It's always an adjustment coming home. I was released Tuesday at noon. We made it home Tues night. Wed was full just getting organized and Dr visits. I came home with one tube still in place and a Heimlich valve on it. The plan is to call back up to Mayo's once I have 3 consecutive days with no air leak. They will probably refer me locally for removal. So far we have 2, so we are almost there. It's not hurting me too bad so I will probably error on the side of caution. I'm taking a small amount of narcotic pain killers but the pain is low most of the time. Today I'm actually working some from home again.
The sadder news is on the swallowing front. I had them do the swallow test again to see why I am coughing after swallowing water or almost anything. Turns out there is some aspiration and then I cough it back up in response. There is debate about how much of this is due to disease progression and how much is because I swallowed less once the tube was put in. I'm crushing my pills and working to figure out how to get the chemo into liquid form so I can use the tube. Things like yogurt I can still eat, they are thicker than water and will go down easily. This is hard for us as eating is such a social element of our culture. The tube is working fine for me and I'm thankful for that.
Thanks for your prayers. Just pray that we can accept and deal with the eating challenges.
Derek & Leann
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