family first
~*~
When situations seemed to be resolved and the pretty music started playing, I knew to brace myself at the end of the ER season finale. Yep, Kaboom!
Well, it’s been more than a month since I made a post about anything personal and you know what that means. Yeah, mo’ woe of the medical variety in my family.
Five weeks ago my brother was in the hospital for five days when his potassium/sodium levels dropped dangerously low. This week his nephrologist told me my brother’s sodium levels had been the lowest of any patient known to have survived/recovered. O.O In two other similar cases, the patients didn’t make it. Thankfully, my brother is doing better now with a restriction of 50 oz. liquid per day. He also had bronchitis during his hospital stay and that’s better as well.
The neurologist, who specializes in epilepsy, believes some of his medications are contributing to the electrolyte imbalances which led to his hospitalization. During that first visit with the new neurologist, it took me an hour and ten minutes to complete 16 pages of forms. My brother’s answers to most of the questions were “I don’t know,” or “I don’t remember.” Yeah, he’s still experiencing short term memory loss and early Alzheimer-like symptoms but that’s the least of our worries right now.
Since his hospital release, he’s had nine changes in his medications; primarily tapering down the Tegretol and adding Depakote. After years of taking six Tegretol a day, the eighteen day plan to have him off them was not a long enough period to stop taking the pills. By the time he was down to taking two pills a day, he began experiencing many more seizures with greater severity. Before the med changes it was normal for him to have maybe five mild seizures per week, more like brief and barely noticeable zoning out periods. During the med changes, it became more like 5 to 10 per day, all severe seizures. He has fallen multiple times, fortunately receiving only minor injuries. He was experiencing periods of confusion, impaired cognizance, and altered behavior. When I took him to the doctor because of the increase of seizures, he had three while at the clinic. I hated for him to have them but witnessing the seizures made a greater impact on the doctor. Going back up to four Tegretol a day returned him to the state he was before the med changes and the neurologist is going to try again but at a much slower schedule. That plan was doing okay until yesterday. During a regular visit to his primary doctor, he had two seizures at the clinic. That last one was in the parking lot. It was a severe one and lasted longer. After 10 minutes, I had to call my BIL to come help me. My brother was so weak he couldn’t even manage to stand up from his crumpled position on the pavement by my car. Chris was able to lift him and after another 10 to 15 minutes he was a little stronger and more cognizant. We had the doctor come out to the car and he recommended adding one more Tegretrol midday today. I also gave him his 2 bedtime Tegretol as soon as I got him home. He’s staying with my parents right now. I have to get this resolved and insist on no medication changes when my mom has her surgery/rehab in two weeks. My brother is currently taking 19 pills per day and it takes me at least ten minutes to fill up his 7-day pill dispenser. There's no way he could keep up his medications otherwise. My brother is also scheduled in July to be admitted to the hospital for a 2 to 4 day stay for epilepsy monitoring, undergoing continuous EEG recording and videotaping to better assess his seizures.
After scheduling my brother’s upcoming hospitalization, I also had to schedule one for my mother. She had one total knee replacement surgery back in September and it’s past time for the other. She had held off getting this surgery during my uncle’s decline in health and recently she’s been trying to wait until my brother’s situation improved. There really is no good time but her knee is just getting worse every day. Her surgery is scheduled for May 30 in Lexington. If it’s like last time, she will be in the hospital for four days afterward and then moved to the PT rehab unit for about 10 days. Not only is the surgery itself enough to dread, this is bringing back memories of her being in one hospital while her brother’s surgery, ICU stay, and prognosis were taking place in another hospital in another city. They were both away from home and each other for two weeks. I just read in my journal the entries tagged ‘uncle clayton’ from last September and still can’t believe all that happened during that time. Guess which family member used to be the primary one to run my brother to the doctor so often and as needed? Yeah, that would have been my uncle who passed away two months ago.
Let’s get caught up on the rest of the family, shall we?
We’ve had Dad to the foot specialist in Lexington three times in the last six weeks. We had thought it was the fractured bone spur causing his foot pain but instead, it was torn ligaments and tendons. He wore a plastic foot brace, to keep it stationary and allow it to heal, for six weeks and just got released from wearing that. Before seeing the specialist, his primary doctor had him taking physical therapy which had made the tendon/ligament tears worse from the stretching exercises. Oy. He’s better now, barely hobbling at all. He also has been to the doctor twice for strep throat in the last couple weeks. The day after he was first diagnosed, he left on a four day hunting trip. My mom and sister were upset about that but I thought it better he spread it to his hunting buddies instead of us. Also, the only days of work he missed while wearing the Frankenstein boot were the days he had to go back to the specialist. He's like the Energizer bunny.
Mom started having the stress-induced panic attacks in the middle of the night again, probably from worrying about my brother. Doctor's orders: apply Xanax as needed.
My sister got pretty ill and it was determined to be a case of kidney stones. When my son was throwing up all night we thought it was food poisoning but no, he was also passing kidney stones. Then my BIL, evidently feeling left out or succumbing to peer pressure, decided to pass a kidney stone as well. That was a lot of doubled-over puking people. Everyone is upright now and swilling cranberry juice. Cheers. The family joke is my sister is after one of my kidneys. I’m not so certain they’re joking any more.
I got over my bout of sinusitis/pharyngitis/otitis media/almost-bronchitis but haven’t yet found the time to reschedule my allergy testing which I had to postpone during that time.
Tomorrow morning I’ll be taking my brother to see his neurologist and my mother to the blood center to donate 1 unit of blood before her surgery in two weeks.
Okay, that’s the updates on the immediate family. I won’t bore you with the sagas of extended family. You’re welcome.
Last week we had three birthdays (mine, Mom’s, and nephew’s), plus Mother’s Day. I lost count of the cookouts, dinners, parties, and family gatherings. I love them all dearly but enough already. That’s why I had to run away by myself on Mother’s Day to see a movie.
There’s also a construction project happening on my street right now. Every morning, an early a.m. assessment is required to strategically move my car past the road ripping machines so I can have access to transportation later in the day. There’s a manhole/moat right in front of my driveway.
Other than all of the above, life is good. Really. I'm just too tired to post about the good things right now. Mostly, whenever possible, I’ve been reading books and a RPG as well as watching a lot of television. Escapism, I needz it. :)
Other things may change us, but we start and end with the family. ~Anthony Brandt
When situations seemed to be resolved and the pretty music started playing, I knew to brace myself at the end of the ER season finale. Yep, Kaboom!
Well, it’s been more than a month since I made a post about anything personal and you know what that means. Yeah, mo’ woe of the medical variety in my family.
Five weeks ago my brother was in the hospital for five days when his potassium/sodium levels dropped dangerously low. This week his nephrologist told me my brother’s sodium levels had been the lowest of any patient known to have survived/recovered. O.O In two other similar cases, the patients didn’t make it. Thankfully, my brother is doing better now with a restriction of 50 oz. liquid per day. He also had bronchitis during his hospital stay and that’s better as well.
The neurologist, who specializes in epilepsy, believes some of his medications are contributing to the electrolyte imbalances which led to his hospitalization. During that first visit with the new neurologist, it took me an hour and ten minutes to complete 16 pages of forms. My brother’s answers to most of the questions were “I don’t know,” or “I don’t remember.” Yeah, he’s still experiencing short term memory loss and early Alzheimer-like symptoms but that’s the least of our worries right now.
Since his hospital release, he’s had nine changes in his medications; primarily tapering down the Tegretol and adding Depakote. After years of taking six Tegretol a day, the eighteen day plan to have him off them was not a long enough period to stop taking the pills. By the time he was down to taking two pills a day, he began experiencing many more seizures with greater severity. Before the med changes it was normal for him to have maybe five mild seizures per week, more like brief and barely noticeable zoning out periods. During the med changes, it became more like 5 to 10 per day, all severe seizures. He has fallen multiple times, fortunately receiving only minor injuries. He was experiencing periods of confusion, impaired cognizance, and altered behavior. When I took him to the doctor because of the increase of seizures, he had three while at the clinic. I hated for him to have them but witnessing the seizures made a greater impact on the doctor. Going back up to four Tegretol a day returned him to the state he was before the med changes and the neurologist is going to try again but at a much slower schedule. That plan was doing okay until yesterday. During a regular visit to his primary doctor, he had two seizures at the clinic. That last one was in the parking lot. It was a severe one and lasted longer. After 10 minutes, I had to call my BIL to come help me. My brother was so weak he couldn’t even manage to stand up from his crumpled position on the pavement by my car. Chris was able to lift him and after another 10 to 15 minutes he was a little stronger and more cognizant. We had the doctor come out to the car and he recommended adding one more Tegretrol midday today. I also gave him his 2 bedtime Tegretol as soon as I got him home. He’s staying with my parents right now. I have to get this resolved and insist on no medication changes when my mom has her surgery/rehab in two weeks. My brother is currently taking 19 pills per day and it takes me at least ten minutes to fill up his 7-day pill dispenser. There's no way he could keep up his medications otherwise. My brother is also scheduled in July to be admitted to the hospital for a 2 to 4 day stay for epilepsy monitoring, undergoing continuous EEG recording and videotaping to better assess his seizures.
After scheduling my brother’s upcoming hospitalization, I also had to schedule one for my mother. She had one total knee replacement surgery back in September and it’s past time for the other. She had held off getting this surgery during my uncle’s decline in health and recently she’s been trying to wait until my brother’s situation improved. There really is no good time but her knee is just getting worse every day. Her surgery is scheduled for May 30 in Lexington. If it’s like last time, she will be in the hospital for four days afterward and then moved to the PT rehab unit for about 10 days. Not only is the surgery itself enough to dread, this is bringing back memories of her being in one hospital while her brother’s surgery, ICU stay, and prognosis were taking place in another hospital in another city. They were both away from home and each other for two weeks. I just read in my journal the entries tagged ‘uncle clayton’ from last September and still can’t believe all that happened during that time. Guess which family member used to be the primary one to run my brother to the doctor so often and as needed? Yeah, that would have been my uncle who passed away two months ago.
Let’s get caught up on the rest of the family, shall we?
We’ve had Dad to the foot specialist in Lexington three times in the last six weeks. We had thought it was the fractured bone spur causing his foot pain but instead, it was torn ligaments and tendons. He wore a plastic foot brace, to keep it stationary and allow it to heal, for six weeks and just got released from wearing that. Before seeing the specialist, his primary doctor had him taking physical therapy which had made the tendon/ligament tears worse from the stretching exercises. Oy. He’s better now, barely hobbling at all. He also has been to the doctor twice for strep throat in the last couple weeks. The day after he was first diagnosed, he left on a four day hunting trip. My mom and sister were upset about that but I thought it better he spread it to his hunting buddies instead of us. Also, the only days of work he missed while wearing the Frankenstein boot were the days he had to go back to the specialist. He's like the Energizer bunny.
Mom started having the stress-induced panic attacks in the middle of the night again, probably from worrying about my brother. Doctor's orders: apply Xanax as needed.
My sister got pretty ill and it was determined to be a case of kidney stones. When my son was throwing up all night we thought it was food poisoning but no, he was also passing kidney stones. Then my BIL, evidently feeling left out or succumbing to peer pressure, decided to pass a kidney stone as well. That was a lot of doubled-over puking people. Everyone is upright now and swilling cranberry juice. Cheers. The family joke is my sister is after one of my kidneys. I’m not so certain they’re joking any more.
I got over my bout of sinusitis/pharyngitis/otitis media/almost-bronchitis but haven’t yet found the time to reschedule my allergy testing which I had to postpone during that time.
Tomorrow morning I’ll be taking my brother to see his neurologist and my mother to the blood center to donate 1 unit of blood before her surgery in two weeks.
Okay, that’s the updates on the immediate family. I won’t bore you with the sagas of extended family. You’re welcome.
Last week we had three birthdays (mine, Mom’s, and nephew’s), plus Mother’s Day. I lost count of the cookouts, dinners, parties, and family gatherings. I love them all dearly but enough already. That’s why I had to run away by myself on Mother’s Day to see a movie.
There’s also a construction project happening on my street right now. Every morning, an early a.m. assessment is required to strategically move my car past the road ripping machines so I can have access to transportation later in the day. There’s a manhole/moat right in front of my driveway.
Other than all of the above, life is good. Really. I'm just too tired to post about the good things right now. Mostly, whenever possible, I’ve been reading books and a RPG as well as watching a lot of television. Escapism, I needz it. :)
Other things may change us, but we start and end with the family. ~Anthony Brandt