Thank you all for tuning into another update!
Continuing the good news trend there is a lot of highlights to share.
As you may remember, Rita has been on intravenous food since her release from the hospital back in November. The nutrient-rich solution is called TPN (Total Parenteral Nutrition) and looks just like an IV bag you see in the hospital. Rita is administered TPN every night before bed (from her Hubby nurse) through a PICC-line which takes about 15 minutes to set up as there are a number of safety precautions taken to ensure everything is sterile before getting hooked up. The process is reversed every morning and takes about the same amount of time.
Rita was put on TPN to help maintain her weight as many of the early side effects were nausea and upset stomach. After chemo #4 (see our last post), Rita has been able to keep her food down consistently and has had an increased appetite. Though she is still not able to have normal portions, she has been slowly putting weight back on, which we are all extremely excited about.
After her 5th chemo treatment which ended on January 27th, Rita had her weight checked and blood work done by her visiting nurse. Based on the results, her nutritionist advised that we could move TPN to an every other day cadence. Though this may not sound like a big deal, consider that Rita has not had one night's sleep without the stereotypical hospital beep sound from her TPN pump every 30 seconds. She hasn't had a night's sleep where both arms could be under the covers, so moving to an every other day cadence gave Rita a sense of normalcy she has not had in a long time.
On to chemo #6. Rita continues to be able to keep her food down though there are still burst of nausea following treatment. Rita had more blood work done and her weight checked to see if reducing TPN had any adverse effects. Fortunately, and to everyone's surprise, her nutritionist asked we do a 1-week test of no TPN. Though we felt like we were moving off TPN rather quickly, we were all happy to hear there may be no TPN in our future.
To supplement the half-gallon bag of nutrients Rita had been receiving intravenously at night, we introduced a few protein-rich and calorie-heavy snacks to her diet. Despite the new foods, Rita has lost some of her weight that she had gained over the past few weeks but we are staying hopeful that this is a normal reaction to moving off TPN as her body adjusts to the new normal. As you can see from the photo of our Chinese New Years feast, we are doing everything we can to get her weight back up!
We are taking any/all suggestions on how to fatten up our girl and get some more meat on those bones! Any protein shake/bars or calorie-heavy foods that are easy to digest- send those recommendations our way!
As always, we really appreciate the support and well wishes. We continue to be blown away by the kindness of Rita's community of friends. We will get another post out in a few weeks, thank you for keeping Rita in your thoughts and prayers.
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