Today was a harrowing day, but I didn't know it! It all started the night before...
I take the psychotropic drug, Safris, at night about half an hour to an hour before I want to go to sleep. If I don't take the med, I won't sleep at all. Won't even get into a resting frame of mind. So at 1230am this morning, I took my med and then at 1am, I laid down and went to sleep within minutes. Well the trouble has started the night before, when I decided that what I really wanted for dinner was some fresh tomatoes cut up with a couple of tablespoons of California French dressing on them. So I cut up 3 roma tomatoes for me, and three for hubby. I ate all of mine, and hubby only about one of his, so I ate his too. It was about 10pm, and it was so good, I got another 3 cut up tomatoes and ate them too. Well, you know I suffer from chronic constipation and am supposed to be taking Miralax everyday, but haven't. So all this fresh fruit, as tomatoes are a fruit not a veg, caused me some intestinal distress, I started having cramps. I kept expecting this would cause me to "move my bowels", but alas, no. But I kept having to go to the bathroom anyway.
So at 1230am, I take my night pill and at 1am, I go to sleep. What we later ffigured out was that at about 120am, a cramp must have woken me up from my drugged induced sleep and caused me to get out of bed and head towards the bathroom. I remember some of this. I remember being very dizzy and reaching out for the dresser and trying to sit down on the trunk at the foot of the bed. According to hubby, there was a tremendous thud! Shaking the house, and he jumped up to find me face-planted on the floor, with my butt up in the air,my knees under me and my arms on my sides. I had passed out and landed on my face.
Next thing I know, he's asking me if I am alright, I'm saying yes, why, what happened? And where am I? He helps me up and gets me back to bed, but I still have to go to the bathroom, so he helps me up to there. According to him, he gets me onto the toilet, turns around for a second, and I pass out again, face planting into the corner of the metal towel rack on the glass shower door. I clenched my teeth hard, started off into space and didn't breath for about 15 seconds. I wasn't responding to him at all,just ridged. Then I took a deep breath and started talking to him. I said I was fine, wanted to go back to bed, and he took me there. He got back in bed and then we went back to sleep. My neck hurt some.
Next thing I know I'm waking up in pain at 630am. I couldn't get comfortable to get back to sleep, so I get up, and hubby hands me the remote, so I get some yogurt and a cola, at an 800mg ibuprofen, and come back to bed to watch tv. When hubby wakes up at 7am, we talk about what happened and couldn't figure out why I was so out of it at this time. So I told him I was going to go into Urgent Care that morning, he asked if I wanted him to drive me, we talked about it but came to the conclusion that he had missed the afternoon of work the day before because he was sick, and I felt fine now, so he was going into work and going to Denver. But he said I should call my doctor first, to see if I could get in instead of just going to Urgent Care. So he kissed me goodbye and left.
At 8am, I call my doctor's office and the appointment scheduler got me in at 915am, but she was adamant that since we don't know why and how I passed out and was so out of it, I shouldn't be driving. So I called hubby and told him the particulars. He said he would come home and pick me up.
He got me and we drove to the doctors. On the way we talked about what happened and I figured out it was the drug that made me so out of it, but I couldn't figure out why I kept passing out. But I had a headache and my neck hurt, I couldn't turn my head to the left.
We got to the doctors and I checked in but didn't have to wait long. Beth, the nurse, took all my vitals, listened to what hubby said happened, I told her about my pain, and then she left. We waited for the doctor and then Beth came back. The doctor wanted a different kind of blood pressure test, one where I was laying down flat for two minutes, then standing, propped up, for two minutes. Then she left and the doctor came in.
Hubby told the doctor what happened, about the seizure and how he recognizes them from having a daughter with epilepsy,my step daughter, Sarah. She would have petit mal seizures. Dr Sena listened to my heart,my neck, my back and my front. Both sides of my neck. Then she went over my medications and left to looks up stuff. When she came back in she said that there was a side effect from the combination of my bladder medication and my Safris, my night pill. It causes motor coordination delays, a neuro problem. She wants me to see a neurologist. In the meantime, she wants a CAT scan to rule out a brain bleed since I hit my head twice, hard, an EKG to rule out cardiac problems, and blood work to check sodium levels and other stuff. All this can be done in the same building so we went downstairs. They took me in right away for the CAT scan and then sent me to the lab for blood work, then sent me back upstairs for the doctor. She wanted us to wait to make sure the Radiologist would read the scans right away. Then she would know what we need to do next.
Well, we waited only for a little bit then the doctor told me all the tests came back normal. She wanted to see me in a week, I could take the ibuprofen for the pain, and she talked to my psychiatrist, Dr Fouss, and I was to immediately stop taking the bladder control pill and Dr Fouss would call me about the Safris. She wanted me to stop taking it all together.
Hubby drove me home, but we stopped at McDonald's for food first. I was going to get some all day breakfast, but when I got there, I saw their sign for the McRib and ordered that. I love their McRib, with the onions, and pickles and bbq sauce. And fries. But none of the food tasted very good, but I ate what I could because I was hungry. When I got home, Dr Fouss called me and we talked.
Dr Fouss had done some research of his own and said that he was going to lower the dosage of the Safris a third to 10mg instead of the 15 I took each night. His concern was not as great as Dr Sena for the Safris but he has a lot more experience with the drug than Dr Sena. And complete stoppage would send me into nasty withdrawls. I told him the results of all the tests and he had no other tests he wanted done but did say he wanted me to come see him in two weeks. We said our goodbyes and hung up.
I spent the rest of the day home, doing some laundry and planning on cooking dinner, the roast we had in the fridge had to be cooked that night. When Frank, the roommate got home, we chatted for a little and I asked him to get the rotisserie out of the garage. When hubby got home at 5pm, for a quick lunch break, he put the roast on. Then he told Frank what happened that morning and then the two of them decided I should go upstairs and lay down and rest for the rest of the evening. Frank would take care of me,check in with me, be available by text message to get me anything, while hubby worked until 1030pm to catch up on paperwork so he wouldn't have to go in on Saturday, when we were expecting a big snow storm.
I took some more ibuprofen, changed into my jammies and rested, watching ION tv. I texted Cassie and told her what happened. We texted a little, she was concerned at first but then mad at the doctors for not catching the contraindication. I assured her I was fine. She was on her way to Steamboat Springs for a weekend event she was attending for her distillery company she does marketing for. I told her to have fun, enjoy and talked to me when she got back.
I noticed later that evening that my neck was hurting more, but it was because I was spending so much time looking down at my phone on some of the aps like Wish, Offer Up, Lets Go and Instagram. I put the phone down and relaxed.
Hubby got home about 11pm. He made me a cheese and cracker plate to eat, got some leftover roast for himself, and we settled in to watch Steven Colbert. After that was over, we watched the first episode of Project Runway Junior. Then hubby put on something he wanted to watch, an old Clint Eastwood movie, but I know it wasn't The Good, The Bad & The Ugly. I took my reduced night pills and a pain pill and managed to get to sleep. I was worried as I didn't know if I would go to sleep on the reduced meds.
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