Monday, June 23, 2008

Monday 23 June 2008

A hugely busy and tiring day today. Up early and after 2 hours and 45 minutes of feeding Peter and myself, showering Peter and myself, organising a 2nd feed and medications, loading up the car and packing his hospital bag with medications etc we got to the hospital. I know that those of you who have had babies know all about this and so it is not new but it is new for us to have to have one of us do everything for the other.

Anyway, Peter spent up to 3.30pm today getting his next round of chemotherapy, Peg tube wound attended to along with bloods taken etc before being admitted to the National Capital Private Hospital and then having a consultation with the dietitian, another with the registrar, being wheeled across to the Canberra Hospital for radiotherapy at 5pm and then having to be hooked up to drips, have meds injected through the Peg and have a 1 litre bottle of Ensure ("complete food") hooked up for a 12 hour "feed" through the tube. So at 8pm I decided all was well for the night and headed home.

As per the previous blog entries, Pete is scheduled to be in for around 5 days and then will come home and I will need to take him into radiotherapy for another 2 weeks after that. So far he has regained a little cheer at the fact the dietitian has agreed to try him out on higher amounts of tube feeding. I have to say both Peter and I were keen to see if more was possible as he has been loosing condition faster than a speeding bullet and over the past 2 days I have had to help shower him again as he can stand but not do anything much to contribute to the exercise and of course I have to towel him dry and dress him.

I am very hopeful he can cope with the increased feeds and it doesn't put too much adverse pressure on his system as he is now eating nothing - with only an occasional apple juice or broth.

Anyway, stay tuned for the next episode. I can say that on past performance, by tomorrow afternoon or Wednesday morning he will probably be feeling appalling from the effects of the chemotherapy. At least he doesn't have to try to cope with swallowing anything or eating now if the tube feeding works out.

Au revoir - Leanne.

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