They just keep getting better....
As I was leaving for treatment today, I remembered that last time, in recovery after waking up, I had to keep reminding myself to RELAX. I kept noticing that I was flexing the muscles of my back, legs, shoulders and butt into a constant tight contraction. Strange. I would remind myself to relax, and realize how good that felt, and then moments later I would be tight again.
Had another “super” seizure today. Peripheral was 23 seconds and the EEG was the best yet at 74 seconds. According to the leading science, up to 90 seconds is ideal, and they start trying to chemically end the seizure after about 120 seconds if it hasn’t subsided on its own. I mentioned to the anesthesiologist the pain from the etomidate as it entered through IV last time. The anesthesiologist decided to give me a little IV lydicane (local anesthetic) to numb the area before the etomidate. Worked great. No pain. Just remember my peripheral vision melting away in this strange static/white noise manner. I woke up BEFORE I made it to recovery this time. And that freaks me out a little. On top of that, I’m pretty sure I was having some sort of respiratory distress when I was waking. I could swear I remember feeling like I couldn’t breathe and having this “I’m suffocating” feeling while they were rolling me down the hall. I very vaguely remember hearing “just relax and breathe.” Once I was in recovery, I remember this gentle cough for quite some time. Of course, all of this breathing memory could be a dream, a result of meds, or a perception left over from something else that was really going on. I will be sure to ask about it on Friday. The headache today was markedly worse. I didn’t wake with it, but it hit like a ton of bricks very soon after. I didn’t have to ask for pain meds for it. The nurse could tell from my face, I guess, that I was in pain. They started with 2 mg of Fentanyl , split into two 1mg doses. Those worked for a very short time, but its such a short acting drug and the pain was big, so it bled through pretty quickly. Next, we went to morphine, 6mg split into 4 mg and 2 mg. The anesthesiologist ordered Delaudid also, as a further back-up. Delaudid is a heavy hitter. I decided that the morphine had done the job, and to save the back-up plan for when I really needed it. 6 mg of morphine is a train load of narcotics. I was, to borrow from my favorite band (Pink Floyd) “comfortably numb.” The doc also added a dose of Toradol to the mix. Its an anti-inflammatory which would work on the headache a little longer and help the jaw pain as well. One thing’s for sure, they aren’t shy about medicating for pain after ECT, which is good, in my opinion. Beck score today was a little better, 34.
This seizure has really seemed to knock me on my butt. I’m up, moving around, talking (maybe talking a lot), and as my wife put it (while on the phone with someone else), “he’s pretty out of it, but he’s happy!” And she’s right. Despite being really out of it, very blurry and a little unsteady on my feet (and I think all of the morphine should have metabolized by now), I really feel pretty good mood-wise. I won’t get my hopes up too high yet. We’ll see how this train wreck looks in twelve hours.
Had another “super” seizure today. Peripheral was 23 seconds and the EEG was the best yet at 74 seconds. According to the leading science, up to 90 seconds is ideal, and they start trying to chemically end the seizure after about 120 seconds if it hasn’t subsided on its own. I mentioned to the anesthesiologist the pain from the etomidate as it entered through IV last time. The anesthesiologist decided to give me a little IV lydicane (local anesthetic) to numb the area before the etomidate. Worked great. No pain. Just remember my peripheral vision melting away in this strange static/white noise manner. I woke up BEFORE I made it to recovery this time. And that freaks me out a little. On top of that, I’m pretty sure I was having some sort of respiratory distress when I was waking. I could swear I remember feeling like I couldn’t breathe and having this “I’m suffocating” feeling while they were rolling me down the hall. I very vaguely remember hearing “just relax and breathe.” Once I was in recovery, I remember this gentle cough for quite some time. Of course, all of this breathing memory could be a dream, a result of meds, or a perception left over from something else that was really going on. I will be sure to ask about it on Friday. The headache today was markedly worse. I didn’t wake with it, but it hit like a ton of bricks very soon after. I didn’t have to ask for pain meds for it. The nurse could tell from my face, I guess, that I was in pain. They started with 2 mg of Fentanyl , split into two 1mg doses. Those worked for a very short time, but its such a short acting drug and the pain was big, so it bled through pretty quickly. Next, we went to morphine, 6mg split into 4 mg and 2 mg. The anesthesiologist ordered Delaudid also, as a further back-up. Delaudid is a heavy hitter. I decided that the morphine had done the job, and to save the back-up plan for when I really needed it. 6 mg of morphine is a train load of narcotics. I was, to borrow from my favorite band (Pink Floyd) “comfortably numb.” The doc also added a dose of Toradol to the mix. Its an anti-inflammatory which would work on the headache a little longer and help the jaw pain as well. One thing’s for sure, they aren’t shy about medicating for pain after ECT, which is good, in my opinion. Beck score today was a little better, 34.
This seizure has really seemed to knock me on my butt. I’m up, moving around, talking (maybe talking a lot), and as my wife put it (while on the phone with someone else), “he’s pretty out of it, but he’s happy!” And she’s right. Despite being really out of it, very blurry and a little unsteady on my feet (and I think all of the morphine should have metabolized by now), I really feel pretty good mood-wise. I won’t get my hopes up too high yet. We’ll see how this train wreck looks in twelve hours.
posted by DeMental at 5:49 PM
1 Comments:
Glad you made it through another one, Mike!
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