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.

Just what is the "final straw?"

I'm sitting here wondering about this.  What is the "final straw"? When is too much enough?  How do you know when the moment has arrived that you just can't take it another moment?

I am truly so exhausted, tired, and completely, utterly worn out from being his caregiver.  Not just since January of this year when he had the spinal fusion surgeries.....this started in February 2009 when we first thought he might have had a heart attack.  I have been his caregiver ever since.

Today, I got a bit of a break.  I thought he was upstairs sleeping. I was downstairs watching a movie.  He called me on his cell phone and said he was really sick.  I quickly ran up the stairs.  He had been feeling like he was going to vomit and reached inside the medicine cabinet for what he thought was a bottle of pepto bismol (pink) and instead, mistakenly grabbed the bottle of caladryl lotion (pink) and gulped it down.

I called poison control.  It says to do that on the bottle.  I keep the lotion as it's the only thing that works on me when I get poison ivy.  So poison control says they don't think that he took enough to harm himself.  Then she asked me if he was a basically healthy person and when I got done with the list of all his problems and all his meds......she was singing her own tune!  She wanted him to eat and then vomit.

Which he has done non stop for the last hour and a half.

So much so that the toilet has plugged up and I've had to get him a bucket to vomit in, then take it down the hall to the other bathroom to dump.

I just want to give up.  Really, truly, completely, totally.  I want to run away as fast and as far as I can go.

Now, remember, his cardiologist (the new doc who hadn't seen him before) wants him to taper his atenolol.  He was supposed to cut it in half for 5 days and then go off. So I asked him about that.  He cut it in half Wed, Thurs and Fri nights, then nothing last night.  Could he be having atenolol withdrawal symptoms?

His fever is up to 101.3 - not a symptom of atenol withdrawal.  His BP is up to 147/83.  It's usually 110/70. His heart rate is 115 and it's usually 70.  He is vomiting. Rapid breating.  Miserable as a dog.

I asked him if he wants to go to the ER.  No
I asked if he wants to call his doctor  No

He hasn't had a thing to eat since 10 am this morning except for a few crackers this evening.  His glucose is 220, but he hasn't taken his evening insulin.

Not a whole lot I can do.  Except just keep breathing myself - one minute to the next.
+++++++++

Sandy, in answer to your comment from yesterday.  Hubby has never once adjusted his insulin for what he eats.  He takes 14 U in the morning (at whatever time he decides to take it) and another 12 U at night (again - whenever).  It's the Humulin R-U500 concentrated, and before surgery it was 32 in the am and 20 at night.  He has never adjusted for anything.  That's why I consider him to be non-compliant.  He refuses to learn about adjusting it.

DW - having another rough day on this roller coaster ride we call "life".