Changing Medications (Level of Trust Required)

[ProfessorTomoe 1,324]

Saw the surgeon himself yesterday. He removed my drain, but he did *not* aspirate my knee. Said he didn't want to stick a needle into what was an apparently healthy knee (i.e., no infection). Said I should remove the dressing after half a day. I did, and it looked bad. Mrs. Prof put another dressing on it to try and draw out more surface drainage.

I've got a wound care nurse coming out at around 1pm today. She'll know what to do.

[ProfessorTomoe 1,324]

The nurse didn't come out until Saturday afternoon. She cleaned up the spot where the drain was and put a smaller dressing on it. That seems to be staying on a bit better than the larger dressings. I also didn't realize that the stitches got pulled from the drain wound by the surgeon on Thursday until Mrs. Prof pointed it out to me. Don't know how I missed 'em.

The overall knee pain is hanging in at around an 8 1/2 when I try to walk. When I sit, it's under an 8, thank goodness. That means I can concentrate on arranging the Bruckner 2nd in C Minor. I managed to get the 2nd movement finished and am waiting for my son to give it a listen for mistakes before I post it. Until then, I've started work on the 3rd movement (the lovely Adagio). I just started last night and am already up to measure 71. I'm enjoying the hell out of this movement for now, which explains the rapid progress, but that'll change soon enough - the Adagio turns into a real bitch a couple of minutes down the line (it's a tad over 18 minutes total, and I'm just a couple of seconds past 5 minutes into it).

[ProfessorTomoe 1,324]

When I saw the surgeon last Thursday, I got a letter to give to my pain doctor, asking him to reconsider my current dosage due to the increased pain I'm dealing with after the knee surgery. I just got back from seeing the pain doctor himself (not an assistant), and he agreed to up my Dilaudid to 8 pills a day, an increase from 5 a day. That's a total of 64mg a day, up from 40mg a day. He cautioned that I may have trouble getting this quantity due to a DEA crackdown on supply (thanks, guys). If I can't get it, he said he's willing to fall back on an oral dose of ketamine (a dosing regimen that won't cause hallucinations). I hope I don't have to go the ketamine route, since that's an unknown quantity.

[mlooney 3,548]

Good freaking luck.

[ProfessorTomoe 1,324]

On 8/27/2024 at 2:00 PM, mlooney said:

That doesn't help.  There have been both 1st ed and 2nd ed version of the Pathfinder Beginner Box.  I'm not sure if there has been a "Reloaded" version or not.  Easy check on versions.  Did character creation all but guarantee an 18 in at least one stat?  If so, 2nd ed.  Was alignment not in it? If so reloaded.

My son says none of the above applies. We were playing "Pathfinder Adventure Card Game - Rise of the Runelords." He has a box marked "Base Set," but he says it contains "everything" for the game, meaning all expansions for that adventure of the card game.

[Darth Fluffy 332]

6 hours ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

My son says none of the above applies. We were playing "Pathfinder Adventure Card Game - Rise of the Runelords." He has a box marked "Base Set," but he says it contains "everything" for the game, meaning all expansions for that adventure of the card game.

It is basically using cards in a similar fashion to software, sort of like playing a Rogue-like game.

[ProfessorTomoe 1,324]

56 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

It is basically using cards in a similar fashion to software, sort of like playing a Rogue-like game.

Yeah, my son says the cards are standing in for the DM in this case. They do everything but call out, "Rocks fall, everybody dies."

[ProfessorTomoe 1,324]

Something rather disturbing is happening to my left hand. If you'll recall from November of 2022, I had surgery to fix Carpal and Cubital Tunnel Syndrome in my left arm. I suffered severe wasting of the muscles in my left hand as a result of the inflictions. My hand looks sunken-in, with the bones and blood vessels very visible. I'm also numb in my pinky finger and in the left half of my ring finger due to nerve damage from the Syndrome, and I have very little fine motor control over these two fingers.

The disturbing bit started happening yesterday morning, as I was typing something on my laptop. At first, I just couldn't hold my index finger still. It shook to a mild degree. Then, without warning, it started contracting without me doing anything to make it contract. It also started feeling like my ring and pinky fingers, right down to the loss of motor control. This lasted for about an hour, then went away, but I got "aftershocks" of it throughout the day. I was even able to show one in progress to Mrs. Prof.

I fear that I'm going to need another round of Carpal/Cubital Tunnel surgery to fix this. No idea if that's really going to be the case. In any event, I can't do anything about it until I get my left knee surgery recovery resolved, and that could be a while. It's also probably going to force me to postpone my Torn Rotator Cuff repair surgery yet again...sheesh. To use an acronym that I've never used before, and I really mean this, FML. I mean, come on. What's the deal here???

[mlooney 3,548]

I had that happen about 2 years ago.  My shrink, who was the medical person I was seeing most at the time, said that some people get "trigger finger syndrome" as an aging thing.  She said it should go away after a month or so.  It did.  hopefully yours will as well with out needing (more) surgery.

[ProfessorTomoe 1,324]

I got my new dosage of Dilaudid (hydromorphine) over the weekend and have begun to take it in leiu of the morphine I had to take for a day.

Ohmydearlordwhatatrip!!!

I can't keep my mind straight on any subject for more that a minute of Covfefe. Shoot me now.

[mlooney 3,548]

49 minutes ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

I got my new dosage of Dilaudid (hydromorphine) over the weekend and have begun to take it in leiu of the morphine I had to take for a day.

Ohmydearlordwhatatrip!!!

I can't keep my mind straight on any subject for more that a minute of Covfefe. Shoot me now.

But is it helping with pain?

[ProfessorTomoe 1,324]

2 hours ago, mlooney said:

But is it helping with pain?

Oh, certainly. We Subgenii have at least a mild handshake agreement with habafropzipulops and the various spellings thereof.

[mlooney 3,548]

10 hours ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

12 hours ago, mlooney said:

But is it helping with pain?

Oh, certainly.

Well that's a good thing.  There have been days, even recently, that I wished I had something stronger than OTC pain pills, but the community clinic REALLY doesn't like writing scripts for them for "head aches" or "body pain" unless they can see something broken or a piece of iron sticking out of your leg.  I know why, it's still a bit of a, pardon the expression, pain in the ass.  Oddly butt pain is one of the reasons I wanted them.

[ProfessorTomoe 1,324]

The pain relief part of the new dosage of the Dilaudid is finally settling in. My body is finally accepting it. I'm finally shifting from sedation and tranquilization mode to pain neutralization mode.I've still got a little bit of a way to go to complete the journey, but I'm almost there. Man, has this been a difficult trip. Whew!!! I can spell again!

[mlooney 3,548]

As they say, the longest journey starts with a single step

What they don't say is falling off a cliff also starts with a single step.

I hope you're on a journey, not falling off cliffs.

[ProfessorTomoe 1,324]

10 minutes ago, mlooney said:

I hope you're on a journey, not falling off cliffs.

Same here. The nurses keep asking if I've had any falls. I keep telling them, "no."

[mlooney 3,548]

2 hours ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

Same here. The nurses keep asking if I've had any falls. I keep telling them, "no."

I've had more falls in the last 6 weeks than I've had in the last 6 years.

 

[ProfessorTomoe 1,324]

I've got to the point where I can't take my morning medications without getting nausea from them. No matter how slowly I take them or how I space them out, I still get sick from them. To add insult to injury, I usually wind up taking Zofran to blunt the nausea, which knocks me out for a while. After that, the 6mg of Bumex uber-diuretic I take for the swelling in my legs kicks in, more often that not, and I wind up spending the day acting out the plot of "The Yellow River" by I. P. Freely, with illustrations by Willie Makeit and Betty Wont.

Add in my left knee recuperation pain, and that means my physical life sucks right about now.

[Darth Fluffy 332]

Sucks, man.

I'm researching adding injury to insult. I think they'd be way more effective.