I Am Put On IV Hyperalimentation

I am writing this while receiving the third and last 2 liter IV fluid infusion over the past 3 days.
Since my last post, I have not felt up to writing down my thoughts and feelings. I will start with a litany of complaints.
Everything tastes terrible. It is very hard to force food into my body when everything tastes so bad.
My mouth is very dry. My tongue feels like sandpaper. It is white, with cracks in it. I don't think I have Candida, (Thrush).
I am having difficulty swallowing. I can get stuff past my throat but it does not go through my esophagus easily, and creates discomfort on the way down. I also have pretty much continuous heartburn.
I am having upper abdominal cramps. I had severe diarrhea earlier in the week. This has subsided.
As a result of these complaints, I have decided to stop the Taxotere, with the agreement of Dr. John who examined me on Monday. In addition to these complaints, it turns out my white count was down to 1900. The purpose of the Taxotere was to enhance the effect of the radiation treatments and I think they need no enhancement.
I continue to lose weight and am not ingesting adequate nutrition. I saw a dietitian yesterday morning and the choices or me are tube feedings, intravenous hyperalimentation, or to force enough food down by mouth. I opted for the latter, but failed. Tube feedings could be done through a naso-gastric tube or a percutaneous gastrostomy. I don't think I could take a nasogastric tube for very long so this narrows the choice to IV feedings or a percutaneous gastrostomy. This is a tube placed through the abdominal wall into the stomach.  Bottom line: IV nutrition for me.
This will be set up this afternoon. Apparently Medicare does not cover all the cost, but I will only have to pay $35 per day.
I have only 8 more radiation treatments left and am off the taxotere, so I don't think this will go on for more than a month.
I am also back to another series of Leukine for my white count.


I am writing this after a meeting with the home infusion nurse. She has been very helpful in getting this all set up and will be back tomorrow to watch me set it all up for myself. As a trained physician, I think I can manage all this without great difficulty, but without such training, it would be a real challenge.
Supplies delivered this afternoon included multiple tubes and pre-filled syringes, vitamin doses to add to the fluids, plastic bags each containing 1900 cc of what looks like low-fat milk, a battery powered infusion pump, and supplies needed to test my blood sugar.
All went well except that I was concerned about a small amount of air in the infusion line. I removed it from a side port using the needle to add the vitamins to the infusion. All is set up and running. The infusions last 18 hours giving me only 6 hours free of the pump which is neatly housed in a back pack they provided.
The pump is not entirely silent and will take some getting used to, not unlike my dog snoring (he's much louder). I suspect it will be one reason I'll be sleeping alone tonight. The other is that I will have to shower during that 6 hour window.
I did manage to down 3 bottles of Boost Plus today so perhaps if I can continue that, I can shorten the infusions.
No IV pole, so I have rigged something up with a camera tripod. I'll ask for the pole tomorrow.
Thanks Karen for your patience and instructions in getting all this set up.
I am still hoping to get to Good Company Players to see Eva in the final performance of her drama classes. That will take place Friday afternoon about 1/2 hour after I remove the infusion during my 6 hour break.