it seems like we're approaching the end already.
A veritable whirlwind of activity, today has been.
I can barely keep up. For the last 2 weeks I've effectively been telling you how little things have changed, but now I almost have to keep a list.
Most crucially, the team have discussed the end point. The are talking about a discharge - this weekend!. Personally I find a weekend discharge after this type of stay an interesting idea, especially if it's on the Sunday. Exactly who will be around to give that final check to confirm that all is well?
She is now free of her TPN feeding. Again, interesting timing. I acknowledge that I'm no expert in TPN, and I don't fully understand the (very specific) criteria for being on it, but in total she only had it for 2 days, and at the start was only on a very slow rate. The intention was to address the weight loss and relative malnutrition from the previous 3 weeks of eating nothing. Now, she is finally eating again, but it seems a lot of effort (including PICC line) for a couple of days of treatment.
She's eating again. Even toast. Not much, mind you - she says she ate about 1/4 of what seemed to be a meagre dinner. But things will have shrunk a bit and it'll take time for her capacity to eat returns to normal. Then there's the side issue of what she can and can't eat. She's been getting chummy with the Dietician, who tells her there'll be a bit of a list of yes/no food for the next month or so, and that she'll need to up her protein to assist healing.
PCA gone. At long last my nemesis Tom the button has been banished. As I warned her, any relationship that is based purely on one half supplying narcotics to the other is unlikely to lead to lasting happiness.
Naso-gastric tube gone. No more having her bile draining into a bag like she was the Queen of Prussia. Now miss lah-de-dah will simply have to vomit like the rest of us. "Let them eat cake" she said. Well, now she'll find that cake coming back up tastes like sugary chunder.
She has no more pumps or vacuums plugged into her. No whirring, no beeping, and no having to unplug them to go to the toilet. The room is eerily quite, save for the gentle sigh of uprooted trees slamming against the window.
She just showed me how to do that link thing with webpages.
I'm sure I won't become addicted.
She still has 2 wound drains, the PICC line, and the last IV line I put in on the 17th (I know it was the 17th because, as per protocols and best practice, I date them). She's sweating less. I presume that her bloods are reasonable.
My dad got out of hospital yesterday and is taking less pain relief than I think he should. I've told him to watch for signs of low blood pressure, because I don't want him to faint, fall, and do the other leg.
#1 husband
No comments:
Post a Comment