4:40 am

His bp is 154/90 and his heart rate is 134.  Throbbing headache.  He said, "I want to go back on the atenolol."

I said, "your cardiologist said she will put you on a different med, we just need to call her first thing when they open."

He said, "ok, just hear me out.  Every time they put me on a new drug, I have all kinds of problems.  We are getting ready to go on vacation. I just want to go back on the atenolol until we get back, then we can call her and tell her what's going on."

And I know he is right.  I know that with blood pressure meds there is always some kind of side affect.  So I said, "well, if you go back on, then just start with 1/2 pill now, and another 1/2 tomorrow."

He took the 1/2 pill and is snoring already!!!  Me? Wide awake for the duration of the day, I'm sure!

But the really great thing - he discussed it first.  And I honestly hate the idea of him self-medicating, yet I know what it's like to go through drug changes.

My youngest son has seizures.  At age 26, when he has one now, he ends up in the hospital.  This last time, when the seizure knocked him out and he passed out, he went down on his knees and broke a kneecap.  When he was 16 years old, he was in the hospital for SIX weeks as they brought him down off of his childhood meds and converted him to dilantin.  A horrible process.

My oldest son, age 32, has had asthma his entire life and that poor guy has tried every asthma medication in the world and I have sat with him time and time and time again when he could not get oxygen into his system.....because some drug they tried out jsut did not work.

And now - a diabetic husband who they want to take off atenolol because it processes through the kidneys.  Remember, when his kidneys shut dowon in the hospital, they took him off this same drug cold-turkey.  No wonder his heart rate was at 130 for 4 days in a row!  But did that doctor even mention to us that they had stopped this drug?

And why would his cardiologist ever even think that she could stop this drug?  The man has had high blood pressure forever.  Are they wanting him dead?  Or are they just wanting us to go through more grief here at home?

So, yes, while it is against my better judgement for him to go back on this drug, I completely understand his thinking.  What's 3 more weeks?  Go back on it and have one last (hopefully) pleasant vacation and then deal with everything when we get home.