Less miffed, less grumpy

Last Friday, I was feeling miffed and grumpy because the pain clinic wasn't getting back to me about the med changes we discussed at my appointment last Tuesday. I'd felt really positive about the appointment: the nurse practitioner had listened very carefully to me, and talked about some med changes and physical therapy stuff, and I thought I would be adjusting my meds that nite after dropping in at Walgreen's. I think it was something like cutting the Cymbalta down to 30mg/day to reduce my need to get up and pee half a dozen times every night, and add a little bit of amitryptaline to help me sleep. There was, however, a question about whether I would be getting too much serotonin, whether I'd have to change my dose of Serzone, and they'd need to get in touch with the psychiatrist who prescribes the Serzone.

When I went to the pharmacy, though, they said they didn't get a call from the pain clinic. So I called, and they said they hadn't gotten ahold of the psychiatrist. That was Wednesday. By Friday, I still hadn't heard, so I called and got the same repsonse. And while it seemed completely plausible that they were having trouble reaching the psychiatrist (who is only part-time at my HMO), I really felt like I needed to be doing something different.

When I got home on Friday, there was our friend L., who has lymphoma that hasn't responded to treatment (2 autologous stem-cell transplants and god knows what else). She'd been at the hospital that day getting fluids, because her gut wasn't working properly, and needed to have somebody look after her. She was pretty miserable, rushed to the bathroom every 15 minutes, and winced whenever she sat down. She ended up back at the hospital yesterday (getting fluids topped off), and my wife spent the day there with her.

Today, I'd really like to hear from the pain clinic. But I'm feeling a lot less miffed and grumpy, even though I had another night of intermittent, unsatisfying sleep.