It's now a full week since mum finished her treatment and things are not great. She has been having a lot of pain when eating and drinking, especially hot things. On Friday she rung her CNS who said she would contact her GP and ask that he increase the meds Dr. Mehta has given her for the bad indigestion/heartburn she is experiencing. When I went to the GP surgery on Friday evening to collect the prescription I was told mum should increase her MST from 30mg a day to 60mg a day. I questioned this, explained that the problem was indigestion and that mum was in fact being weaned off the MST. I asked if they could check that this was right and they told me it was definitely right as mums CNS has requested it.
I took the meds home and since it was the weekend there was nothing I could do but follow the instructions I'd been given. Mum began taking 30mg that evening and repeated this Saturday morning. The problems when eating was every bit as bad and mum seemed very unsteady on her feet, terribly shaky and confused and forgetful. This got worse on Sunday so today I contacted mums CNS to check if we were doing the right thing. She said MST was never mentioned on the Friday and that mum had no need to take any more and should be cutting down. She said she asked for the indigestion meds to be increased so she rung the GP surgery again. She then rung to say that they were checking with the GP as to whether mum could increase the indigestion meds and cut down the MST. Later this afternoon when we had not had a call from the surgery as promised I rung again. The receptionist eventually seemed to understand what I wanted/needed to know and said she would get back to me.
She rung back half an hour later to say that the GP had said it was fine for mum to increase the indigestion meds. I then asked about the MST and she said she hadn't asked about that. To let you understand I was at my wits end at that point. I came home from work at 3 and mum was in bed. Shortly after she got up and came downstairs. As she came down she asked me what I was doing up. I asked her what she meant. She repeated what was I doing up at this time. I asked her what time she thought it was and she said the middle of the night! I explained I had just got in from work and infact it was 3.30 in the afternoon. There have been a number of examples of this sort of thing over the weekend accompanied by really bad shaking and unsteadiness.
So when this stupid woman informed me she hadn't asked about the MST I was none too happy. She went off to check again and when she phoned back told me there had been a bit of a mix up (understatement); the GP thought the request on Friday was related to severe back pain so mum should now double up the indigestion tablets and cut the MST to 10 mg night and morning instead of 30 mg night and morning. This from the GP who told us MST had to be increased and decreased gradually!! So on Thursday mum had 30 mg MST, Friday 40mg, Saturday & Sunday 60mg, today she will have 40mg and then tomorrow she will have 20mg. What a joke! I cannot believe how blase they can be about a controlled drug. I'm a bit worried about just dropping the dose so rapidly but mum is adamant she is sick of how she has felt this weekend and is cutting them right down tomorrow. Mums CNS has arranged for us to see her oncologist on Thursday afternoon when I'm hoping we can get this sorted out once and for all!
So there is no evidence of mums cancer, she has finished her treatment and has just had the worst few days of this journey!
