night owl

Oh boy, awake again! My "jimmy legs" woke me up at midnight, and were bad enough to get me out of bed. Lisa is sleeping soundly and I don't want to wake her. I'm sitting cross-legged on the couch right now, because that's the only way that my legs will settle down. They still aren't very happy, though.

Lisa has been off of her prescription narcotics for about a week. She is much more alert and active, but she is in a lot of pain. Her right shoulder is giving her a lot of trouble. She had surgery on the left shoulder a couple of years ago, and maybe it is time for the right to be looked at.

She doesn't see a new general practitioner here in NC until May 21. In the meantime, we may end up taking her to the ER. They'll probably view her as a "drug seeker" and treat her as such. Maybe a quick injection of something for pain. Hopefully (should we go the ER route) they'll give her a prescription. We'll take her prescription records from our pharmacy with us, if we do go, and they could call her physician in Florida to confirm her diagnosed conditions.

It's not like she doesn't take anything for pain anymore. Even when she was on narcotics, she still needed three 800mg ibuprofen tablets and four 100mg Lyrica capsules daily. One of her meds, Percocet, contains acetaminophen (paracetamol). Since she's out of Percocet, I bought a bottle of acetaminophen and give it to her four times daily, just as she took the Percocet. It helps, but not a lot.

She spent the past two nights with her mother, who is going in for surgery on Monday to get a stent in one of her ureters and wanted somebody to stay with her. Her doctor gave her an sulfa-based antibiotic that caused her to foam at the mouth (literally) and made her itchy all over. He should have known better; she is allergic to sulfa drugs and that information is in her medical records - and she has been seeing this doctor for years, having been a patient of his father until he retired. So, she stopped taking that antibiotic and started taking Benadryl for the itchiness.

Regarding my condition, with the legs and all, I've been having trouble sleeping over the past few days. No real surprise there, as I often have sleep issues. Last night I slept pretty well, but couldn't wake up completely today. I took a couple of naps and started to get my second wind at about 9 PM. Wonderful. But I did manage to get in an hour's sleep before my RLS woke me back up.

And so, here I am. Cross-legged on the couch with my computer in front of me, rocking back and forth and side to side occasionally in an attempt to mollify my complaining legs.