1.12.22 Trach Floor 77

Kind of fun/sad, this month we have the same resident that we had during our stay over in medical/River this summer. Nice to see a familiar face. Our attending this week we also had this summer. Our nurse tonight brought me a bubble tea from her favorite shop. There is a kind of community aspect to being here. It is not where we want to be, but it is nice to see familiar faces wherever you may roam around the hospital campus. 

I met with so many different specialists today, Audiology, GI, Rehab, Occupational Therapy, plus the case manager, social worker, discharge RT, homecare representative, and, of course, the medical team. Sometimes I sit down to journal here about our day and my head is spinning with information. 

This is Aimee’s hospital growth chart. As you can see, she has gained weight very rapidly this past few months. Nearly vertical. She is already on less calories than she should need metabolically. It seems that we were pouring calories into her through her gut, she was working hard to digest it, and not gaining much weight. Now the TPN is so easy for her body to process in comparison that she needs a very low level of calories to maintain. One of the GI and nutrition teams goals right now is to reduce this dramatic weight gain down. A problem we have never had with her. 

Still no word on scheduling the central line. 

We trialed a new machine for the gastric suction today. Well, the same exact machine, but a different one. It worked well for a couple of hours, until it overheated. 😳🙄 I tried it on the lower setting tonight, it stopped working correctly after about 40 minutes. So… back to the drawing board for how to do intermittent gastric suction at home.