Between December 9th and the 31st I raised my Seroquel dose in 25 to 50 mg increments from 50 to 200 mg, then dropped it back to 175. I knew I had been taking at least 300 and possibly 600 mg during the study, so I knew 175-200 would be safe. I began doing better from getting good sleep again, but didn't feel that my mood and mental clarity were improving as much as was needed.
Mom developed black spots on the tips of three toes. These, we were told, were embolisms, blood clots thrown out to the extremities, a complication from her colostomy surgery. So week after week we visited her podiatrist, who was cautiously optimistic about the toes' progress.
I got through Christmas by ordering all gifts in one day from online wish lists, then doing one massive gift-wrapping session on the 24th.
On January 3rd Mom's cardiologist took one look at her left foot and put her into the hospital. They ran tests on her for a few days, and the vascular surgeon decided he would have to do a bypass on her left leg due to a massive blockage just below the knee. He wanted to do it immediately, because his upcoming schedule was tight, but the cardiologist - who had to sign off on it - had gone out of town. They wouldn't let her go home because they didn't want her putting any weight on her left foot, where the toes were deteriorating (the right great toe appeared to be healing okay). Thus it turned out she would be in the hospital for 9 days before the scheduled date of the bypass surgery, and if that went well, the following day her second toe and the first joint of the big toe on her left foot would be amputated. Then she'd require more hospital time for rehab.
I saw my psychiatrist on the 11th and started taking 150 mg Wellbutrin that day, with permission to go up to 300. We cut Seroquel back to 150 at the same time.
The surgeries were successful. The aftermath was not. One complication after another. Rapid heart rate and fever. The treatment for that caused dangerously low blood pressure. Then came a touch of pneumonia. Her hemoglobin level dropped several times, requiring multiple transfusions. She bounced from room to room and in and out of intensive care.
They told me she would need to go to a rehabilitation center before coming home. I chose Maryhaven, a Catholic facility a couple of miles from our house.
In spite of going to the hospital daily as well as to work, I was handling the situation adequately if not brilliantly. After X-rays, a CT scan and another MRI, I started taking Fosamax for Paget's disease on January 14th. On the 22nd I raised Seroquel to 175 mg and Wellbutrin to 300. Working with detailed to-do lists, I managed to keep up with most of the housework, but the bills weren't all paid on time, and I only washed my hair about once in three weeks. (Fortunately, since I stopped coloring it, my hair looks good for a long time between washings.)
Then I started having episodes of chest pain, especially at night. I wrote, "It doesn't feel a bit like costochondritis ... it was so bad last night that I thought about calling 911, but I couldn't stand the thought of doctors seeing the threadbare t-shirt I sleep in and my unshaved armpits and legs."
The next day I wrote, "Last night was brutal. Pain in my chest kjept waking me, over and over. My spine hurt, too. I kept stretching, curling up, turning - it would ease for awhile and I'd sleep, but it always came back. But still there was nothing to indicate it was my heart. I could breathe perfectly well. Yet it felt like my bones were on fire. Then when I woke the last time and saw that it was light outside, my brain suddenly shouted, 'Fosamax!' "
I looked up Fosamax side effects online and found:
- chest pain
- burning pain under ribs or in back
Late on February 1st, after 28 days without getting out of bed, Mom was finally released from the hospital and transported by ambulance to Maryhaven. Somehow she had gotten into her head that she was going to a nursing home for good. She asked me once if I would stay in this house, and another time whether I would have to take the cats back to the shelter.
The ambulance people hadn't been gone five minutes when she said, "I hate it here." She repeated that several times during the evening. Over and over I told her that she wasn't there for good, that it was temporary to help her build up her strength. "When did I get weak?" she asked.
My chest pains were gone - but my heart was breaking.
Posted 5/16/06
