Much is made about moving from a pill version of a prescription to a patch

Our neurologist recommended it on our last visit about a month ago

It took a few weeks, but the RX arrived, so Sunday afternoon, after we had a really nice lunch in Petaluma with Terri and Rick at Lombardi’s (can you say awesome BBQ?) I thought we should try it

Just one patch, replaced daily, is supposed to provide continual medication, unlike the pill that wears off in roughly 8 hours

Seemed like a good idea……so we skipped the evening pill, put on the patch

Well……there must have needed to be more instruction to come with this change because Sunday night was one of the worst nights ever

Matt was up and down, all night, moving this, hallucinating that

Nora, our caregiver who is a CNA, was scheduled to come Monday

“He’s your handful for the next 8 hours” I said as I explained the situation, the events of the night before and earlier in the morning

All day, when the patch was supposed to be delivering RX it was as if he didn’t have an ounce of the meds in his body at all

Debbie was supposed to come by to hang with Matt in the evening so I could go paddle but I could not put her in the middle of this mess — a mess even I after 4ish years of this didn’t know how to handle on my own

At 4pm, when the afternoon doze was due, when the patch was due to be replaced, Nora and I conversed, we agreed, remove the patch, give him the pill, this just isn’t working well for anyone

I called Debbie and told her I was bailing on paddling because Matt wasn’t out of the rough…….but I would love her to still come over to hang…..to support me! It had been a tough day even with Nora’s help

OMG……in less than an hour he was back to his current normal, not this craziness we experienced for the last 24 hours

Current normal isn’t perfect but its a heck of a lot better than what happened with the patch…or should I say what didn’t happen with the patch!

I communicated with the neurologist via the Epic My Chart app on Monday when this was going on…….as of 5pm Tuesday, there has been zero response, not even from someone in the office to say “boo”

Between visit I calculated I cared for him over 3,000 hours (3,432 hours to be exact); he saw Matt 1 hour

You’d think a quicker response time than over 48 hours given we rarely reach out to a hand up understanding what’s going on

Maybe that is just me…..pushing to advocate for my love, but seriously, don’t you think I have a point here?

We’re on a better plain now, trying again to settle down after some drama

Each time I bitch and moan, I have to remind myself how loved we are, how much support we have in our village

I am not alone here, Matt is not alone here, we are with so many who care

Nothing makes me feel better than that…….so Uncle Lewy take that you old dog!

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