Today was a real Little Engine that Could day with Mom having to remind herself that she was more than half-way through the cycle and she could make it through.
The day started out ok. She ended up not getting her 11 pm dose on Wednesday and by 6 am Thursday had been weaned off the Neo and was maintaining a strong blood pressure. She did receive her 7 am dose and when I spoke with her around 8 am she sounded pretty good. Shortly thereafter however the wheels started to come off. She had another attack of the chills that again couldn't be controlled with the hot blanket mummification and needed Demerol to break the rigors. Then Demerol then made her terribly nauseous and itchy and it, combined with sleep deprivation (especially after a night of having blood pressure checked every 15 minutes), knocked her loopy. When I came by a little after 10 she was fuzzy and not totally lucid and couldn't get more than a partial sentence or movement completed without drifting off in the middle of it.
It's never fun to see someone in that shape, but it would have been more disconcerting if a) we weren't already familiar with those sort of symptoms (but much worse) from Cycle 1 and b) it weren't totally understandable that somebody who was sleep deprived and sick and then given a narcotic would be kind of out of it. So while I spoke with the nurses about keeping an eye on these symptoms to make sure she wasn't heading towards neurotoxicity issues, I felt pretty comfortable that sleep and getting the Demerol out of her system would help.
Her electrolytes were also continuing to bounce all around so it was extremely unlikely when I left that she was going to get her 3 pm dose. When I checked back in with her around 2 things were both better and worse. Better: the Demerol had worn off and she was much more lucid and together and had more strength and life in her voice. Worse: her blood pressure had tanked again (86/46) so she was back on Neo and the 3 pm dose was definitely scratched.
As of 9 pm or so she was waiting to find out if she was going to get the 11 pm dose. Our guess earlier was that she probably wouldn't, but that they'd try and see if they could get her the 7 am dose again before calling it good for the cycle. We'll see if that's what happened.
I think all of us are grateful to have gotten through the day and only have one more to go before the healing and recovering can begin again (THANK YOU to Carolyn (and to Amy earlier in the week and Phyllis last week) for being such a wonderful friend and staying with Mom in the hospital so that Jon and I can also be there for our families and new babies.
Doses: 6 for 10 of 14
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