I am in the middle of round 5 for series 3 now.

I have been able to determine some better information about the pump situation, but still lack enough knowledge to understand why it runs fast on me.

When I first moved to the new bladder style pump, the nurse at the time had passed on some information that I now surmise was more based upon her belief rather than knowledge provided by the vendor.  She had surmised that there was some kind of valve that regulated the flow and that it needed to be in physical contact to open.  While this may be true, if so the valve in question is a gate valve, not some form of regulator.  The real operation is based on a 5 ml flow limiter in the line.  So to deliver to me my 115ml of 5-FU over a 46 hour period of time, it needs to deliver 2.4ml/hr.  This is accomplished by diluting it with 115ml of saline making the total volume 230ml and a 5ml/hr rate is correct.  They have all kinds of suggestions mostly about not allowing the bladder to get too warm, which as we know from physice (PV=nRT) for a fixed volume of air (to pressurize), if the temperature increases, the pressure increases which for a flow based system could (assuming that the line is not regulated adequately) increase the flow rate.  Of course, I do not sleep with the bladder under my covers (it is so hot these days I don’t sleep with covers), so the only other option here is that the general summer temperature has increased the pressure itself, but then I would expect everyone to have the issue. Anyway, other than that things are fine.  I have a PET scan on Tuesday so by next treatment I should know how things are progressing.

Isabella (my cat) is not improving.  She still hates her diet food, and does not seem to understand that it is necessary and not just because I am a tasteless jerk. She is a trooper  when it comes time to administer her subcutaneous fluids, and seem to not be in pain.  We have no reason to expect it will ever get much better, the kidney disease seems to be pretty advanced, so for now we just will enjoy the time we have left and take care of each other.

Cheers