No Post Last Night

I’m so sorry I didn’t post last night.  It was very hectic for us.  I didn’t get all the “vital” things done until 3:00am and then I fell asleep.  I had to push the “important” things until today.  This and the other posts today are some of those “important” things.

I am happy to report that Satomi didn’t have a seizure today.  Given our week, that is something to be happy about.  She did however, have a pounding headache which set the tone for my evening.  It was so bad that I could see the veins throbbing in her scalp.

Satomi can’t just take a couple of Aspirin and take a nap.  I had to speak to the on-call Palliative care RN and the on-call Oncologist for guidance.  It was a stressful couple of hours. 

After tracking him down, the RN was reluctant to make a recommendation.  My first thought was to increase Decadron but the RN advised that it would likely have little effect.  Satomi is already at the maximum dose of most of her medications.  While there is no obvious interferences, changing them without some unforseen side effect occuring can be difficult.

The on-call Oncologist was our Oncologist’s partner.  We’ve spoken to him before in similar situations.  He is also very good but he’s not up to speed to Satomi’s condition.  I reviewed it all so it took many minutes-I talked pretty fast.  He made some very key observations and recommended that we change from Darvocet to Vicodin, a notably stronger pain killer.  I asked about simply increasing her Darvocet dose as Vicodin effects Satomi’s stomach.  He agreed but advised that if the pain does not subside in a couple of hours, Vicodin should be taken.

I gave her another 200mg of Darvocet and she took a nap.  A couple hours later, her headache was gone and she slept normally through the night.