This week has seen a few changes for Peter. First he is now on a more "elemental" liquid food to try to help with his tolerance of the food (to stop nausea) and also assist with improving liquid bowel motions (sorry for the detail here...). it has been gong since Friday and there seems to have a slight improvement in the first of these but no change so far with the second.

Also he has had blood in his urine this week and so the Heparin (blood thinner) has been ceased and that has fixed that but the side issue is that he has to exercise more as there is a risk of blood clotting from inactivity. This is not easy as I need to have another person and the nurses are so focused on medication and quick tasks that they are not really easily engaged in helping me with the exercises. So Peter and I have been doing them largely on our own, which is not ideal and this was shown to be so when he nearly fell the other day while using the forearm walker for balance and there was only me to hang onto him.

Peter asked for a blood test this week as he was concerned his electrolytes would be down given his diarrhoea. The results were that they were okay but he is pretty anaemic. So another blood test on Monday to monitor how that's going.

Peter remains anxious when I leave in the evenings and we have been trialling the use of anti-anxiety medication but these have not been successful as they knock him out and leave him with a "hang-over" for several hours afterwards which sees him unable to distinguish dreams from reality. So that remains an issue.

None the less, I am undertaking almost all of the daily care for Peter. I should say I want to do this as then I can check out his condition and keep a monitoring eye on everything as I am the one person, apart from Peter who is consistently around and can advocate on his behalf. This includes showering, exercising, chest physio to assist him to expectorate the phlegm, all other personal care and comfort tasks. I also do most of the drug administration. This saves the nurses time and I am also keen to do it so that Peter gets his full dose of medication. It is also because I seem to be almost the only person who knows how to use his peg tube properly, despite Peter or I providing assistance and advice when we are able to do so.

Apart from these daily issues, we are continuing to enjoy each other's company as well as the DVD's, Scrabble and visitors. We also remain exceptionally grateful for Dr P___ who has continued to keep Peter as his patient despite his role being patients in the other hospitals at the moment. He is great and is very patient and engaged with both Peter and I. Thank goodness he has "kept the faith" with our aims to get Peter home. I am hopeful this might be able to be achieved within the next 4 weeks.

Leanne