Day 54 in the Little Brother House

Well its day 54 (or day 61 if you count the time from the first day we pitched up in non-isolation for conditioning).

Its been a roller-coaster ride but there is light at the appearing at the end of the tunnel.

Yesterday Rhys managed one half of a piece of toast in the morning and some new potatoes in the evening.

Rhys came off his TPN today so that is two less pumps going overnight, and one less to bleep at 3am in the morning. However, this does mean that he has to eat more solid food. Zoe, the dietician came in today and we talked about what he could eat. Having gone down the list we were given there isn’t a lot that he likes and so he is now allowed plain chicken, turkey, fish fingers and crisps. Not all at the same time of course but bit by bit over the next couple of days.

So far today though we have scratched the chicken and turkey off the list. The chicken because it was a piece of leg and not breast, Rhys doesn’t like leg meat, the turkey because it came covered in gravy which he didn’t like. Tomorrow is therefore fish fingers day which means crisps can be included on the menu from Saturday.

Rhys has also been given some special fruit drinks to help supplement his diet. He’s opted for the apple flavour. Yesterday we tried mixing them with apple juice and also water but they still weren’t drinkable. Having discussed this with Zoe today we mixed it with flat lemonade and it became much more drinkable. Even better, as fizzy drinks were off the menu, the lemonade didn’t upset his stomach.

Strange thing about this juice drink is that it smells just like Scrumpy. Now if I was to combine it with the liquid left in the alcohol wipes container we could have our own moonshine cider. Mmmm, tempting.

The doctors have been monitoring Rhys’ liver function during the blood tests as said previously. The count had been going down until yesterday when it started climbing again. Today the count nearly doubled. We believe this is likely to be due to something going wrong in the lab. Tomorrow will confirm or deny this.

Tomorrow will also bring Rhys’ weekly foot massage. Jax really should get a medal for doing these massages.

Also tomorrow Rhys has another CT scan to see whether the fungal infection that was on his lungs has cleared up.

What with the school teacher coming in for lessons as well it will be a busy day.

Oh, and Tracey comes back after being ill for a few days. Mind you I’m not sure that she’s totally recovered because if she was then she wouldn’t be so eager to come back into hospital.