Back on Tuesday I introduced you to the concept of a paracentesis procedure to drain fluid from the abdomen. When the fluid is in the thoracic area, it’s called a thoracentesis. And yes, I had one of those, too.
I had actually just left the urologist’s office after checking on my stent and talking about the replacement schedule and I realized I was having real trouble breathing. I can’t remember now if we contacted the urologist or the colorectal surgeon, we should have called the oncologist, but I still forget he’s my main doctor for everything now. Anyway, the advice we got was head to the ER. There they contacted my oncologist and he approved a thoracentesis. I think it was blue sticky on the paper that day.
They didn’t keep the ultrasound going to track, just told me to tell them when it felt different. I could definitely tell the point when it was all drained and said so. I was breathing better immediately, of course.
My other T word is TPN, the IV nutrition I take every night. It runs about 12 hours to feed me all the calories the pharmacist has determined I need. It’s keeping my weight right around 111 to 113, so we must have the right numbers. That uses the pump I talked about back on Tuesday to go through my port. I’m so glad Anthony is here to set it up every night. There are days I’m so worn out I would probably skip it and just go to bed. But he gets in there and does it every single day.
Already being on TPN made the transition to not eating solid food easier. We just increased the calories. The hospital called the pharmacist to see how much I was getting to set me up for the week in the hospital. Nice to already know what was needed.
Technology is amazing sometimes.
