Loose Strife

Laura had a hard day today. Yesterday she switched to a different extended release pain medication and it is not working as expected. She’s compensating with additional immediate action meds, but is still in pain and spent all day in bed with little sense of time. While the pain isn’t extreme, it seems to have really knocked her out. Today was agonizing for everyone.
There are so many annoying issues. Laura switched to a narcotic patch (applied to the skin) on Saturday morning because she was having difficulty swallowing pills. But patients respond differently to different narcotics and so the dosage equivalent between the old and new meds is estimated. It takes a good 24 hours for the new med to become effective. This morning (Sunday) it was obvious that there was a big problem. Now I’m frustrated that her nurse recommended that she switch on a long weekend instead of during the week when she could be better monitored and managed. And I’m frustrated about several other technical issues regarding the nurse’s diagnosis and instructions. And I’m angry that we even bothered to switch drugs because it seems to have created a lot of possibly unnecessary troubles that can easily wear Laura down in her current state. It turns out we could have changed to a liquid form of her previous medicine at the known, correct dosage.
I hope we can sort it out tomorrow.
I’m really feeling awful lately for all of you far away. I hate the thought of all the anxiety I’m creating. I know you want to keep up to date, but partial information without the ability to do anything about it seems cruel. I’m sorry for that.
I also ache for our friend Megan. Megan last visited us in January when Laura was going through some of the worst weeks of the last year. She was here when I received the dreaded phone call about the leptomeningeal disease. And this weekend she returned to visit again.
In between then and now Laura has twice bounced back from very serious troubles to be almost free again. And I’m sorry that our good friend has missed those times.