She is in bed watching the Chiefs play a pre-season football game.  They have not been doing well tonight, but they just scored a touchdown.  After the variety of problems reported in the last two evenings’ posts, today has been a better day for Mary Ann. 

She slept through the night with the usual few trips to the commode.  She got up at 9am.  The hallucinations seem to have subsided some for the moment.  She has been up all day, and went to bed to watch the rest of the game at about 8:30pm.  Of course there is no telling whether she will get to sleep or have a restless night after the game. 

There was a point this morning when she began to shut down some, but I offered to wash her hair.  She appreciates getting that done, so she chose to stay up.  After that we got in the car, ate a good lunch at Boss Hawg’s BBQ, ran errands that lasted long enough that we could justify getting a treat at G’s Frozen Custard.  There was a visit to the Library included.  We rounded out the errands with a trip to the grocery store. 

By that time it was late enough in the afternoon that we could watch the news and have a late supper.  I am, of course, hoping that keeping moving all day will help her sleep well tonight. 

As an update on the fainting problem, the Orthostatic Hypotension (the inability of the body to adjust the blood pressure after standing up), Mary Ann has returned to a more manageable pattern.  There is still some fainting, but not so much as to keep us homebound.  The episodes are fewer and generally milder.   The timing of the improvement seems to suggest that it just took the increase in dosage of Midodrine (blood pressure raising medicine) a few days to work.  Gratefully, the semi-annual Echocardiogram (and carotid artery ultrasound) is coming in about a month.  That will help us see how her heart is holding up to the raised blood pressure.  I have some concern that when I checked her BP the previous two days it was pretty low.  That might suggest that the Midodrine dosage is not adequate.  What encourages me is that the fainting spells have not increased.  I suspect it is too risky to raise the dosage of the Midodrine any more. 

One bit of good news on the periphery of our struggle is that the Black Walnut end table that my Dad made has been fixed and returned.  That is the one that broke one of the times Mary Ann fainted last month and fell on it.  (She was not hurt!)  Some good folks from the congregation, Myron and Orvin, worked on it and made it stronger than before by reinforcing it underneath.  They also  added a beautiful and protective new finish to it. 

The Chief’s lost, but it is only the first pre-season game.  Time will tell.

Today was a better day.  How tonight will go remains to be seen.  Then tomorrow is another day.   We will see what comes!

If you want to write a comment about this or any of the posts on this blog, look to the column on the right side of this page, titled “Recent Posts,”  click on the name of a post and you will find a box at the end of that article in which you can write a comment.  Clicking on the title of the post you are reading will accomplish the same thing.  Comments are appreciated.