A Much Better Day

The difference between today and yesterday: dramatic. Yesterday was one long struggle with a nosebleed, and trying to figure out the best course of action. Today there was not a single nosebleed, and the stress level went way down.

In addition, Jon said tonight that he no longer thinks has a food aversion. Things still don't taste good, and many textures are impossible, but the idea of putting food in his mouth is not so awful. I wonder whether getting those electrolytes back in balance helped. Certainly the nephrologist (who was kind of useless on the day we met with him) said that hyponatremia makes a person not want to eat.

Jon is sure that he will not have another chemo treatment anytime soon, since his platelets need to be at 50, minimum, and he is far from that number. We will see what happens with the next labs.

His energy is much better. A week ago he could barely talk. Today he talked a lot and did not seem to notice.

The teaching nurse came tonight to make sure that Rebecca is really ready to take on the job of adding the vitamins to the TPN bag and then do all the steps to switch the bags. She did it confidently, like a pro. That was the last visit from that company. Tomorrow we switch over to a Kaiser home care person.

We cannot know how long this TPN routine will go on, but we have enough bags to get us through Wednesday. These are big heavy bags of white liquid that are never allowed to stop flowing because the stuff will crystallize in the tubing, and that would be bad. If it ever stops, Rebecca is supposed to clamp off everything and flush the tube and wait for directions. We are supposed to take it out of the refrigerator an hour before starting the bag, as it can't be delivered cold into veins. They could shrink up. If we need to warm it up, we are not allowed to use anything but our body heat. No sun, no microwave, no stove. Tonight we neglected to take it out of the fridge enough ahead of time, so it was my job to put this big cold water balloon against my stomach and lie down on the couch under a blanket. The things we do for love. It was ready on time. Having a lot of extra body mass comes in handy often.

I spent my day doing normal Sunday things, coming home briefly from time to time. I could tell it was a good day here. We can't take anything for granted, and we certainly know to take one day at a time, so we will wake up in the morning and see what happens.


Comments

  1. Laurie LevineOctober 13, 2025 at 10:15 AM

    Hooray for good days! And for body fat coming in handy-if you need some extra, there is plenty to spare over here. Sending good thoughts for today.

    ReplyDelete

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