Brought Paul home Monday. We got here about 6:00 pm. I wish I could say everything was going great, but thats not exactly the case. The neuropathy in his hands and feet continues to cause him a great deal of pain and discomfort, not to mention the fact that it makes it difficult to do simple tasks like open his cell phone or walk across the room. The Occupational Therapist sent us home with lots of aids to help him be more independent and we are certainly thankful for that. The worst thing of all, is the amount of pain hes having to deal with. Theres only so much they can do for that because of his kidney function, plus nerve pain is a lot harder to treat than other kinds of pain. Yesterday I was at work for barely an hour when he called and asked me to come home because the pain was unbearable. He called his Drs office and was told he could up his doses of gabapentin and Dilauded, but they werent helping. So I picked him up and we headed out to the VA Hospital ER in Iowa City. The doctor there gave him an injection of Dilauded and spoke to the Neurologist, but unfortunately, we were told that theres really nothing they can do to make him totally comfortable. Dilauded takes the edge off his pain, but its a narcotic and its not good for his kidneys. Plus it can be addictive. And the gabapentin is for nerve pain but it needs to be introduced slowly and it takes awhile for it to start making an impact. On the up side, his kidney function continues to improve at a fairly rapid rate, so we are definitely thankful for that. They cant give us a timeline on how long it will take for the neuropathy to resolve itself but at least it seems to be making slow progress, even though hes having a hard time dealing with it. The best course of action right now is the slight increase in mediation, drink at least 2 quarts of water a day, and get as much exercise as possible using the items from the Occupational Therapist and taking walks around the house, which in our home means back and forth between the kitchen and living room. He was also told by his Dr in Iowa City the day he was discharged to keep something in his possession stating that he had a bad reaction to Zosyn since thats the one that put him in this mess. Its kind of hard to believe he walked into the hospital one day under his own power and left 9 days later with a walker and little feeling in his hands and feet, but one just never knows what kind of reaction they will have to a medication. And at the time, getting the pneumonia and infection under control were the biggest priorities. In the meantime, if anyone is interested in coming to stay with him in the afternoons again while I go back to work, we would really appreciate it. You can reply to this post or send a private message and well go from there. Thanks again for all your good thoughts and prayers!
Posted on: Wed, 08 Oct 2014 16:18:25 +0000
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