More TMI

We have just got back from the doctor. This was the first time I have actually met Fred’s doctor although I have talked to her several times on the phone. Fred was right–she does look too young to be the mother of a five-year old! She gave him a prescription for an antibiotic to help reduce the red around the scar. {Incidentally, she said “Good job!” to me for being observant enough to catch it early! AND, she arranged for me to have a flu shot while I was there so I don’t have to make a special trip in now they have some extra ones.}

She stopped one drug he is taking because it has {eventually} toxic effects on the tyroid when given at a high dose. He is having a low dose to help control the atrial fibrillation he gets occasionally but which he had very badly when he was under such stress in hospital. She said according to his past history, his own body regulates the fibrillation within a few hours and balancing the possible toxicity of the new drug agains the benefits, she said it seemed to her that going on past experience, it was not helpful enough to risk the toxicity. The other heart drug stays. She also put him back on the baby aspirin a day and the blood pressure reducing drug he was originally taking with such success. {I can’t remember what it is called.}

 But the BIG news is that she took the Foley catheter out. And he is on a schedule of going to try to pee every four hours to start. She said that in the beginning, maybe for a day or two, he will have to catheterize himself {which he can do}. Gradually over the course of a few days, he has a regimen of “retraining” {by waiting a little longer to urinate} the bladder to signal the need to urinate. Fred was positive about this because, apparently, {long before I moved in} he has been through this process before and knows that it works. And this is the last step in getting back to complete normality.

He was very pleased with himself for being able to do the amount of walking required this morning with ease.