Learning to Administer Fluids

 It literally is day to day with how Mom feels.  She may be having a really good day today and an obstruction hit tomorrow.  There's no way to plan for it.  

Sunday after church we ate lunch at her house and then the family all gathered and we sat around talking, laughing, and telling stories.  It was wonderful.  It always is.

 She was feeling pretty good Sunday.  She hurt some, but not enough to keep her down.  She loved being outside with everyone.

My sweet cousin, Jamie Leigh, took this snap and I had to screen shot it :)!

 Aunt Donna brought Bigmama (their Mom) to visit.....

Tyler took this snap :)

 Monday morning she still felt pretty good.  She went to work, but was only able to work until 11:30.  Her stomach started hurting, swelling, she was nauseated, etc. all the clear signs of an obstruction.  Some of you may wonder what an obstruction actually is. You can click on the link to read more about it, but it is basically the cancer (tumors) in her abdomen push on her intestines causing them to "kink".  Kind of like having a water hose and then kinking it to stop the water.  The PEG tube was placed to help with the obstructions and we honestly believe that it has.  Before having the PEG tube she would have to be hospitalized for about a week to get through them.  Now when she has one usually it is only about 2-3 days, but she is able to deal with them at home.  When she feels it coming she doesn't eat or drink much... maybe a bite or two and she keeps her tube draining.  Unfortunately it makes her extremely weak so sometimes she has to be admitted in the hospital to get fluids.

She has been set up with home health for about a month now.  They really are wonderful.  They are able to talk to her doctors, have medicines called in, order fluids, etc.  On Tuesday Moms nurse from Birmingham called her to check on her & ended up contacting home health to order fluids.

By yesterday she was pitiful :(.  She was truly miserable.  She started running a fever Tuesday night and was still running one yesterday morning (thankfully she hasn't had one since yesterday).  She was also extremely weak.  I took this picture of Tyler putting his cool hands on her head :).  He was feeling her head to see if she was still warm and she said it felt so good she wanted him to continue....

 The nurse got there and accessed her port to get the IV started.....

 .... her port will stay accessed so that if she needs more fluids then we can get it hooked up.  She showed us how to hook it up and unhook it.  Pretty scary right :).  Nah, we had good instructions.  We are thankful she can now have them at home instead of being admitted.

It is a slow drip, so takes about 8+ hours.  Tyler successfully stopped it and started a new one during the night :).  She feels better this morning and her go get it self had Tyler take her to work and I'll get her and take her home when she is ready.  She is amazing!  I told her this morning that most people wouldn't go to work after having fluids all day/night/morning, but she went after getting fluids and still having some pains.  BUT she isn't most people ;-)!