Misery guts: scroll on by
After a fantastic five days with minimal pain and relatively no fatigue suffered, I'm enduring a week from hell.
First we note the slight UTI for which we visited the local GP on Tuesday morning. Prescription in hand we thought all would be sorted. Second, the sciatica, my own bloody fault for having fallen asleep in a weird curled up position in the car, has me wincing every few seconds - morphine notwithstanding. But then it's all linked - the joy.
The meds that good ol' doc prescribed for the UTI have a few "undesirable side effects" which are, unfortunately for me, very similar to the symptoms that I suffer when my morphine patch is too strong: nausea, throwing up, headaches, sleepiness.... So when I began suffering these symptoms on Wednesday, Froggy and I both thought ah! Morphine patch must be too strong, we'll cut a bit off, which is the usual method of dealing with the problem. But the illness continued - and so did the morphine patch reduction. Finally, sometime on Wednesday afternoon it dawned on us that it might not be the morphine. My friend Jeanne, who had come round to spend the afternoon with me (not expecting to have to nurse me though that's exactly what she ended up doing) read the UTI meds information and lo and behold realisation set in! I called the hospital and spoke to one of my oncologists to get their opinion on whether or not I should continue the treatment. She said yes since I only had one pill/one day to go. If the symptoms continued after the UTI meds treatment stopped then we would reanalyse the situation.
Which is all fine and dandy. Yesterday I wasn't ill though my sciatica has been getting worse each day. To compensate I have a morphine supplement and of course my ever-ready paracetamol. Sadly, today I'm on the difficult day. The last day of my patch. Froggy will change it tonight. But since I reduced the darn thing so much I'm not sure it's even functioning. I've been counting the hours between pain killers. I even took a hot bath this morning in hopes that it would relieve some of the anguish. I've just taken some more paracetamol and hopefully that will do the trick. I can't believe that I'm wearing my sunglasses inside just to be able to handle the light. Furthermore, my tummy is not feeling too happy again today so we'll attempt a bit of plain pasta but no promises. Boy I could just kick myself for snipping away at the morphine patch. I suppose that continued praying to the porcelain throne would cause anyone to take drastic measures.
Lesson learned and now shared with all: read the information on your medication even if your doctor knows what other stuff you're taking. He/she may not think about the side effects but you , and in this case I, certainly should!
In other news we're going to the hospital this afternoon to learn about my new chemotherapy protocol. After that it's the weekend!!!
First we note the slight UTI for which we visited the local GP on Tuesday morning. Prescription in hand we thought all would be sorted. Second, the sciatica, my own bloody fault for having fallen asleep in a weird curled up position in the car, has me wincing every few seconds - morphine notwithstanding. But then it's all linked - the joy.
The meds that good ol' doc prescribed for the UTI have a few "undesirable side effects" which are, unfortunately for me, very similar to the symptoms that I suffer when my morphine patch is too strong: nausea, throwing up, headaches, sleepiness.... So when I began suffering these symptoms on Wednesday, Froggy and I both thought ah! Morphine patch must be too strong, we'll cut a bit off, which is the usual method of dealing with the problem. But the illness continued - and so did the morphine patch reduction. Finally, sometime on Wednesday afternoon it dawned on us that it might not be the morphine. My friend Jeanne, who had come round to spend the afternoon with me (not expecting to have to nurse me though that's exactly what she ended up doing) read the UTI meds information and lo and behold realisation set in! I called the hospital and spoke to one of my oncologists to get their opinion on whether or not I should continue the treatment. She said yes since I only had one pill/one day to go. If the symptoms continued after the UTI meds treatment stopped then we would reanalyse the situation.
Which is all fine and dandy. Yesterday I wasn't ill though my sciatica has been getting worse each day. To compensate I have a morphine supplement and of course my ever-ready paracetamol. Sadly, today I'm on the difficult day. The last day of my patch. Froggy will change it tonight. But since I reduced the darn thing so much I'm not sure it's even functioning. I've been counting the hours between pain killers. I even took a hot bath this morning in hopes that it would relieve some of the anguish. I've just taken some more paracetamol and hopefully that will do the trick. I can't believe that I'm wearing my sunglasses inside just to be able to handle the light. Furthermore, my tummy is not feeling too happy again today so we'll attempt a bit of plain pasta but no promises. Boy I could just kick myself for snipping away at the morphine patch. I suppose that continued praying to the porcelain throne would cause anyone to take drastic measures.
Lesson learned and now shared with all: read the information on your medication even if your doctor knows what other stuff you're taking. He/she may not think about the side effects but you , and in this case I, certainly should!
In other news we're going to the hospital this afternoon to learn about my new chemotherapy protocol. After that it's the weekend!!!