I realize I owe my loyal readers an update on my surgery recovery – or at least something about what I’ve done the past couple days. But for now I thought I’d just list all the medicines I’m on, because it’s a long list. One of my fellow SCDS patients, referring to how things were BEFORE he had his surgery, said he was eating a little “salad” of pills every morning. And I know something of how he felt. Fortunately, I think today was the max. Today I finished one bottle of pills and don’t have to take those any more. So here, without further ado, is the list of what my doctor has me on. As always, what I write is no substitute for real medical information from your doctor. This is just my impression of each of these medicines from the patient’s perspective.
Diamox/Acetazolamide: take one tablet three times daily – These pills are supposed to decrease my CSF pressure level. Normally, the pressure level is 10 to 20, but when they measured it before surgery it was 28. That elevated pressure is probably causing some of my symptoms, and just getting that number down to the 20 range could make some problems go away. This pill has a weird side effect that it changes the flavor of whatever I’m drinking to wash it down, so I try to save it for last. I don’t just mean that the bad taste of the pill mixes with the taste of the fruit juice, I mean that my perception of the fruit juice actually changes. It’s hard to describe. While I’m taking this, we’re looking for negative side effects such as my hands being tingly. That would mean it’s working too well and I’d need to go to a lower dose. If I don’t have those side effects (and so far, I haven’t) but my CSF pressure is too high, then we can try a higher dose of this one.
Valtrex: take one tablet three times daily – These pills were huge and purplish-blue in color. I’m glad I ran out of them today and don’t need to take any more, though they weren’t unusually nasty. These were an anti-viral intended primarily to fight off herpes. They’re also used to prevent a flare-up of a virus that sometimes attacks the facial nerve during operations like mine and causes Bell’s palsy, which is loss of nerve function on one side of the face. That leads to droopy smiles, which doesn’t make anyone happy. I can’t remember what the possible side effects were from this one, and other than the huge size I can’t really complain about them at all.
Phenergan/Promethazine: take 1 or 2 tables by mouth every 4 hours as needed for nausea – Hurray, an optional pill! I only had this to battle nausea symptoms, and since I didn’t have nausea while I was recoverying from surgery (thankfully) I didn’t take a single one. The warning labels says it may cause drowsiness. Who knows how that would interact with…
Oxycodone: take 1 or 2 ever 4 hours as needed for pain – For my money, the hardest working pain killer in show business, Percocet. I had been on Tylenol 3 in the hospital, but it just didn’t seem to be cutting through my pain after the surgery. Since I knew I could take Percocet without the vile side-effects a lot of people get (traumatic bad dreams, etc.) Beth suggested this and the doctor agreed. Sadly, though I love its pain-killing properties, there are a few things I don’t like. First and foremost, it is a fast track to constipation, so much so that there’s a whole regimen of poop drugs I’m on because of this one. Second, it does make me drowsy and spacey even in low doses; while this is amusing for a day or so, it gets old fast since most of the things I enjoy in life require unimpaired operation of my brain. Third, it does have the weird dream thing. This morning before I got up I dreamt I was having a conversation with Gene Siskel (remember Rober Ebert’s partner) in his apartment in Boulder about the impact of Tangerine Dream on American cinema. And then I started firing triple-sized toilet plungers out of my arms that sucked onto people’s buttocks. When I was discharged from the hospital, I was taking 1 pill every 4 hours, but now I’m down to 1/2 pill every 4 to 6 hours. The pain’s fading, which is awesome news!
Colace: take up to 3 a day as needed – This is a stool softener. I’m not allowed to physically strain myself for 6 weeks (actually 5 weeks as of today). And pooping is sometimes a strain, especially when your pain-killer acts as an anti-laxative. So this is supposed to make my poop nice and “soft” so I don’t have to strain to get it out. Unfortunately, so far it doesn’t seem to be enough, which brings us to…
Dulcolax: take up to 2 or 3 as needed, and if you need 3 you’re really in trouble – This is a laxative. When the stool softener itself isn’t doing the trick, this stuff gives you artificial diarrhea. It’s not pleasant, but when you haven’t pooped for 4 or 5 days, you’ll do just about anything.
prune juice: take as much as Mother Nature will allow, I guess – To be honest, I don’t know if this stuff is helping or not, but I had advice from another patient who said to be sure to drink lots of it. If it helps make nice turds come out my alien probe hole at a frequency of 1 to 2 per day, then I’m all in favor.
Floxin Otic Singles: 2 washes per day – I almost forgot about this one, because it’s the newcomer to the pile. To make air travel home possible, my doctor cut a hole in my eardrum this morning (normally, that would freak me out, but after all the other stuff this guy has done to me in the past week, this is minor stuff, believe it or not), and we want to keep that nice and clean. So he gave me some sterile antibiotic wash called Floxin. The idea is Beth will pour two of these packets into my ear and manipulate the ear so the drops go back and sit on the ear drum a while. I think we’re supposed to do this twice per day, which means we go through four packets per day.
my regular medicine: Last but not least is my regular medicine. I take Crestor and Tricor which are cholesterol medicines, and I – like many Americans – take one pill per day. I haven’t taken them in the past week, but now that it’s been a week after my surgery, it’s time to get back to the regular regime.
And now you have a sense of my daily pill list. I’m hugely indebted to Beth who has been keeping track of which ones I took when, since much of the past week my memory hasn’t been working so great.