CoCo's Journey - TPN Me!!

 I just decided to do another post after spending my first night in my own bed with my new sexy bed partner.  TPN.

TPN - Total Parenteral Nutrition.  Calories, vitamins, minerals and all that delivered through an intravenous line.

PICC line -  A little stronger and more durable than a regular IV line.  It's inserted, via ultrasound, into a vein.  Mine is in my upper right arm.  

IV Pump - an electrical system that pumps the IV fluid from my bag into my veins.  

In essence, I have an IV bag, when first attached to my PICC line, it probably weighs 15 to 20 pounds.  It is kept in a backpack, so I can be mobile.  I have the pump plugged in, to keep it charged, when I'm not mobile and trying to get my home back in order after being gone for five days in the hospital.

Me and my sexy new bed partner.  I know, I'm gorgeous.  Skinnier than a prepubescent 12-year-old boy and a mess.  Don't judge.  I'm working on it!!

Well, my new bed partner/roommate, is going to take getting used to.  Again.  I have to have it plugged in, to keep it charged.  And all of this is on the opposite side of what I sleep on.  Because it makes more sense, because there ain't enough room on my side!!!!  Plus, it only makes sense that it sleeps on the side of the arm that it feeds.

That means if I need to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, I have to roll over to the other side.  Unplug the pump.  Gather up my new sexy bed partner and head to the bathroom.  Well, let me tell you, when they put you on diuretics - you get up to pee in the night!!! 

Fancy Schmancy backpack

My sexy new bed partner in it's snuggie.

The other thing is, there are cords and tubes.  Cords and tubes all over.  Cords and tubes to your heart's desire.  There is the IV tubing.  And it is long to allow me to live my life and have the space I need to do so.  Plus the pump electrical cord.  It's long and the two tend to get a little tangled up.  Plus, when I'm sitting in my recliner, my computer is there.  And my computer cord will add to the melee!!!  And another little fact, when you have cords trailing behind you, kitties think that looks like fun.  Got chased a couple of different times.  And going in and out of the front screen door has been amusing, every time I come back in, my cord gets stuck under the door.  Yeah, that's a quick stop as soon as it let's you know you aren't going any further.  

When I get hooked up, which is in the evening, I need to be wearing my pajamas.  And I know that unless I want to go somewhere or do something, I am in those pajamas for at least 24 hours.  It's not an easy thing to change your clothes.  So, while I am attached for 24 hours, I will be wearing my nightgown and I'll probably add some capris or something when I get up.  If I have to go somewhere, I will have to pause my pump, clamp my tubing, undo the tubing, get dressed, get hooked back up and start the pump and the IV flowing again.  So - if you see me and I stink (oh yeah, showering is a process, too), realize it's only because I am too tired, too old and it's just too much to change clothes, let alone shower with any consistency.  So, if I'm at home, I will be in my jammies and I will not have a bra on.  Not that I need one anymore, you have been warned!!  On another note - I miss my boobs and my butt.

I am very lucky, because I have my roommate daughter.  Who is now my roommate daughter nurse.  She takes care of getting my IV ready and set up.  It's about a thirty-minute process.  She is so good to me and great at keeping all the instructions and step by steps in her brain that we need to do all of this.  I am very lucky to have her with me.

Like I mentioned, my TPN is in a backpack that holds the TPN and the pump.  So in the beginning, it's very heavy.  Later in the day, it becomes manageable.  But, I'm not young and spry.  As evidenced by being referred to as "elderly female" throughout my medical records, I'm not a youngster anymore.  And my body has some aches and pains and miseries.  One of those is the muscles in my left shoulder, in the back, are continuously miserable.  I bathe in Bengay.  I have lidocaine patches that I put on.  But the weight on the backpack and the miserable shoulder wears me out.  So, I'm having to stop what I'm doing and take the backpack off to rest for a bit.  

Today when I woke up - I knew I had things to get done.  I had almost two weeks worth of laundry.  I needed to get the trash gathered and ready for trash day.  I wanted to get dinner into the crockpot - my roommate daughter and I have developed a love of corned beef since St. Paddy's day, potatoes and carrots.  The potatoes are the rest of my harvest of my first grow of potatoes.  I topped it all off with sliced shallots - from my harvest of my first-time-grown shallots!!  The thing I'm looking most forward to is dinner.  HAHA.  I have to go do a harvest in my garden, it's been neglected for the last week. TGFMS = Thank goodness for monsoon season.  

So that brings me to another question.  Am I getting all of my nutrition from TPN??  No.  I can eat whatever I want.  And I do.  I have a pretty healthy appetite.  I keep using the example of going to KFC and getting a three-piece meal.  It has to be the dark meat (change from pre-BS - pre bariatric surgery).  I used to do only breast and wing.  Now I can't, because the white meat is just too completely dry and hard to swallow.  So - anyway, I ask for a thigh and two drumsticks, I get the mashed potatoes and gravy and the biscuit.  I do not gobble it up.  But for over 60 to 90 minutes, I will eat that whole thing.  Everything means everything but the biscuit.  They have gone way downhill and are too dry for my digestive process. And I prefer to eat in my recliner, that I lay pretty much flat.  I call it stretching my belly.  I'm able to not get the miserable feeling and feel my food is moving.  So yes, I do eat.  I eat a lot.  My body is just not capturing the nutrition and calories.   One little side note on this.  Make sure you check your orders when you go through that drive through.  I cannot tell you how many times, and so many times in order, that they have messed up our food orders.  If you're gonna charge me that much, make sure I'm getting what I ordered.

I really, honestly, didn't plan on writing again so soon.  But when I woke up to my new sexy new bed partner staring at me and having to pee so bad I almost didn't make it in time, I decided a new post was in order.  

Thank you for all your love on first post.  I promise, I am fighting as long as the good Lord, the deities, karma, the natural order tell me there is no more fight. My issues were caught relatively early, and that is a good thing.  The big thing at this point, is getting my liver, pancreas and body to accept the nutrition I need and stop letting the lack of nutrition from damaging my organs any further.  Once the damage is contained, hopefully my body is helpful enough to start repairing itself, at least a little bit.  But, if it doesn't, I've heard "you're a good candidate for a transplant" enough the last week to send my brain into overdrive.   Hopefully, I have many years and even a couple of decades.  

What am I tangled in now?? Photos: