Hubby Update -- Long Again

 
 
   Sometimes I think we are getting some of this mess figured out then something changes and we are all puzzled and just trying to cope with the moment.
     Got into the neurologist and he could see the big change in hubby's health. Of course sitting in the room in a wheel chair was clue one. Basically he said hubby is extremely medication sensitive. It don't take much to do something good or bad with him. At this point with the Parkinson's he called the Parkinson's specialist to get him in a quickly as possible to see if he is eligible for the surgery that runs something like a hot wire to the part of the brain that is supposed to help give a more steady dopamine supply to his body. Kind of like a pace maker.
    Then he also is going to call the surgeon for his back surgery to see if that can been done a lot quicker than the Sept date they had planned.
  He helped to fine tune the Ativan so that we can just not take the BP meds. We had adjusted the BP meds by totally doing away with one of them but that wasn't enough. So we are trying to not take Coreg he was on that mainly controlled the pulse rate and was a slight diuretic. So far everything is working and he isn't having is BP drop down to 90 / 50 . The pulse rate is still high but so far he can live with that.For a few days there everything I tried was still letting his BP get down to staggering and almost fainting low. I was taking his BP constantly and loading him up on Pepsi for the caffeine and pretzels for the salt. I could get it up for maybe a hour decent but it would start to go back down again and I would have to pour the caffeine back in him.
    I know people say why didn't you go to the doctor? WE DID! It's just what they said was not working for him and I had to do the best I could to just monitor 24 hrs a day and keep notes and try this and that. I wasn't about to have another man in my life go to sleep and not wake up if I could help it. I was once again in the watch him and see if I can see his chest or stomach move like I did for so many years after Jon died in his sleep. It was too the point of when it was time to take meds, which with him is every 4 hours, I had to take his BP to determine what medicine to do or not to do. Neither one of us got much sleep. He did all kinds of sleep with Ativan. Me I just slept when I thought his BP wasn't to low. When you have been through some of the things I have with folks you learn to just do the best you can. All it takes is someone being overwhelmed with exhaustion and fall asleep and wake up to find the person your caring for isn't going to wake up again from in this case his heart just not pumping due to meds. Sometimes no matter what you do and how careful a person is it just doesn't work.
     Something I am going to try and do is get everything a person may need available in the house. From wheel chairs to shower chairs or whatever. Mostly because we are both getting to the age where these could be needful things.
     Other than the age factor..... given our current political climate with shut downs and rampant illness of all kinds this just smart for anyone to do. When I go the the ER and ask them to put him in a room a few days to get him stabilize and we are told the hospital is full and no longer has rooms. The ER was totally full and they were waiting on people to get out of rooms to be able to let someone else in to be helped. We have a home health nurse coming in and she said she has a hospital / ER room set up in her house also. I talked to my daughter in Arkansas and they are telling her if you need a hospital room they will send you to New Mexico ! How is hubby going to get surgery if rooms are scarce? I guess if it makes them money they make room? We will see.
     Soooo........ Our own version of ER / Medical room is on it's way. Believe me you don't want to be in the ER ! You wait hours and hours and are exposed to all kinds of things. We saw people in tears and having to stand or sit differently every few minutes and the nurses could actually ignore that! I don't know how they do it. The poor woman was crying for a couple of hours. Finally a lady was called in and she let the crying lady go in her place so she could get some help.
    For those that think it's wise to prepare for future issues I can honestly say medical help for anything minor or serious is a problem. Get whatever you may need from minor boo boo's to colds or whatever your family has problems with and get organized to have it easily available when needed.
   Maybe in this case I didn't know exactly how to fix my hubby but I for sure had a BP cuff and a O2 monitor, caffeine and salt to deal with it the best I could. I also had a chart set up to take notes and write things down for not just me but to take to the doctor to show them. If I can ever get where I can get some sleep and think straight I am going to try to find some Red Cross type videos to watch and learn some more.

Love
Tired Ranchmama