...which is really Monday for most folks today, including those at the hospital pharmacy *sighs*
I said I'd be here, and here I am, feeling very much like it's Monday and in somewhat less pain than I've been in since Friday.
Yesterday, which really _was_ Monday, we were Mom's adult daycare, since her paid gig was closed for the holiday...Happy Labor-less Day for some...
Since Kevin's found a cheap, reliable fix for the front wheels of Mom's chair, and since there were two of us, we decided to walk Mom the mile to the cemetery so she could see Uncle Shorty's marker and stone properly set in the ground. Trooley's first venture in that direction and we all did very well.
The stone was _so_ properly set, both his and her (put there in '97) stones were 3/4 covered by newly mown lawn and needed edging. I managed to pull all of the overlying clumps before Kevin got Mom to the grave.
We need to come up with some kind of light-weight rampy-thing to make rolling a wheelchair over the uneven cemetery grounds a bit easier. Larger wheels would make things easier, but we need to look at accommodating what we have at this point. TIA for any ideas you might have...we know there are a number of innovative, not to mention engineering, minds perusing these musings.
Mom really enjoyed the walk and we'd like to be able to make the trip a few more times before winter sets sidewalks impassable. *crosses fingers*
Mom wanted stuffed fish for her birthday lunch -- stuffed fish and Dirty John's Death-By-Chocolate Cake. So that's what we had. 'Cept by the time she finished the main course, she didn't have room for the cake! *heh*
Monday was a beautiful day to sit on the porch, and porch-sitting is one of Mom's favorite things to do -- especially when she can sit and see the pond. We spent the afternoon sittin' and knittin'.
So this post is long enough already:
The good news is that it isn't a 24/7 pain; the bad news is that it's painful anytime I swallow, or burp, or think about swallowing...
Got to the clinic 20 minutes early, and they took me as soon as I'd changed. The three patients waiting when I went into the radiotherapy room were there when I came out a few minutes later. The rest of the clinic was obviously dealing with everyone else's three day weekend, so we waited over an hour to see the Resident du jour who was followed shortly by Dr. B.
We all seemed relieved that we wouldn't require much of Dr. B's time this morning. We have an expected condition known as esophogitis, an inflamation of the esophogus. We were prescribed a cocktail to be taken four times a day made of: Nystatin Suspension, an antifungal used in mouth infections, a Hydrocortisone Suspension (for which we received no 'patient notes'... we know it's a steroid used for anti-itch/pain relief?), and a sucralfate tablet dissolved in 2 Tbsp H20. The latter is prescribed for ulcers. Oh, yeah, all that needs to be consumed one hour before each of three meals and one hour before sleep.
Side effect of all of that? The same as the cancer, the chemo, the radiotherapy, and then some. No one has given us a way to tell which symptom means what these daze... Oh, forgive me, the Resident did say that if drinking hot liquids was making my esophagus feel hot, I shouldn't drink hot liquids... AAARRGGHHH! I also asked if there weren't exercises I could be doing (read something at John Hopkins) and he said, "Oh, no." We found out he'll be here for three years, and we believe he's trainable *nods* We hope to hear from Nurse Nancy if the 'no exercise helps' thing isn't true. *waves*
This Resident's info about the U Hosp pharmacy was soooooooo wrong! Kevin's experience with the U Hospital's pharmacy was _horrendous_. Would be nice to know who at U Hospital should hear _that_ nightmare. The short of it is we had to have our local pharmacist fill part of it three hours later... Hoooooray for our local pharmacists!!
And now this post is even longer. Then again, we did take a couple daze off.
Here's hoping your Labor Day was also filled with labors of love;
and today filled with more.
Happy Billiards and Massage Day!
Stay hydrated! *raises a 16 oz. glass of water*
3 comments:
Go straight to the top-there is a Director of Pharmacy I believe. At least there was 25 years ago. The pharmacy had an Inpatient and an Outpatient division with a single director over both groups. You would have been dealing with the outpatient side.
You are right about Hydrocortisone. It has anti-inflamatory effects. And the sucralfate coats the mucus membranes to protect against further injury.
Patient to MD: "My arm hurts when I do this."
MD to patient: "Don't do that."
Old joke redux. Sometimes the wisdom of residents knoweth no bounds.
Thanks, NancyTurtle. We've decided to start with the Resident; shouldn't be difficult to learn who the director of outpatient pharm is...
We know the joke well, CraniumMan. Our concern is that he thinks we're that stupid/ignorant...we'll spare you the now inappropriate ethnic reference *grins*
On the plus side, the Resident did give us more information about the x-ray like beam with which they are bombarding my body. Will try to convey what we learned in our next post.
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