Day 4 & 5

Day 4

Not a great day; pain, vomiting, fevers, no eating & little drinking!

A visit from M&S and Simone suggested that joseph needed anti-nausea medication. The OxyContin can cause nausea (we now realize that was the start of it!) but he needs it for the pain! Urgh!  She also reminded me that the immunotherapy drugs can cause spikes in temperature - so I can stop poking poor joseph awake with the thermometer.

Day 5

So given the horrible day 4, and Simone’s suggestion, and one last vomit at 11.00 a.m. - Joseph was ready to tell the doctor exactly how he was feeling. Up until now, a bit of self-diagnosing that the extra fluids were causing kidney pain and that was causing the vomiting, and that meant no appetite etc. etc. - and we were both going crazy. 

Doctor agreed with the anti-nausea pills and added some to the intravenous fluids. Joseph was still nervous about the extra fluids effect on his kidneys, so agreed to have just ½ litre. With the injection of fluids and a-v drug, by late afternoon joseph was feeling better than he had for a while. 😊 

(Not) NurseJill ...

 I raced off to the Chemist (pharmacy) to get the a-v pills as well as more Panadol (Tylenol)  (taken in addition to OxyContin).  I was a bit confused about what kind of Panadol he takes - pretty sure it’s the slow-release but none of the 10+ boxes Morag (pharmacist) showed me looked familiar (they are behind the counter so she has get each out for me) so I texted joseph and it turns it’s the RAPID release!  (The Oxy is SLOW release!) ☹️ 

So then Morag asked me about how/when he takes the pills.  I told her; Oxy twice a day and Panadol as needed.  She started mentioning numbers ... 6s, 12s, 6s!!!  She said them again and again, different ways and finally I think she could tell from my face (and the little tears), that I knew not of what she was speaking!  So she drew me a chart - a chart from her pharmacy school days - and finally I understood.  ... Luckily for poor Morag it was closing time because I think she really needed to go home after all that.

It’s a very basic pill-taking schedule
It was the NUMBERS that confused me 😔 

I took the pills and a copy of the chart back to Joseph. He understood the 6/12/6/12. He said he is grateful for my concern but that he would look after his pill intake all by himself.