A month back or so, we tried to switch Matt to a patch form of one of his meds so that he would have a more consistent dose of this helpful med in his system

The hope is his behavior would be more consistent throughout the day, avoid some strange behaviors that seem to occur now in the mornings after a long period without the RX

The RX is at dose level in the body, or so I have read, roughly 8 hours

He takes it 2 times a day…..so if you do the math, that’s 16 hours of effectiveness in a 24 hour day……at some point, theorically, to his lay mind, that means the meds have worn down a bit at some portion of the day

That seems, again to my lay mind, to correlate with the periods of behavior manifestations we see in the mornings because his evening dose is given at 4pm

The patch, they claim, will deliver trans-dermally the meds on a consistent basis for a full 24 hours

So it seemed the thing to try, moving him to the patch

The first attempt to move him to the patch a month-ish ago was a failure, so we went back to the pill version and had a discussion with his doctor about it

We learned, importantly, that perhaps what happened the first time is that he still had a certain level of the med in his system from the pill taken the day before

The patch form, which delivers a consistent level for a longer time started working immediately, effectively giving him, when the lingering effects of the pill and the patch effects were added together, somewhat of an over dose of the meds

Having too much of the med can be as bad as having too little of the med the doc said

Its all terribly confusing

So this time, starting Wednesday, at the doctors more clear direction this time, we did not give him 1 day’s worth of the med by pill form so the medicine had time to wear down in his body before we put the patch on him

Wednesday afternoon, we had Nora here, his caregiver, who said he started getting a bit agitated yesterday afternoon, but as soon as she left, when Maribell came, he went to bed

It seems he may have been up and down

Thursday morning we put the patch on him, we wait, watch, hold our breath

So far, when he isn’t napping, which has been considerable, he has been exhibiting his environmental dependence behavior, moving chairs from where they belong to a new place that he thinks they now belong

Moving pillows from chairs onto the floor in the other room

He got a knife and tried to cut the strap of the caregivers lunch basket–luckily she saw that and redirected him before damage occurred

He alternates between going back to bed and wandering around rearranging the furniture or some other such unexplained behavior

Mostly he slept, which helped Nora our caregiver and I remain sane

His behavior this time isn’t nearly as bad as the first attempt to move to the patch, the one exception being the damage he tried to inflict on her lunch basket

When she left today, he was sleeping, so I’ve been on watch for almost 2 hours now

He asked to watch Batman, so I found him a classic Batman show, you know the original ones from when we were kids

But then he went to bed, that distraction only had a small amount of traction

When he got up 10-15 minutes later, he was fiddling in his closet

He tried to drink hydrogen peroxide! Ok, I need to tuck that away out of his sight asap

Nora had said earlier he was putting tooth paste all over everything at one point today, so I will need to limit his supply of toothpaste too

I was able to distract him with Batman again, he is wide eyed watching that now, not sure how long that will last, but living in the moment at this moment, its really all I can do

Moments like this make me ever so grateful for the breaks I get now

Ever so grateful we were able to schedule Nora to be with him 2 days in a row so she could help carry this burden of change with me

I also got a great break Tuesday when Eric and Elliot hung with Matt, I had an epic break

More on that next post

Till then, my ears are tuned into listening for noises that are not Batman and investigating…..

I just got up from drafting this blog and removed the hydroperoxide, other potentially bad things to ingest and extra tubs of toothpaste from his area

This truly is the first time he has be caught trying to put dangerous things in his mouth….this is new behavior

He got up from the couch, wandered, now he is back in bed

It may go on like this for a while…….I will remain vigilent

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