A Busy Weekend

Think we finally hit upon the right dose of medication for Jim to sleep better. The first night (Friday) Jim took Xanax--we started at a very low dose (0.25 mg) and titrated up as Dr. Zimmet advised. Turned out 1 mg. was too much for Jim and unfortunately he was also hit with a new bout of diarrhea at 1 am. He was extremely weak by 7 am--couldn't get out of bed--poor Dan had to practically carry him to the BR. Blood pressure was 88/58. Spoke with the docs at NIH and they felt in his weakened state that he had had too much Xanax and advised letting him sleep it off and call them at 2 pm. He finally settled down at 10 am and went into a deep sleep. I woke him up at 2 pm for another evaluation. This time I was able to get orthostatic B/P's on him and there was very little change between lying down and standing up so we consulted with the docs again and they felt he was not dehydrated and had overdosed on the Xanax--advised not giving him more than 0.5mg in future. He gradually gained a bit of strengh during the day. Thankfully, Joe spent the night as the diarrhea continued and it was still hard for me to get him up myself.
Susan and John paid us a surprise visit, arriving late Saturday night and staying until this morning. They took night call for me last night and I got another good night's rest. Since each day Jim is gaining strength (in spite of the continued diarrhea) I think I am going to go it alone tonight. Immodium is at last slowing down the "D", so we look forward to more normalcy. Thank you Dan, Joe, Susan and John and to Maureen for dinner last night and Lynn Smaldone for dinner on Friday night. We love you all. Barbara (and Jim)