Dehydrated Musings of a Zebra

**BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP** I sink under the covers. The shrill yelling of my TPN pump pulls me reluctantly out of my light doze. My eyes snap open. Immediately alert. I roll over, muttering darkly. **BEEP BEEP BEEP** Erghh! "I hear you" I soothe. The pumps green backlight on its display screen flashes angrily at me. The alarm still squawking.

Ambix Pump with tonight's bag of TPN 

I already know what's wrong with it, down stream occlusion. It has been the same for the last 5 nights on the trot. Not more than 600ml of my precious nutrition has managed to be infused per night. If I'm extremely lucky I will get 30 minutes between beeps. But more often than not it's been every 10 minutes.

The lack of food and hydration is starting to have a noticeable affect. I have an almost permanent headache, am increasingly grumpy and distressed, and am lacking in energy. As for my mouth feeling like something has thrown up in it, than curled up and died, things are not quite as grand as they could be.

My brain tortures me when I do manage to drift off. I dream about nice cold thick milkshakes. Strawberry with a large blob of vanilla ice cream in it. My favorite. The ice cream floating like a beautiful creamy iceberg. Then I wake up, drooling. Pancreas throbbing from starting to work to produce enzymes to break down this mysterious mirage.

** BEEP BEEP BEEP** instinctively I stop and re start the pump. But it's only as good as shoving a dummy into the mouth of a screaming toddler. It spends a few moments sucking, slightly dumbfounded that you had dared to stop it mid tirade, before spitting the dummy out and screaming hell for leather once more.

We have tried everything and still it alarms. Sitting up? No. Lying down? No. On my side? No. X-Rays, and a procedure to check the position of the line. All came back clear. We have tried two different pumps, changing the pressure gauge setting on my current pump, putting it to the maximum it will put up with before alarming. And although it had made some difference, it hasn't been enough to get a viscous bag of fat content TPN (known as lipid) to go through successfully. I can't help but wonder what the team will come up with in the morning during their special consultants meeting. Whatever it is, I hope it helps.

I'm at the end of my tether. My get up and go got up and went days ago. But still I battle on. This will not break me. I have been through worse, and came through the other side more determined and stronger. I might be down at the moment, but I'm definitely not out.