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Last time it started with the ol' itchy throat, and became a cough, and ended up exhausting me, to which Dr Waite said that this thang going around (which I prolly caught), has a major exhaustion factor to it that will last from about 6 weeks to 6 months. ;p~~~~~~~~

I hardly know if this bug can come on so fast re: take II, but I know being in the ER is a bigger petrie dish than being around kids.

..And 2 nights ago, we took Mom to the ER.
She is home after a very long night, but here's the backstory.

On Thursday, I set Mom up for an appointment with Dr. Little. I don't know what happened, but we got lost in the holiday haze therefore, it's been a long while since we last met with him. Of late, Mom had been having problems with various symptoms and health issues and I had calls into Little and Waite. Despite running back and forth to Oak Harbor to see Dr Waite, there seemed to be little help getting out of a viscious cycle on some things.

When we finally saw Dr. Little on Thursday, he decided that her "shuffling gate" and "flat face" was a side effect from her taking Rispiradol which Mom takes in small doses to help calm her and minimize her fear, or as Dr Little aptly called it; her "Terror".

Of late and prior the the appointment, Mom's time without fear had been diminished to about 2+/- hours starting about 11:00 AM-ish.

So, we did a change in meds. We were to stop the Rispiradol, and, instead, take 25mg of Seroquel in the morning, afternoon, and 50mg at bedtime (she had been on it before in a dose of 25-50mg in the PM before so it isn't a "new" drug to her).

My gut feel for day one, i.e. Thursday night last, was to just remove the risperadol, and begin the next day (Friday) to start the seroquel. Gordy felt strongly that we should not skip the first night, and to my chagrin, methinks I should have trust my instincts more frequently, I acquiesced.

Gordy said she crashed immediately after dinner and her nightly Rx on Thursday. Then, the next AM, not only was she taking her new Seroquel, but she also had extreme pain, and it was one of the few days that she would accept a pain pill -- in fact, she took it twice on Friday.

After Mom took her noon pain pill, I went to check on her, and in about 2 hours, she was still groaning with pain -- groaning -- my mother? my other who will not take novacaine during root canals? She is a stoic when it comes to bearing pain. But here she was, practically in tears. Damn I felt helpless. This is not typical for her at all.

I sat with her in her "sauna room" -- argh!, and helped her get down some cereal with banana (she was so zonked, she missed her mouth on occasion) and hung in her room with her. I gave her a light massage on the forehead, and her low back and shoulders, murmuring love words, and "there-theres" as we counted the moments until 4:00, and her next pain pill (and return calls from MDs).

That evening, when Carol from IHN came in to sit with her from 7- 10:00PM, she was frightened by the drowziness and lack of animation and Mom's sleepiness. She also took her pulse and got 39 -- yikes! Mom typically is low, about 52 or so, but when Gordy came up and told me 39 -- that didn't sound good to me either.

Also, Carol is a "professional care-giver" who has a history to draw upon. I put the call in to the doc on call, but no return call after 2 tries in about 1/2 hour. By then I came downstairs, and sat Mom up, her pulse was 49+, but I had got caught up in the drama and fear, and decided it was best to err on the side of caution, so we called 911, and off we went, via ambulance, to the ER.

After a long wait, to my joy, her blood and urine were fine, as was her heart and bp monitoring while we were there. Dr John Plastino was on, and through Mom's haze, she agreed that he was cute, and she winked at him so that puts it all in perspective for me -- if Mom can still appreciate a good looking guy, and even flirt, she's doing well LOL! We got home around 2:00 AM making it a panic of about 7 hours. They were very kind at WGH and lent us the wheelchair to get her into the house. We dropped it off early the next morning. As an aside, I also met a nurse, Tara, who is from CT!!! It felt warm and fuzzy to meet someone from my home state, with "do you knows" and we did .

On Saturday, Dr Little got back to us. I updated Dr Little, and we modified the dosage to two (50mg) in the evening, and only do 1/2 at noon-ish, skipping the AM dose entirely.

Well today that happened, and she got very agitated during the afternoon -- so let the "games" begin yet again.... We really do have to get her up to speed with some calming Rx, like Seroquel as prescribed by Dr Little.

The Terrors have to go away ASAP in my opinion, so we may have to be a bit more aggressive with the Seroquel...but I am so hopeful with the Rx change she will walk more strongly again and the twinkle her baby blues return soon.
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