woodworker and bicycle mechanic; he loved tools even as a toddler.
After 12 hours in the garage, he built the first stand, which he has revamped four times.
"That was my R&D," he said, referring to research and development.
To use it, Tina sits on the stand's base. The stand holds a large plastic syringe at chest level. She connects a tube from the syringe into the tube that leads into her stomach.

"I've put on 20 pounds since I've been using it," she said.
Experience, the mother of invention
It is not unusual for people to get a product idea from life experience, said Kim Jenkins, management consultant for the Small Business Development Center at Morehead State University's Ashland branch.
"My initial response is how brave they are and how much they complement each other," Jenkins said. "Mark is so caring, so concerned about her."
The Jacksons immediately thought others could use the stand.
The American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition estimates that 176,000 people in the United States live on tube feeding, up 17 percent since 1992. With proper care, people can live their normal life expectancy on tube feeding.
"It is promising," said Angela Copple, commercialization manager for The Innovation Group of the Kentucky Science and Technology Corp. "There is nothing directly competitive in the marketplace." Copple is evaluating the Jacksons' product for its market potential, work she does for dozens of Kentucky startup companies.
"I just want to get it in the hands of the people that can use it," Mark
said.
With the grant, the Jacksons could hire a medical-equipment consultant to investigate licensing the stand.
"But who knows?" Tina said. "We may run a company. I never thought I would get this far."
She earned two degrees - a bachelor's in social work from Northern Kentucky University and a medical-records associate's degree from Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte, N.C.
"People are so surprised that I even ever worked, or drove, or went to school," she said. Until 1998, she worked as a medical records tech.
"They don't think we're all there," Mark said. "Me and Tina get so frustrated because Tina's very smart - she's head and shoulders above me. The only thing I can do is look at something and think, This needs to be fixed - how do I fix it?'" He graduated from a
vocational training program in small-engine repair.
Persistence and partnership
Bringing the tube stand to market is just their latest venture. Tina is writing her church's history. A year ago, the couple bought their first house.
Biking is another of the Jacksons" passions. In fact, it helped bring them together. Years before they started dating, Tina asked Mark to help her find an adult-size, three-wheeled bike. It took two years, but he found a nearly junked one for $20. He refurbished it and added a steering wheel from a riding lawn mower so she could steer one-handed.
As a child, Tina rode for miles on a two-wheeler, and she loved hiking again. "It felt so good to have that control and speed I do not have when walking," she said.
The Jacksons have ridden as far as 11 miles in bikeathon events, and they have organized the annual Appalachian Bike Tour since 1999. It is sponsored by the Lawrence County Democratic Woman's Club, in which Tina is involved.
Their five-year marriage surprises some.
"One lady asked, 'How's your sister?'" Mark said. "And I was like, 'Have you been to Huntington? That's where my sister is.'"
"I just thank God we're together," Tina said. "Before I met him, I was doing everything myself. ... I was 40,1 thought I would be alone for life and if I was, I was fine with that. I had come to the point where, oOK, this Is my life.'"
"People always told me, 'Mark, there's somebody out there just for you." I always looked for her," he said.

Tina first spotted Mark in the choir at church.
Tina said she asked her sister, "'Who is that guy, that hippie?' I was a hippie wannabe gowing up."
Tina decided to join a Bible study that Mark hosted.
"So she had ulterior motives," he said, laughing.
It didn't take Mark long to realize that a partnership was inevitable.
"We started dating, and two weeks after, I knew we belonged together," he said. "I just knew it. We were basically the same. We complement each other."