Hospital Update #8, June 17, 2023

 Things have been all downhill today. I'm not sure i can recount everything in order, but i'll try to at least list the events.

Of her dinner, she ate only about 3/4 of her applesauce cup. That's it. She had another dry heaving episode, but no more vomiting. Not really anything in there to throw up. She's been having heartburn all day. Slept a lot of the afternoon and evening, but we finished the episode of Bake Off that we left unfinished yesterday and made it halfway through another one.

They've decided to put her on a potassium supplement as well. They offer it with 2 options: orally, or intravenously. IV is preferable to her in this situation, since she has port access, and anything she takes orally is in danger of being expelled. However, we were cautioned that many people shy away from the IV version because it's rough on the veins and can cause a burning sensation, and the infusion takes 4 hours. She chose oral, and the nurse began preparing it; it has to dissolve in liquid before it can be taken. It was dissolving in apple juice when the dry heaving started. Amanda asked if the burning would still be an issue with her, since her port is a central line, and goes directly into the vena cava, rather than going the long way through the veins of her arm. It was discussed with the doctor, and they thought she shouldn't have any issue.

Her abdominal pain has been pretty constant today. When asked at around 10 pm, she rated at a 4-5, continuously, since she vomited at lunch. She was given her hydro, the potassium, and Zofran for the heartburn at about 10:45 pm, and went to sleep immediately.

The last 12 hours, she's been in the same kind of rough zombie state that she was in the weeks before we came to the hospital, mostly sleeping, always in pain, barely able to eat more than applesauce. She really wanted to get out of the hospital today; when that became obviously impossible, she set her heart on tomorrow. Now, even that is looking unlikely.

She said to me today that on one hand, she wished we had just left the hospital yesterday, when she was feeling good. I said if we had, and she took this kind of a nosedive today anyway, i would have hauled her ass straight back here. We later mentioned this conversation to her nurse, who made the excellent point that, while yes, the right thing to do would have been to return to the hospital, we would have then had to go through the entire ER process again. So, good thing we stayed.