It’s
Valentine’s Day tomorrow. For several weeks I’ve been walking past shop windows
throbbing with red hearts and roses and the penny has only just dropped that
it’s that time of year again. So we’ll be celebrating love, and an excuse to eat
your own bodyweight in chocolate. Nick will be doing his best with that last bit
anyway.
His build-up
plan has been going very well and he’s put on 6lbs.
“Let them eat cake”, has been his mantra,
and the sweet tooth that he never even had until the last two or three years
has gone rogue – to the point that I’m now hiding and rationing sweet things
the way I do his wine, doling them out a little at a time. Otherwise he just
doesn’t know when to stop.
The other
day his supermarket delivery arrived at lunchtime while I was at work and I
came in later that evening to put everything away. I couldn’t understand where
the chocolate had gone though, as I knew I’d ordered two six-packs of chocolate
bars and they were nowhere to be seen. There were just two Kit Kats in his box,
that was all. Eventually I realised that he’d already eaten the rest.
Worse than
that – a friend who knows about these things had made him some CBD laced
chocolates, with the express advice that he’d just have one a day. Nick,
his sweet tooth, and a box of chocs on the table in front of him. What could
possibly go wrong there?
I’ll draw a veil. By the time I got there he had eaten
half the box and as the music papers used to say about famous stoners, was
extremely “relaxed”.
I managed
to rescue the rest of the box and hide those too, to be released one by one on
special occasions.
Ah, let him
have his fun, you might say, but the trouble is, there are some potent
pharmaceuticals already in the mix.
Nick
started the Tetrabenzine about a month ago, a small dose at first then
gradually stepping up to a larger one. It’s clearly having an effect.
Since he’s
been taking the full dose of 25mg three times a day, he’s been noticeably
spaced out and slow, mouth hanging open and dribbling, speech very slurred and
eyes not quite focusing.
Last week
there were three days when the carers could not wake him up and he refused food
at lunch and tea time, just wanting to sleep all day like a stone.
The
Tetrabenzine was supposed to calm his movements but in addition to all the
other medications (as well as the daily box of wine) it's been utterly knocking
him out.
The third
time this happened, I’d been away for the day (naturally) and the carers had
been in three times and he’d refused three times to get up or eat, though
they’d given him the tablets and then he’d gone back to sleep.
I was
scared he wasn’t going to wake up at all and rushed round to the flat, afraid
of what I might find. It was 9pm. He was sitting at his table, scoffing cake.
Milk all over the kitchen floor where he’d tried to make himself a milkshake,
absolutely ravenous because he hadn’t eaten anything all day or much the day
before. But still sleepy, and I called the out of hours doctor and asked if we could cut the
dose to a half tablet and after consultation with Nick’s GP and pharmacist the
next morning, this was agreed.
Rang the
care agency and explained the situation. The manager said he’d immediately let
all the carers know that it was back to half a tablet, and I printed out
another of my little notices and taped it to the kitchen worktop next to the
Tetrabenzine bottle and the pill cutter. Put a sticker with a fluorescent
highlighter in the MAR chart saying that from until further notice we’re back
to a half dose. Job done?
No, of
course not.
Nick has
continued to be very sleepy and several times I have come to see him around 1
or 2 in the afternoon when the carers have not yet arrived to do his lunch, and
found him flat out in bed with just his socks poking out. Really hard to wake. A pot of strong coffee has helped bring him
round and then he’s had his lunch and gone about his day as usual though still
on noticeable slow-mo.
I had
wondered if all the carers were on message about the reduced dosage – just a
feeling, as the pill cutter kept going back into the drawer where the next
week’s meds are kept, and Nick has been so zonked, but put the thought out of
my mind.
Until
yesterday, when I was with Nick and watched G, the carer who comes twice a day,
offer Nick the plastic pill dispenser with three whole tablets on it. No half
doses but the whole thing. It had been five days since the dose had changed,
and G had been coming in to do meds twice a day. Oh God.
I had to not
scream, but take him back into the kitchen and show him the printed note with
the clear instructions, the MAR sheet with the clear instructions highlighted
in yellow, the one he had been signing for the last five days but clearly not
reading, and and explain once again that Nick was now only having half a
tablet.
The social
worker was with us and saw this happen. She has phoned the contracts team at
the council and I have phoned the care agency to ask that all carers read and
follow the instructions because dosage is extremely serious.
I’ve got to
trust them, but it is very scary. Nick is oblivious. He just wants to sleep,
watch Netflix, and to have his cake and eat it.
Anyway,
tomorrow is Valentine’s Day and it’s a Thursday. Thursday is Boys’ Night with
Simon, the night they always go out. Usually to the pictures or to an open mic
night at a local pub. Nick looks forward to it all week.
Carers
don’t come on a Thursday night and Simon organises dinner, gets Nick undressed
and gives him his tablets.
We are not
a going-out-to-a nice restaurant type of couple at the best of times (more’s
the pity, but we do have our other moments) but we usually mark the occasion somehow. But we can’t
leave Nick on his own. So this Valentines we’re going out on a date night with
dinner and a movie – me, Simon and bro. It’s not your big padded soppy card
kind of love, perhaps, but it’s real and it’s how we are. It’s not your
standard issue romantic evening perhaps, but I’m really looking forward to it.
