Saturday 25th

Got hardly any proper sleep last night. Apart from the usual aches and pains (see below) I coughed up/refluxed stomach contents such as they were at 02.45, then the CO alarm went off at 0345 for no discoverable reason! (We have no gas and the oil boiler is outside). So most of the night I was either in my chair settling reflux, or at best dozing.

Aches and Pains - these keep me awake. If I lie on my left side i get reflux, if I am on my right a pain develops in my shoulder that is not conducive to dozing off. On my back i get back ache (about level with my diaphragm). I have had a pain on my left side ever since the stent went in, and now one lower down about 5cm below my navel (diverticula?) which sometimes flares up from its usual level 2 (can be ignored with a bit of will power) to level 3 (enough to distract from what I'm doing eg driving) to level 4 or more.

I'm also finding it difficult to eat some solid food eg meat. I fear it blocks the stent, so now there's a lot of liquid feeds (Fresubin) in my diet. Left over from when I had the feeding tube in, they go down easily, and provide a balanced 400kCal in a small volume. I need to keep my water intake up though i am reluctant to drink much in the evening as it worsens reflux risk.

I do have a wedge pillow to minimise reflux but it's not very effective. It's not very deep so needs a pillow under it to raise it. Even then I'm not really angled enough, but if I go higher I'm liable to roll off. I have a dry unproductive cough which can also start reflux/vomit. (No, not COVID, PCR test was negative)

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