Throwing up, Paracentesis, Tired

Denise's feeding takes center stage in tonight's post. Even sitting in a chair, she's not holding things down very well. Gastro tube feedings during the night were restarted recently. Her doctor from USC came by to check on her, and noted that the gastro tube feeding wouldn't work as good as the jejunum tube feeding. Weeks ago, while she was still at USC, they put in a J/G tube so feedings could go to either site. The thinking was that if she were getting g-tube feedings into the stomach, there was only one sphincter muscle to keep food from going back up her throat. But if she were getting j-tube feedings into the jejunum (beginning of the intestine; food's next stop after it leaves the stomach), there would be two sphincter muscles acting as roadblocks to keep food from being thrown up. I could quip that the concept of two sphincters being better than one is also the basis for each state having two senators, but that comment would be beyond the scope of this web site. But I digress... Anyway, I thought it was kind of funny that the doctor brought that up. In the rehab section of the hospital, when they said they were doing g-tube feedings, I thought, "Hmm... maybe I should suggest the j-tube instead. Aw, but what do I know?"
She had an x-ray and ultrasound-guided paracentesis today, but I forgot to ask how much fluid was removed. Hopefully the lack of fluid will help keep her food from squishing out of her. Blood pressure was 116/64, heart rate 110, no fevers today. She stood up using a walker (with some help).
She started getting tired long before dinner. I told her that she didn't have to stay awake for me; she needed rest and could nap. She said "Thank you" and closed her eyes. She was almost able to nap through having the dressing changed on her bedsore (that's REALLY tired!). The bedsore looks much better. There's still a big hole, but it's not as deep as last week, nor as large in diameter. Color is good. The wound vac was discontinued a few days ago because there was no longer a need to evacuate the excessive drainage.
We had another movie date today to try and finish the first Lord of the Rings movie. But she fell asleep before the end of the movie. That's usually my job. Anyway, she needs the rest. And so do I, so I'm going to bed now. By the way, if you receive these updates via email, don't trust the time stamps on your emails... I'm not up that late. The emails go out in batches, and the first batch sometimes doesn't go out until forty minutes after I add a post to this blog. Sometimes I'll finish a post at 10:30pm (like tonight), and you won't get it in your inbox until 2am. Really, I do sleep (if the kids don't wake up & jump into bed in the middle of the night).

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