Monday, March 9, 2015

The Mathematics of Pam-Care

It's been quite a while since my previous post (and Pam's pressure-sores are still being treated BTW) and now it apparently is time for a newer design PEG-feed pump to be used.

The Dietician wanted Pam to have 700ml for PEG food per day, but it was found that, according to the Compat-pump, it reckoned there was only 650ml in the bag (which was loaded with 3 x 237ml boxes of 'Resource 2.0' food) and time proved that even 625ml in an overnight PEG-feed - at 54ml/hr would regularly cause Pam to become nauseous as the feed was completing.  The nausea is extremely dangerous for Pam, because regurgitation leads to lung aspiration and subsequent aspiration-pneumonia.  So I decided to reduce the feed to just 600ml at a rate of 52ml/hr and, since then, nausea has not been an issue.  I did this without advising the dietician and have worried about that detail ever since - but it's turned out to be not as significant as it appears...

The new pump is a Kangaroo-Joey Pump - and it reckons there are 711mls in the 3-box bag (which is indeed the case).  So I figure that to get the same volume into Pam as she is used to, with this new pump, the 600ml becomes 650ml and the 52ml/hr becomes somewhere between 56 and 57ml/hr for the SAME delivery amount and feed rate as for the Compat Pump consequenting in a similar feeding duration - I'll leave it to other mathematicians to argue here.  This regime goes into effect tomorrow night.  If all goes well, Pam still won't be nauseous and the Dietician won't be as dismayed as she might have been when she eventually learns of this new feeding regime.

 
The retiring Compat Pump (A lovely pump that tells ultra-fibs)

 
The Kangaroo-Joey Pump (much smaller than the Compat) - an almost truthful pump
 
 
A happy Pammy - who is blissfully unaware of the weird mathematics involved.
 

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