Vacation dejavu

However, the same thing happened again: she could sleep on Monday night but not on Tuesday night. Her blood pressure steadily increased from 140 to 176 (but there was a dip in the middle to 150). I gave her hypertension/heart medicine, Bisoprolol, at about 3.40am but an hour later, there was hardly any difference. So after consulting with the ward staff, we brought her back to the ward at 5.30am. 

This time though, the on-call doctor spoke with us. He highly suspected that her sleeplessness was due to napping too much in the morning (2hrs+) and in the afternoon (2hrs+). He suggested at most 30mins nap in the morning and another 30mins in the afternoon. My dad also informed him that mum said she was thinking about "when will this be over?".

At this point, the doctor remeasured her bp: it dropped significantly to 141. Doctor said we could bring her back for one more night but advised us to get her involved in some household chores so as not to feel "bored" and thus nap. If her bp went up again, exhibited other symptoms such as dizziness and head pain, and couldn't sleep for the second night in a row, we were to bring her back to ward.

He also revealed that the current plan was to discharge her after ECT on Friday, which was good news. But, I was thinking, if she continued to have high bp and not being able to sleep......

The doctor suggested us giving her activities to do and during his conversation with my mum, she revealed she was willing to help out if asked. So that was what we did: asked her to help fold clothes and water the garden. We also planned to get colouring book and coloured pencils, and crochet hook replacement (couldn't find the existing one) for her to continue this hobby.

We were worried she would want to nap during the day because she didn't sleep the night before but instead, she wasn't able to fall asleep during nap. Thank goodness she could sleep that night.

There was response to ECT on Friday and finally she was discharged. So her final medication consist of
  • Olanzapine 7.5mg day 10mg night (anti-psychotic)
  • Benzhexol 2mg day (for stiffness and tremor)
  • Bisoprolol 1.25mg day (for hypertension and heart)
  • Gabapentin 300mg day (for nerves pain due to fibromyalgia)
She was weaned off all other medicine, including Tramadol, Simvarstatin, Ceterizine, Pseudoephedrine, Budenide, Omeprazole and Mecobalamin.

Hopefully she'll continue to recover.

Comments

Twilight Man said…
I would advise that we must allow patients to sleep and nap as much as they could even at odd hours. This cannot be helped and avoided as their bodily hormones & various ailments would upset their well being temporarily. We just follow the fate and their needs no matter how difficult it could be. Just my 2 cents. My prayers for your mum's recovery and to keep you strong too.

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