Small update

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It's been a long time since there was update on my mum's condition with respect to her appointments with psychiatrist and neurologist.

Her psychiatric medicine, 5mg asenapine and 100mg sertraline, hasn't changed for quite some time because her mental condition has stabilised. Something to be grateful for, especially given my dad's deteriorating condition.

The migraine medicine prescribed by neurologist, flunarizine, was no longer effective in treating her migraine. Her appointment was repeatedly postponed since September 2019, all except for one (it was my request) was due to her not feeling well to attend them @@. One day, just I had guessed, she said that it made no sense to see neurologist until after the appointments with cardiologist. I was inclined to agree but I was keen for her to follow up in case they had alternate medicine for her migraine. After all, flunarizine was effective initially.

After yet another postponement to February 2020, I implored her to try her best to go for this one. Even if she was dizzy, she could just lie down on the back seats of the car, I offered. Fortunately, she was fine that day. Phew!

Since there were medicine to collect for my parents and my sister, we agreed to split: I went to the pharmacy while she went to register at the neurology department. All her previous appointments there lasted for hours but this time, surprisingly it was over in just less than an hour. According to mum, even though there were many patients, there were more doctors than usual. As a result, I wasn't with her when she was attended by a doctor there.

The doctor wasn't happy with the almost daily occurrence of migraine. She postulated that perhaps mum's sinus was preventing her from having a good sleep and resulted in migraine. Strangely, despite hypthesising this link, she didn't ask whether my mum was taking medicine for sinus or not, nor did she prescribe any @@. Instead, after presumably consulting her superior, they increased the dosage of flunarizine from 5mg to 7.5mg i.e. 1 tab to 1.5 tabs. Let's hope this works.

Meanwhile, a routine check-up at Penaga health clinic threw a curveball: doctor was worried about nerve in mum's left eyes. He gave her a stapled letter to be given to eye specialist at Bukit Mertajam Hospital. "Leave at 7am." "Can we go to Kepala Batas Hospital? It's much nearer." "It's better you go to BM."

Unfortunately, my mum was unwell the next morning (bad sinus and migraine). Given
  • how urgent the doctor sounded ("No need to get appointment. Can be examined there and then."),
  • there's no clinic hours at BM in the afternoon, and
  • like Penang GH, I'm expecting lots of patients on Monday morning, 
I brought her to see a private eye specialist in Butterworth itself that afternoon. Spent a total 2.5 hours there. Results:
  • There was nothing wrong with the nerve in her left eye.
  • Dryness in both eyes, requiring regular eyedrops in perpetuity.
  • Right cataract is ready to be removed.
  • Left cataract can be left alone for a while longer.
He prescribed eyedrop, with follow-up in 6 months time. Meanwhile, he asked us to consider surgery to remove cataract.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Wow, you have your hands full with overseeing the care of both your parents. Do take care of yourself too, OK? SR
March 23, 2020 at 5:00 AM
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