Sunday April 14th 2024

Tweety, BSN, RN · Apr 14

Good morning!

Sounds like a good plan for the day Joe. Enjoy.

Dianah, hope you slept better.

Ado, sorry the taxes were painful.

Sounds like Nannie might be very constipated or impacted. Mag Citrate bottles are sold in stores OTC. Sometimes the ER has to deal with this and give patient's enemas, laxatives, etc. If she gets distended, has nausea/vomitting, and has pain that is an ER visit. But her MD can certainly prescribe something as well.

I'm laying low this weekend. Going to make some lo mein and meal prep and go to the gym. Nothing much. The weather is beautiful in the 80's, cool mornings and sunny all day.

toomuchbaloney · Apr 14

Hello again.

My apologies for dropping out of the flow for so long. My personal life has been filled with family drama, illness, travel related to illness, more family drama, more illness and still more drama. At times like those I am not very interactive on a personal level, I tend to withdraw.

I read your notes because they make me feel connected to you. I appreciate your easy candor and comfortable discourse.

Getting old can be very challenging on multiple levels.

Editorial Team / Admin · Apr 14

Hello all!

tmb, agree, getting old CAN be challenging and, as you say, on many levels. Sad to hear you have had so many issues pop up. I hope things are settling down now, to a more bearable level. Or, we just adjust, as always.

Tweety, enjoy your day off!

Joe, I am curious if you are able to find a pickleball game today!

Thanks for the good thoughts, I did sleep better last night, in spite of yesterday's nap. Today is planned a trip to the grocery store. We need to start eating the lentils that I made a couple days ago. We have held off, eating some Vietnamese food instead. Now that food is gone, we need to start on the lentils. Yeah, I said that twice, LOL!

It's supposed to rain this afternoon but you'd never know it. Skies are clear! It did rain yesterday evening.

Have a good day!

No Stars In My Eyes · Apr 14

Hello~

It is going up to 85 degrees today....and, well, will be up there all week . I'd say what song is rolling around in my head, but I don't want to drop an ear worm on ya, so.....

No poop. Her intestines are snubbing all the attempts to illicit a good and reasonable response. Tomorrow is Monday, so I'll have to call the doctor's office to find out what they suggest. Today I'll run out to the store and get the mag-citrate liquid....surely to goodness SOMETHING'S GOT TO GIVE!!

The other thing is, she took her last Seroquel this morning, and that's the med that has made such a difference in her demeanor, so we gotta get more ASAP. Except....her new pharmacy isn't open on Sundays! I hate to send a text to SiL in case she is at the family viewing of Nannie's SiL. She will have to be at the pharmacy the minute it opens tomorrow morning, because I am NOT going to like taking care of Nannie when she is off her Seroquel, I promise!

tmb~ I found my magic wand in the shed yesterday, so I will clean it off and go out in the back yard and wave it in the NW direction so it'll reach Alaska, and maybe help a bit. I wish things were that easy. I do withdraw to a degree when the sh__ hits the fan, but on here I vent and vent and vent! (As if nobody realizes that! HAH!)

I didn't sleep worth a _______ last night. It took me two hours to doze off the first time, and then I woke up and woke up and woke up. I did the usual recommended things for trying to relax and sleep, but my mind was determined to keep going, like the Energizer Bunny. I think it was probably 7:30 AM when I finally did sleep a few hours. I am not much of a napper, so I doubt I'll be making up for any lost sleep today. Nannie, however, has been up and dressed and had her breakfast and she has her eyes closed now, and hopefully she will complete the slide into sleep and give me a few hours of peace and quiet. She only has said ONE TIME how much she loves her shoes! (the tan ones, this time.)

The A/C was on last night and it was 66 in the house this morning. Nannie is wearing a turtleneck jersey and another (boatneck) jersey on top of that, plus her shoulder-wrap, and she c/o feeling cold. I have put the temp to 70 and on 'heat', and turned the electric fireplace on to take the edge off the chill. BUT I will dial the thermostat back to something that will keep us cool but not cold. By the time the sun sets outside the back door and heats up the den, all the heating mechanisms will have been off for a while. Ya know, heat-pumps are tricky things to deal with, IMHO. But it is what it is, and at least Nannie doesn't require the heat to be set on an unbearable 80 degrees like a lot of little old ladies I have taken care of in the past. If I walked past those L-o-l's they would complain that they felt a "breeze". EGADS!

It is time for me to dash out for the Mag Citrate, and then when I get back it will be TAQUITO time for me!

Later~

Tweety, BSN, RN · Apr 14

Stars, I was also going to suggest a Fleet's enema, sort of get her from both ends, but probably too late. I hope something works and that you can get her Seroquel ASAP

TMB, sorry to hear you're going through stuff.

I'm definitely not looking forward to getting old my poor old parents don't have much of a life in their old age and have lots of aches and pains.

No Stars In My Eyes · Apr 14

Pardon me, but dammit! No mag-citrate at Food Lion, and in the Family Dollar store they had 6 bottles, and all I wanted was one, but "they haven't been put in the system, so I can't sell it to you." How stupid is that to not be able to punch in the numbers on the label and just ring up $2.00 ? There's a drugstore a couple or 5 miles, in the opposite direction . Maybe I should go out again and drive over there? Oh, I don't know, oh phooey!

BAD words, 'blue' air, and other expressions of disgust. The blue air refers to strippers who used to say, "I won't go any further without a blue light." because it supposedly is kinder and not as exposing as a normal light. (I read it in a story, waaaaay long time ago, in LIFE magazine, about Gypsy Rose Lee.)

OK, Nannie is sleeping so I guess I am desperate enough to to go elsewhere to get some of that awful stuff, so MAYBE Nannie can have a blow-out before she goes to bed tonight......

No Stars In My Eyes · Apr 14

Another Food Lion without any mag citrate, TWO closed drugstores, and then I found a CVS....they didn't have it with the other laxative stuff, but when I turned down the next aisle, there it was on a bottom shelf! So, I'm back home and I told Nannie it was horrible, salty, and fizzy, but she said , "It's not too bad." (!!) I only gave her half the 10 oz bottle, but I hope it will do the trick! I told her that if it doesn't work, I am going to have her lay on her side in bed and give her a FLEET'S enema, with a gazillion underpads (chux) under her, and she can just 'let go' on the pads. I hope she can and will have some BM, but at least if she doesn't, I can call the doc's office tomorrow. It can't be good for so much BM to be sitting inside her! But at least I know I have done everything *I* can do!

Tweety, BSN, RN · Apr 14

Good luck Stars...sorry you have to go through this. If no BM in a few hours give the other half.

No Stars In My Eyes · Apr 14

Tweety said:

If no BM in a few hours give the other half.

Yup, will do !! (*fingers crossed*)

And doesn't something like this ALWAYS happen on the weekends?! 🤨

nursej22, MSN, RN · Apr 14

Good afternoon. Sunny and mild again, in the hi 50s. I got a call last night from eldest ds who has been suffering with a stye or chalazion (he's been told both) since January. He was initially told to use warm compresses and it would drain on its own. Then it got really inflamed and I advised him to see an eye doctor. Who just repeated the warm compress advice. Then he got a referral to see an ophthalmologist who offered to remove it, but he had to wait 2 weeks. Well, it got removed, and it's still red and angry, and he appears to have a corneal abrasion/ulcer. Of course, this gets bad on a Friday afternoon. He talked to eye doc who says he can seem him but he needs to come to Seattle, another doc prescribed some eye ointment over the phone, and they can see him in the morning. I picked up the eye ointment 'cause he couldn't see to drive, delivered it and put it in his eye for the first dose. I also took him my last little 5 mg of oxycodone that I've been hoarding. He hates to take opiates, but he was just shaking with pain. This morning he texted and was feeling much better after finally getting some sleep.

Anyway, I had a nice bike ride this morning, even though my nose runs like a faucet with all the pollen in the air. I've weeding, and came in the house for lunch. Dh, who needs to move all the stuff away from the house followed me in, and is now asleep. The dogs are too. Dh had a couple of tarps laying over the lawn chairs to dry out, and the dogs have been playing hide and seek, and bump and run under the tarps, around the yard, up the stairs, in the house and then back out to the yard.

Hi TMB, good to hear from you. Stop by anytime!

Stars, I am surprised that Nannie didn't mind the mag citrate, but I don't argue with success. Other weird things I have seen ordered were GoLytely, not for prep but for constipation in someone taking big doses of morphine. It worked, but there was a lot of commode emptying. One of the old cardiologists ordered several bottles of K-exalate. That worked. A nursing home I used to work at used lactulose, but it's so sweet, that many didn't like the taste. Mineral oil works, albeit slowly, but binds up a lot of vitamins.

Dianah, I'm glad you were able to sleep. Vietnamese food, yum!

I need to go to the store, too. Dh has made dinner the last two nights and states it is my turn. I think pasta with pesto sauce sounds good.

Tweety, BSN, RN · Apr 14

J22, I have had several corneal abrasions on post op patients. Just had one a couple of days ago on both eyes, he was pretty miserable, but bounced back very quickly with the ointment (tobramycin and dexamethosone).

Had a patient last week that came in for prostate surgery but they canceled it and admitted him for morphine induced impaction/constipation and they ordered him a colonoscopy prep. Cleaned him right up and he pooped for two days before going home on a regimen.

Anyway, my lo mein turned out pretty good and I watched a movie. Hope to go to bed early,