Medical history part 1 (TPN)

Here is a summary of my medical history as promised. Hopefully this will make it easier for you to understand the other posts as you will know the context of odd bits I say :) This is part 1. Parts 2 to 4 will be coming daily.

My medical problems started when I was 6 months old and was suddenly rushed to my local hospital (hospital H) very ill. It was discovered that the majority of my small intestines has telescoped in on themselves and died due to restricted blood supply. I was too ill to be transferred to a specialist hospital, so at hospital H (a general hospital) I had several operations to remove the affected bowel, as each day more of it died. After the surgery I was left with just 30cm of small intestine. As a result I was unable to absorb the nutrients I needed, so was transferred to hospital G (a specialist hospital) where I was put onto intravenous feeding (known as TPN - total parental nutrition) administered through a central line going directly into my heart. This way my body got all the nutrients it needed directly into my blood, so I didn't eat anything orally.

My health was fine on TPN until I was two and a half when I rushed into hospital G with a high temperature. It was discovered that blood had clotted on the end of my central line and the clots had come off the line and got into my heart and lungs, where one had cut off the blood supply to one of my lungs. I had emergency open heart surgery to remove the blood clots and then was put onto a blood thinning drug called Warfarin to prevent clots forming again.

When I was 8 I stayed in hospital for a while where I had a jejunal tube fitted with the hope of trying to enteral feed me directly into my limited small intestine. If this was successful then the hope was that my TPN would be able to be reduced, but my bowel wouldn't tolerate any enteral feeding at all.

As I grew older I adapted to life on TPN as it was all I had ever known. My TPN ran overnight every night, so I attended school full time in the day. My health was stable and I only had to miss school occasionally for hospital appointments. Everything went well and in most respects my life was 'normal' until summer 2005.