Paddling around the First Complication

Saturday February 18, 2012
Site #13 Lithia Springs Park, FL

 

Everything was great until dinner.

 

David has his first treatment on Monday and things go well.
He feels terrific on Tuesday but things change that evening.
We’ve had a very trying few days here since then.

 

 
David was making a delicious spaghetti for our dinner
when he got the hiccups.

He doesn’t usually have the hiccups but didn’t think much about it

 

until they wouldn’t go away.

 
He tried all of the home remedies,
drink warm water slowly, breathe into a paper bag,
hold a lung’s full of breath as long as you can etc etc.

 

The only one that worked at all  was holding his breath
but within 2 or 3 minutes they were back.

 

 

 

This went on for hours.

It went on all night.

He got no sleep.

 

 

Now it’s Wednesday

We start calling the doctor.
David can’t talk, he has the hiccups.

When you say hiccups, it sounds funny.
When it’s happening to you, it’s not.

No one ever mentioned this as one of the side effects.
Well it’s “uncommon” we’re told.

They prescribe something.

I go pick it up.

He takes it.

No effect. 

It says take it every 8 hours.
He takes it every 6 hours.
No effect.
He still has the hiccups.

 

In the afternoon he lays down to
try to nap.

He doesn’t hiccup in his sleep.
IF he can get to sleep
which he does now probably because he is so exhausted
from the physical strain.

It’s over 24 hours now.

 

Try to imagine having the hiccups non stop
for over 24 hours.

 

I feel helpless.
There is nothing more I can do just now.

 

I go out to kayak on the Alafia River to do
something besides worry about and watch him.
I go out so it will be very quiet in the coach. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All the pictures in this post are from that beautiful paddle.

 

 

 

 

 

My time on the river is rejuvenating.
I see the critters out just being themselves.
It makes me smile.
I wonder if they ever worry.
 

 

 

 

 

The clouds are gorgeous and the reflections beautiful.

 

I can feel myself relaxing.

 

 

I paddle up to a small water front community

 

 

 

 

 

where I see the resident alligator

 

Time to head back.

 

As it gets later in the afternoon, the water’s
reflections are making it more and
more difficult to tell which way is up and which way is down.

 

 

 

It feels like I’m in an alternate universe.
Kind of like our life right now,
upside down and confusing.

 

When I return, he’s awake,
has eaten the sandwich I left him,
is tired
and still hiccupping.

I make some dinner,
he takes his medicine.
He lays down for the night.

 

Thursday dawns.
He’s had a night with almost no sleep.
As soon as he falls asleep, the hiccups wake him up.
He’s miserable.
His neck is sore. 
He can’t look up or left or right.

We go in for treatment #2.
They prescribe something else

I pick it up.

He takes it.

Same story,

It doesn’t work.

48 hours of the hiccups.

 

It’s now Friday.
He has had the hiccups
non stop
for 64 hours.

I am very concerned that he will have this
all through the week-end if we don’t
get something to help him today.
Everyone else is going to have the week-end off.
I can’t let this happen.

I call the doctor’s  office.
I’m not very nice at this point.
I tell them just what is going to happen
in their office on Monday when we come in
IF he still has the hiccups.
I ask them if they understand.
I’m not proud of myself.
But they hear me.

I go do the laundry while he sleeps.
On the way home,
I pick up the prescription for their strongest potential drug
to stop these hiccups.
The one they haven’t wanted to prescribe.

 

I come back in the house, he’s curled up on the floor
sleeping with his coat over him.
I get him up, get him something to eat,
give him this new medicine and put him back
in the bedroom to sleep.

 

In no time, this medicine has literally knocked him out.
For the next 24 hours all he does is sleep.
But he really needs the rest.
I wake him up to eat and take medicine.
Otherwise he’s asleep.
Not fitfully trying to sleep and being awakened by hiccups
every time he turns over or moves but
deep snoring asleep.

 

After two doses of this medicine 8 hours apart,
on Friday, I don’t give him any more.

He has to wake up so we can see if this
stuff has really worked.

 

Finally on Saturday morning he wakes up late
but on his own.
Groggy but awake.

 
He eats breakfast.
He does not hiccup all through breakfast
and does not fall asleep with his fork in his hand
like he has for his past few meals.

 

He’s moving slowly and cautiously
but he’s moving.

He gets dressed.
Later he has lunch.
Then he goes out for a short walk.
The first thing he’s done in nearly 4 days.

 

He continues to improve for the rest of the day.
He’s nearly back to his old self.
And the best thing.
NO HICCUPS!

 

We’re crossing our fingers that this lasts
and that the drug in his cocktail which
caused this side effect doesn’t set off a recurrence
on Monday when he goes in for treatment #3.

He says he wants to go paddling tomorrow!!
The world is right side up again.