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Feb. 16th, 2003 11:46 amA quick update:
Dad is improving. He's still not back all the way, though. He'll seem just fine, but then he'll try to dial my mom's store and be unable to hit the right numbers, even though he's sure that he's doing it right. It's really hit him hard.
The doctor is nearly 100% sure that it wasn't a stroke. He's doing a complete set of bloodwork on Dad that we won't hear back about for a couple of days. The EKG came out great.
The current favored hypothesis is sorta complex. Basically, Dad's had a morphine pump for a while, to control pain. Well, for weeks (maybe even months, it's hard to remember) it hasn't been working like it should. He'd ask the doctor to operate and take a look, but instead they just raised the level of medication it was giving him. Nothing seemed to help, though.
A week and a half ago, they finally operated on it after the area became so sore he could barely wear a shirt. They discovered that the line had been clogged and possibly kinked. They fixed it and closed him back up -- but here's the kicker -- They didn't turn the medication level back down.
Dad comes home, and he doesn't really seem to have improved at all. He can't stay awake, not even long enough to eat a full meal. Finally, it gets to the point that he can't even stay awake to walk to the bathroom or take a drink. He gets taken to the pain doctor, who turns down his medicine. This scenario happens again a day later. It is now down by a quarter of what it was set to, and he's awake and alert, not hurting, and would seem to be doing well.
Except of course, that his perceptive ability is all screwed up and he can't communicate half the time. His primary doctor and pain doctor likened it to being under prolonged anesthesia, and that it should go away altogether.
Dad's afraid all that morphine that was being pumped just went into his tissues, as the pump still emptied even though he wasn't getting relief. He thinks that has something to do with what's happened to him: a not altogether unreasonable concept, as far as I know. I don't know what that would do to you, but it might have placed him pretty darn close to an overdose. Who knows. his pump also has a lot of liquid around it currently, and it doesn't seem to be healing the way it ought to. Dad's going to go have his regular doctor look at it, as he's not sure he trusts his pain doctor at the moment. Hopefully it isn't leaking or anything and it's all as it should be, maybe with just a little infection. Diabetes does slow the healing process, so maybe that's all it is.
Dad is improving. He's still not back all the way, though. He'll seem just fine, but then he'll try to dial my mom's store and be unable to hit the right numbers, even though he's sure that he's doing it right. It's really hit him hard.
The doctor is nearly 100% sure that it wasn't a stroke. He's doing a complete set of bloodwork on Dad that we won't hear back about for a couple of days. The EKG came out great.
The current favored hypothesis is sorta complex. Basically, Dad's had a morphine pump for a while, to control pain. Well, for weeks (maybe even months, it's hard to remember) it hasn't been working like it should. He'd ask the doctor to operate and take a look, but instead they just raised the level of medication it was giving him. Nothing seemed to help, though.
A week and a half ago, they finally operated on it after the area became so sore he could barely wear a shirt. They discovered that the line had been clogged and possibly kinked. They fixed it and closed him back up -- but here's the kicker -- They didn't turn the medication level back down.
Dad comes home, and he doesn't really seem to have improved at all. He can't stay awake, not even long enough to eat a full meal. Finally, it gets to the point that he can't even stay awake to walk to the bathroom or take a drink. He gets taken to the pain doctor, who turns down his medicine. This scenario happens again a day later. It is now down by a quarter of what it was set to, and he's awake and alert, not hurting, and would seem to be doing well.
Except of course, that his perceptive ability is all screwed up and he can't communicate half the time. His primary doctor and pain doctor likened it to being under prolonged anesthesia, and that it should go away altogether.
Dad's afraid all that morphine that was being pumped just went into his tissues, as the pump still emptied even though he wasn't getting relief. He thinks that has something to do with what's happened to him: a not altogether unreasonable concept, as far as I know. I don't know what that would do to you, but it might have placed him pretty darn close to an overdose. Who knows. his pump also has a lot of liquid around it currently, and it doesn't seem to be healing the way it ought to. Dad's going to go have his regular doctor look at it, as he's not sure he trusts his pain doctor at the moment. Hopefully it isn't leaking or anything and it's all as it should be, maybe with just a little infection. Diabetes does slow the healing process, so maybe that's all it is.
