Amanda is doing much better today. She’s still weak though, still needing help up and down. Today I had to wean her, she needs to be doing a little more so she can build her strength back up. That hasn’t made me very popular today! The last few times she got in and out of the bed and to bath on her own, I’ve just helped with getting her pillows all tucked in around her.
Well I had my first blow up. I don’t even remember what it was about, something Amanda was telling to say to the doctors office while I was in the phone. I think lack of sleep played a big roll with this. We only get about 2 and a half ours of sleep at a time in between meds. So I went and cooked breakfast to get things off/clear my mind. When I cook I zone out everything else and focus on just that, cooking. The Lord has blessed me with skills in the kitchen and cooking it is a great passion of mine. For those of you who don’t know I’m a classically trained Le Cordon Bleu chef. I literally grew up in a restaurant, so no surprise with the passion I have for cooking. Amanda and I were fine after that, neither of us is the kind to hold a grudge. The dogs had ran to find their respective corners to hide in though! Amanda and I both have our moments then we’re ok. We love each other but hey we’re not perfect, we just don’t like each other very much sometimes!
I called our primary doctors office and tried to get ahold of the PA this morning. By 3 she still hadn’t called so I called and left another message, she called back soon after. They are working on getting a Medtronic rep out to do an interrogation on Amanda’s device. We’ll need to go to the office regardless, Amanda will need to get another prescription for pain meds. If this doesn’t work out we do have a doctor in San Antonio that could do the pacemaker check. We only went to Him a few times, once he concluded that Amanda’s lack of oxygen was because she was out of shape, we said peace out and haven’t been back. We’ve ran into many doctors like this, when something is above their skill level and out of their wheel house they come up with something off the wall like that. I asked Amanda did she want to go to him just so we could rub the real diagnosis in his face! At least that’s what my flesh wanted to do. It might be good for him to be brought back to earth and see that something’s are above him, it could help his future, difficult to diagnosis, patients. For now we’ll just wait and see what our primary doctor and PA come up with.
I’ve already started easing one of Amanda’s pain meds back this afternoon. The quicker we get her off the Percocet the better. Ideally if we could get her back to the regular dose of Dilaudid by the lead procedure that would be great. The process of coming off long term opioid pain medication is not a short one. It’s not a medicine you can just stop taking when you feel better, you have to ease off out it slowly and the swap to a less powerful medicine then ease off it. They are very addictive and you have to be cautious when coming off of them or you could have a set back. We worked with a pain specialist before and after Amanda’s last open heart for well over a year. He emphasized the problems stopping cold turkey would have.
To end on a lighter note we ate pork last night, so we have been discussing weather or not Amanda would be considered a cannibal! We typically have very odd and weird conversations like this often. Let the pig jokes begin!
