First Full Day at Home

Richard slept a full six hours while 700ml of food was pumped in. We're hoping he can get off this food as one side effect is diarrhea. His nutritionist said he could stop the food if he ate 8 small nutritious meals (each meal being about 1/4 of an average main meal portion) plus two Scandishakes (high nutrition drinks) and two litres of liquids during the day. That means every two hours starting at 7am. He missed two mini meals as I thought he only needed six a day, but he has done all the rest so tomorrow at 7am we only have to put the pump on for two hours of food. Hopefully that will be the last of the food pump and it's side effects. This food is effective as we noted today that Richard hasn't lost any weight over the past two weeks. Amazing!

The district nurse, Theresa, came to change Richard's dressing today and found it still a bit weepy so
we're treating it with antibiotics. The same thing happened when he had his laparoscopy back in October. We were also told by our local GP, to stop eating dairy for a few days and eat a little rice and pasta.  On Friday we have a 12:30 appointment in London with  a nutritionist who works very closely with Prof Hanna and who is the expert in dealing with Richard's post-operative condition. I think with her guidance we will get to our wellness goal even more quickly.

Richard listened to lovely music and napped a bit through the day. He walked back and forth from the morning room to our bedroom about ten times which is actually quite a bit of walking. Tomorrow we will get out and I want to get Richard in the woods as they are filling up with bird song, itself a healing treatment for those who take it in.

I worked out a food plan and menus with Francois so we can get these mini meals together with not alot of fuss. Wrote a medication and sleep log so we can help the nutritionist and clinicians with their assessments of Richard's progress.

The lesson Richard is learning from all this is patience...trusting the a little movement in the right direction is good enough.