2 nightmare nights in a row.

Last night was worse than the night before. Husband was like a hyper-active jack-in-the-box, leaping (literally) out of bed every 10 minutes or so, rushing to do various obscure things, see various unseen people, participate in various impossible meetings, parking unseen cars, trying to walk through walls to get to non-existent gyms, talking and arguing with invisible people, body jerking and twitching like a puppet on deranged strings whenever he was lying down. So, as you could guess, I had a rather active night too, trying to get him calmed down and back into bed each time he leapt out.

To add to the worry, he would move so fast that he was stumbling over his own feet, knocking his shins on the corner of the bed, and falling against the wall. I am just eternally grateful that he did not actually fall down!

I had to go to the supermarket today, so my parents came over to sit with Husband and keep an eye on him while I went off. I was only away for just over an hour and, when I came back, my Dad, just before he headed off to work, said to me "Now I know what you mean when you say he is hyper-active." Anyway, he went off to work, while my Mum stayed with me. She cooked lunch for her and me - with more than enough left overs to keep me going for a few days. There is plenty of food for Husband too, as I had done an Irish stew overnight for him, in the slow cooker. My Mum left around 5pm, when my Dad (on the way back from work) came and picked her up.

Anyway, spoke to the pain doc today. She says that this level of hallucination and twitching is NOT normal, and it looks like he is extremely sensitive to the effects of the drug.... more so when it is administered in liquid form and hits the system pretty hard right at initial dosage, and then when the dosage is repeated every 3 hours, it does not give the body time to calm down, and giving a higher dose (so that there are longer intervals between dosages) does not help as the higher dose would just make it worse!

So, she is going to take him off the liquid morphine, and put him on time-release morphine capsules, to be taken 3 times a day, at 8-hourly intervals. The theory being that, since these are time-release capsules, he will not get hit with a huge dose at any time during the 8 hours, from the time he takes the capsule to the time of the next dosage, but will instead have slow and steady release of a lower dosage of the opiate into his system.

Since I do not want to leave Husband alone at home, my Dad is going to go and collect the new meds from the pain doc tomorrow morning, and then drop them off for me, before he heads to work. This means that I can start him on the new meds tomorrow, commencing at 3pm, followed by 11pm, followed by 7am, and that will be the daily cycle. I have to keep him on this for one week, and then report back to the doc. If he handles it well, and there are no side effects, or MINIMAL side effects, then we are likely to stick to that. If not, well, we will cross that bridge when we come to it.

So, folks, that is the latest. Still not easy, and still got to get through tonight, with Husband already all set to be as hyper as he was last night. I am hoping and praying that the time release capsules work well, and minimise or eliminate the side effects.

Till next time, please continue to pray for Husband and, as always, stay safe, stay HEALTHY!