Thursday, August 12, 2010

Well - the day finally arrived and Bishop Ron arrived and took us to the Parkinson's specialist at UBC. He dropped us off and went and did some other business while we had the appointments and then picked us up when we were done. A big savings in parking alone!
 Although John was tired from such an early start, he slept part of the way there, and did very well for the whole appointment.
I had been warned that the Parkinson's clinic had made some big changes - including being in a different place and having a different routine.
We were taken to a room where a young lady doctor from England was waiting for us. She is doing a neurological internship at UBC but in surgery. However the doctor she is training with is away on vacation so she had been assigned to the clinic. Not a really encouraging start to the day, I thought.
However, she listened very carefully to our whole report - took lots of notes - and then said she would go and talk to "the head man". About a half hour later he arrived and sat down and told us what changes he would make in the meds. Basically adding something to help dry up all the saliva and something to help John sleep better. He was concerned about the amount of Sinemet (the basic Parkinsons drug) he is now on but felt we could not cut back on it. He had no other solutions or suggestions. We next see him March 10, 2011,
We were home by noon and so in the afternoon I went off to get the new prescriptions. One had to be ordered. Two I came home with after checking that they would be OK to dissolve for the feeding tube. But when I went to use them the one was in a capsule and when I emptied it into water it held little granules not powder and they would not dissolve. So he really has not been able to start on the new meds yet.
I called the nurse clinician (had also talked to her at the clinic today) but had to leave a message asking if there was another form of the drug we could use. She told us she goes on holiday tomorrow until Sept. so if she does not call back tomorrow we will be out of luck for several weeks.
John has had no ill effects from the outing today and did fairly well for the day.

Please pray we can get the new meds sorted out quickly and that they will work effectively.

Tomorrow we go to Surrey to the speech therapist again. Margie usually goes with us but she is still away on vacation so I will be going by myself with John. It is difficult to manage him, walkers, pillows, medicine bags, parking, etc. on my own so please pray it will go well.

A one thumbs up kind of day.