Unpredictable Tuesday

Each Tuesday, I go for a reduction in my baclofen dose.

They place a sensor on my belly above the pump that’s under my skin, enter in what they want the new dose to be, then it is done.

It takes, at most five full minutes.

This time, I was there for nearly three hours.  It seemed the programmable part of the Medronic pump was unhappy being decreased any further because of the medication concentration—or something, I am not sure I really understand it.

What happened next is fuzzy in my memory, and even fuzzier is what happened after that.

Even as I write this nearly 12 hours later, I am still dopey, dizzy and incredibly sleepy.  My task is to stay awake for the doctor to call back to check on me.  It appears in the attempts to dilute the concentration of what was in the pump, I ended up with too much baclofen when it was all said and done.

I am going each week to reduce the dose so that I do not suffer from baclofen withdrawal syndrome, which can be fatal.

Having too much was never my concern, and although it is temporary, can also be bad.  It should be back to the new decreased dose by mid-morning today, but it was a pretty scary evening.

I could walk well and had no muscle spasms, but couldn’t see straight.  I was thrilled to be able to see straight enough to share this with you.

I barely remember getting home—my friend and her husband came to get me and the car.  Then I slept until Duke pawed me insistently to eat dinner.  I couldn’t remember later if they even got their medicine with dinner or if I had let them out when I got home from the doctor’s office.

As I tried to recall the day’s events and details, I realized something.  Just when things start to get a bit more predictable, they stop being predictable at all.

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