Day 234, Year 9: Tiny Steps
Date: Thursday, June 12, 2014
Weather: Overcast and Sometimes Misty
Location: At “Porat’s by the Bay” in Greenland, NH
Mark said tonight, “I wish I could just go to sleep and wake up when this is over.” You know when Mark says that he is not having any fun. He really is improving, but from his prospective that is hard to tell. But tiny steps in the right direction are being made. He looks better, can eat just a little more, and is starting to enjoy reading the news on his tablet. He found a short video advertising the World Cup on our daughter’s Facebook and had us all laughing. He is still has a lot of pain and needs to continue taking pain medication. By the end of the evening, the fluid in the drain had changed color again and was just half of the volume it has been. So the no fat diet must be working.
We got a call from the doctor this morning and she was able to answer some of our questions. Our first question was very basic. Is this lymphatic leak what is called a chyle fistula leak? That is what we had determined from our internet research and Dr. Ferrone validated that. We also found out that the drain was put in at the time of the surgery because they suspected this could happen due to the location of the mass they removed. Why they didn’t tell us all of this we don’t know. I guess it is because we didn’t know enough to ask and the color change didn’t happen until the morning Mark was released. And we didn’t see Dr. Ferrone that day. We did see a resident, but we didn’t know what to ask and he offered no information. Anyway, no need to dwell on that. We now know that this type of leak can happen when a part of the lymphatic system is traumatized. It is rare and the first thing you try to do to stop the leak is to go on a no fat diet. This is because chyle is a milky fluid containing lymph and fat. The lymph contains nutrients like protein, salts, and sugar. The chyle contains fat. Remove fat in the diet and the body makes less chyle. With less chyle, the hope is that the leak will repair itself. So let’s hope that is what is happening.
