[stanford_status] Status for Tuesday, Nov 28th

[John R Larsen]

Hello Everyone,

It was a rather difficult night.  Stanford started experiencing lots 
of pain in his right side and right shoulder around midnight.  He 
had had his two 5 mg oxycodone at 11:00 PM.  He was awake and 
talking with me the whole time telling little word jokes and his 
humor showed through.  At 1:30 AM I decided it was time to call the 
urgent care number at the hospice service we are using, but I didn't 
know where the number was!  Joyce had taken care of all that paper 
work.  I tried the number on the caller ID and it just rang and 
rang.  Finally I found the paper work and made the call.  The nurse 
analyzed the situation and said it would be okay to give Stanford 
another oxycodone even though it was only two hours since the last 
one.  His current dosing apparently is about half of what he could 
have.  The extra 5 mg of oxycodone kicked in after about 30 minutes 
and Stanford's pain eased up considerably.  By 3:00 AM he was able 
to sleep and finally so was I.

Part of the hospice care involves an "emergency kit" of medications 
for different situations.  When we call the urgent care number the 
nurse we talk to can direct us which medications to use for the 
situation at hand.  If the oxycodone hadn't cut the pain within an 
hour then in the emergency kit we have a liquid form of fast acting 
oxy that can be given.

Stanford's heart rate was 120 this morning.  He was running a low 
fever of 99.4 at about 8:30 AM.  I haven't checked it since then.  

A nurse and social worker from the hospice agency visited today.  We 
discussed lots of different things.  Dr. O'Shea is Stanford's 
primary care physician now that we're in Nashua.  He directed a 
change in Stanford's pain management.  He will now be receiving 40 
mg of oxycontin every 12 hours.  The oxycodone for break through 
pain will still be at the same level.  Overall this will provide a 
higher level of pain medication in his system and hopefully make him 
more comfortable.  It will also make him more tired.

The nurse took blood samples for lab work.  We don't know the 
results yet.  Dr. O'Shea wants to see Stanford in his office some 
time this week, but we don't know when yet.

He has been sleeping quite a bit today, but has also been checking 
email, playing his Wii, and surfing the web some, especially looking 
at the latest stuff at http://homestarrunner.com where StrongBad and 
friends hang out.

Stanford hasn't liked how he has been so restless and unable to 
sleep at night so he somewhat forced himself to stay awake yesterday 
evening.  (It didn't really help him sleep later that night.)  He 
and Heather had arranged to play a game of Magic the Gathering, so 
he was insistent on going down into the basement where all his magic 
cards are piled around so he could get certain cards he wanted for 
the game.  We cleared out space for his wheelchair and brought it 
down.  He spent time working on the deck while Heather and I dropped 
off her car at the shop to get a leaking water pump replaced.  When 
we got home Stanford was ready to go back upstairs.  He and Heather 
then got on his bed with a board between them and played.  You can 
see them playing in the second picture (IMG_2986) at:

http://larsen-family.us/pictures/2006/cd6/2006_11_27_-
_Visit_from_friends_-_Playing_Magic_with_Heather

Some school and church friends arranged visits on Sunday:

http://larsen-family.us/pictures/2006/cd6/2006_11_26_-
_Visits_from_friends

We take things a day at a time.  Thanks for your continued support, 
thoughts and prayers.

John

_______________________________________________________
John R Larsen <john at larsen-family.us>
http://larsen-family.us