Sunday, May 30, 2010

Much better day today. Although he had a rough time with coughing and congestion in the early hours of the morning, John slept from about 3am through to the morning. He got up at about 9am and felt quite good. He felt well enough that I was able to slip out to church. He said the pain has lessened considerably and did not have any T3's today.
My timer stopped working that beeps to remind me every hour to give him his meds or feeding and so I was 15 minutes late in giving him his meds at 8:30 - and he suffered a bad time from that for about 45 minutes. He also had to have extra meds given at bedtime because the 10:30 meds did not do the job.
Otherwise it was a pretty good day.
I think we could give it a one thumbs up.

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Not a good day at all for John. The meds did not seem to work well all day. He felt lousy. He spent most of the day either in bed or on the couch. Our friend Debbie came over to visit and stayed with John while I ran out to do a few errands. Later Margie joined us for supper - but John was feeling too poorly to even join us for some ice cream - which he usually does.
I called the neurologist yesterday and spoke to his nurse/clinician. She said she does not know of anything else that can be done for John and that theirs is the only Parkinson's Clinic in all of BC. However, she will speak to the doctor next week and see if he has any other suggestions.
Definite two thumbs down kind of day - would make it three if I had three hands! (Maybe a big toe?)

Friday, May 28, 2010

John did not sleep at all last night. Today has been fairly rough. The morning was OK - until he got up and by lunchtime the meds were not holding long enough. The rest of the day was not good. He was supposed to go to Surrey hospital today for speech therapy but I cancelled it because he would not be able to take the long car ride there and back again. Have re-scheduled for next week instead.
Tried to run to the store for groceries yesterday and today. Yesterday I got as far as the store parking lot and he called for me to come home as he needed help. Today I got my coat on but decided he was in too rough a shape and stayed home. Will try again tomorrow - maybe early morning when he is still asleep (hopefully).
Think (I hope) the e-mail scam is mostly behind me. Have made sure the Yahoo account is completely closed.
A friend (knowing it was a scam) e-mailed back offering money to me and was given an address for Western Union to send the money to. Have passed that info on to the police. 
Have to say this was maybe a one and a half thumbs down day (but how do I do that????)

Thursday, May 28, 2919

John had trouble getting to sleep last night because of the pain but once asleep, he slept very well.
This morning he felt great - until he moved. He still has pain from yesterday's ordeal and moving around is difficult - especially changing from sitting or lying positions. Otherwise he had a good morning and afternoon.
Tonight was a different story. The meds just seemed to stop working - no reason that I can figure out.
When everything is exactly the same each hour why does it sometimes work fine and sometime not??
Our friend Dawn came over and stayed with John for this afternoon which allowed me time to go out to Gateway and help Margie with some things in the office.
John was feeling so lousy this evening that he went to bed early in the hopes he could "sleep it off"
So I would have to give this morning and afternoon a one thumbs up

 But tomight became a definite one thumbs down!!

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Well......
If I am asked about what I do these days I will have to say that I spend a lot of my time sitting in tiny little curtained cubicles in the hospital!!
Took John to the surgeon at 10am this morning for him to look at the blocked feeding tube. He said he could not deal with it at the office as he would have to change the tube so to meet him at ambulatory care at the hospital.
Once there - and through all the admitting procedures etc - we were taken to an examining room. The surgeon cut off the existing tube and began to probe and prod the area the tube goes in. This was very painful for John so finally the surgeon said he would have to freeze the area. Once frozen he poked and twisted and then got out a scalpel and really went to work. Finally he said that he could not fix it there and that John would have to be taken to day surgery for him to scope and then redo the initial operation. He bandaged up the now bleeding wound and sent us off.
Waited from 2:30 - 6:30 in day surgery - after more paper work and more admitting procedures. Finally he was taken to the operating room. The surgeon reported afterwards that the tube had somehow become dislodged from the stomach and that they had to "carve" (his words) it out of the intestinal wall and put a new tube into the stomach. Apparently this is a very rare occurance. He said John was a "special" case - well, we know that!
Got home, with John, at 10pm. He is in much more pain than from the original surgery - even with morphine at the hospital and T3's when we got home. Hopefully he will sleep through the night. We can start to use the new feeding tube tomorrow - PTL!
Pehaps a one thumb down day with a one thumb up result???

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

John slept for about 2 hours last night. It's been a long day. And a difficult one.
Seems that my e-mail was compromised and all my friends received an e-mail saying I was in England and needed money to get home. My phone rang constantly all morning - but on the positive side I got to talk to lots of people I have not heard from in ages!!! Apparently Gateway, and even WEC Headquarters in Hamilton, wee also fielding calls. I am touched by people's concern - and sorry that I was the cause of it no matter how innocently.
The major concern, of course, was that nobody send money to these people.
The difficulty was that they had changed my password so I could not access my account and send out e-mails to everyone telling them it was a scam.
And I could not access my address book to get the addresses to send it out on my hotmail account.
So I opened a new account on gmail and spent the whole day typing in the addesses from an old list that I had from last year. I know there are changes, and new addresses added, that I have missed. But I did the best I could.
Turned out the my Facebook account was also deactivated because it was linked to my Yahoo account.
My new e-mail is blombard688@gmail.com. Same for Facebook.
In the meantime, beween all the calls, I phoned the surgeon's office and was told that he did not have office hours today as he was in surgery all day.The secretary agreed to talk to him when he was done and then get back to me.
Late this afternoon she called to say that the surgeon would see John in his office tomorrow morning.
So we perseved through another day of choking down meds etc. He managed to drink one can of protein drink, a half a glass of instant breakfast, and a dish of ice cream.
This evening, in particular, the meds were not holding well at all and he was in a lot of distress.
I am praying he will sleep well tonight.
I think a 2 thumbs down day is not enough for today!!!

Monday May 24 2010

Happy Birthday Queen Vivtoria!
Rough day for John. When he woke up this norning he had blood all down his forhead and into his eyebrow and all over his pillow. Looked like he had fallen and hit his head. But when I cleaned it off there was no mark at all and he had not been out of bed all night. Have looked in his ears, nose and head and have not found where it came from. A mystery.
 Trying to get meds and nourishment into him without the tube is a struggle. He has not felt well all day. When I changed the dressing on the tube incision it looks like it is bleeding again. Sure hope we can get in to see the surgeon tomorrow.
Another two thumbs down day.