Drugging M

After calling the firemen to pick M up off the floor, I resorted to drugs.

Of course, this is what is done in nursing homes, and even in the inpatient hospice unit. But until now I have resisted. Well, that's not true. Nothing really worked and I gave up.

I started back going through all the drugs I had trying them again. I found that a full .5 of Ativan helped to calm M down, but he is actually worse the first couple of hours after taking the pill, which is why I didn't think it worked the first time I tried.

So after the firemen came I gave him a full pill, but he rang me after 2 hours. So a couple of hour later I gave him another full pill, which slowed him down a little (this along with how bad he hurt). But he was still like Goldilocks, wanting to go from chair to chair.

The nurse came at 3:00, because I had called the Dr. asking for more Ativan.

After talking with the Drs. nurse on the phone when the hospice nurse was there, saying how much I had given which didn't really slow him down, about the getting on the floor incident, the Dr. decided to double the dose.

About an hour after the nurse left, M started complaining about hurting, so obviously he was starting to feel the effects of the fall that morning. The Dr. had prescribed Loritab for pain, as the Roxinal made M nauseous, so I gave M a Loritab. This knocked him out, along with the Ativan, so I gave it again around 9:30 PM, to get him through the night.

I fixed him up with a small cooler in the bed so he has access to ice chips and sprite, told him to ring me if he absolutely had to, but to not try and get out of bed. I then parked the wheelchair next to the bed to keep his legs/feet from coming off the bed, if he should turn over wrong, or try and get out of bed.

He did ring me about 4:00 AM saying he needed ice chips, but I happened to be awake so it wasn't bad. Then he rang at 6:30 wanting to get up. I told him to wait an hour as our brother R would be there then. M went back to sleep, and I had to wake him around 8:00 to get him changed, and R got him in his wheelchair.

So begins another day. I sent R to Target to buy one of those memory foam pads for the bed, as if M spends a lot of time in bed that will help prevent pressure sores. So now I am waiting for the laundry to finish to I can remake the bed.