A Few Problems

Yesterday Margaret and I had lunch at the Noosa Bowls Club. Clubs in Queensland are a great source of good, reasonably priced food in high quality surroundings. Noosa Bowls Club is no exception. Margaret had Sizzling Garlic Prawns and I had Oven Baked Dory, one of my favourite fish dishes. Margaret had two glasses of sparkling white wine and I had a light (low alcohol) beer. After lunch we stopped off to get Margaret some fruit jellies.

We arrived home at 2.30 pm and I got Margaret into bed and settled down in front of TV to watch a program I had recorded the evening before. It only lasted 30 minutes and I was soon having an afternoon snooze when I was rudely wakened at 3.30 pm by Margaret rushing in with her wheely walker. She was fully dressed and had her sunglasses and hat on ready to go out. She told me that we had to go to the shops and was very angry when I wouldn't agree. It took some time to settle her down. She had forgotten about going out to lunch and didn't want to come out and walk Louis later in the afternoon so she stormed off back to bed.

Later I walked Louis and when I came home found Margaret in a great deal of pain. I assumed that she had cramps in both legs but it didn't ease off. I gave her two osteo paracetamol but these had no effect. She did not want any dinner but had some biscuits and I noticed that she had eaten nearly all the fruit jellies so I gave her her evening medication.

By about 8.00 pm the pains were much worse so I got her dressed took to her to the Out Of Hours GP service at Noosa Hospital. Here she was lucky to be seen very quickly by a pleasant and efficient lady doctor. She reviewed Margaret's recent medical history and examined her swollen legs. She thought that the first thing was pain management and asked me to cut a 10 mg Norspan Bupremorphine patch we had left over from a previous episode and apply it to Margaret's back when we got home. This would provide continuing pain relief. Next she thought the onset of pain may have been caused by a combination of fluid retention and reduction in Margaret's Prednisolone medication. She asked me to give Margaret an extra 5 mg when we got home and to increase her normal daily dose back to 20 mg. Finally because of her recent renal failure problems she authorised blood and urine tests to be carried out first thing in the morning and ask us to follow up with Margaret's normal GP next afternoon when the results came back.

When we got home I applied the patch and gave Margaret her prednisolone and tried to get her back to bed. She was having none of it and stayed up until the pain forced her to go and lie down at about 10.00 pm. I got her into her nightclothes and tucked her in but she insisted on watching TV so I went to bed and read for a while then returned to switch off her TV and light at 11.30 pm

Today I got up at 5.30 am and took Louis for his early walk at 6.15 am. I returned home at 7.00am and managed to get Margaret to give a urine sample and get dressed. We were at the pathology collection centre by 7.30 am and the blood collection was made by 7.45 am. The results should be ready by 4.00 pm today.

Back at home Margaret was still in pain but I think the patch was taking the edge off it. I phoned Margaret's GP's office and got a receptionist who did not know Margaret. They had no appointments with Margaret's normal GP but my GP could see her at 3.30 pm. I was a bit curt and asked what it the results were not in by then. Her reply was that she couldn't help that. I said that we may have to change doctors to get an appointment when they were ready or I suppose we could just sit there and wait till they arrived! Luckily I didn't quite blow my stack and accepted the 3.30 pm appointment. Five minutes later the receptionist phoned back and apologetically said that Dr A, Margaret's GP, had heard about Margaret's problems and had made space in his schedule for her at 3.00 pm. He would also check directly with the pathology service to get the results a soon as possible.

All there is to do now is to keep Margaret calm and comfortable until her appointment.