Pumped Up

Normally being pumped up is considered a good thing. However, when you have to have your food pumped into you it isn’t an ecstatic mood that is felt. After many delays, clerical errors, and suffering, my father is finally hooked up to a feeding tube and pump here at home. Osmolite 1.5 Cal is the liquid food of choice. Good thing it is bypassing the tastebuds and even better thing that I had already eaten before opening the cans.

First feeding is 16 hours overnight, not counting any breaks. Since he’s far too weak to set up, maintain, or flush the tube, I’m going to have to keep an even more constant eye on him. If things go well for the first two hours, I’ll sneak out to buy some cat food at Kwik Trip.

Now that the regime is laid out, I’m wondering how anything is going to get done outside of the house. Up to 18 hours of feeding a day is on the schedule for the first week! Much of this is due to slowly ramping up the milliliters per hour rate to something faster. If not done, the body may not handle the fluids well.

I’m going to have to check with friends to find a urinal, there’s no way he’s wheeling the pump all the way to the bathroom or disconnecting from it himself. This house is not designed with invalids in mind, having been built in the 1800s. The last two days have been exhausting in every way possible, but I hope that he can gain some strength now.

Right now he looks like an animate cadaver. This all took way too long from the last ER visit thanks to the ridiculous hoops that have to be jumped through to meet rules and regulations. Dad is so weak now that I wonder if he’ll ever recover.

However, I have seen seeing starving animals make a turnaround into bright eyed critters. I can only hope and pray that this will be the case here.