Liquid Nutrition

Hi Everyone,
I was able to have surgery on Tuesday April 21 and Dr. Russell put in a PEG tube (which I mentioned in the last blog entry) and also removed the NG tube – YAY!! This G-tube allows my stomach to drain any excess fluids into a bag and thus bypass the area of the GI tract where the partial obstruction is. In conjunction with this G-tube, my main source of nutrition will be a liquid called TPN or total parenteral nutrition from now on. I can take in some liquids (clear soups and broths), but this will be for comfort mostly and not for nutrition. This is really hard – I have been “mourning the loss of eating” this past week. It is not easy to change the way I eat. However, this TPN will make me stronger and more able to receive chemotherapy. The chemo hopefully will shrink the obstruction so that eventually I will be able to reverse the G-tube and go back to eating. I met with someone from nutrition the other day and she mainly gave me a long list of things I can’t take in – like fruit, veggies, cheese, pizza, etc. This is not easy. But the Lord knows and His grace is sufficient..
To infuse the TPN, I also had a double lumen PICC line put in my left arm last Tuesday. The 2nd line is a power PICC line - which allows me to have the contrast for CT scans and also will give the TPN nurse a line to draw blood. However, they are having trouble with this line (not the TPN line but the other line). Hopefully they will get this resolved today and I will be able to go home tomorrow.
In all these changes, we are continuing to set our hope on Him in Whom all things subsist, that He would be glorified both outwardly and through His transformation and building work within.