Jim’s MSA Blog

A rollercoaster ride

August 5th, 2007

It’s difficult to write about a bad day for Jim, as I don’t want to cause worry to our friends and family so far away. So I want you to know that I’m writing this from the perspective of Sunday morning, and Jim is fine and back to normal.

Friday, however, was a different story. Jim woke up feeling weak and dizzy, with aches all over his body and tingling in his legs. We cancelled his therapies for the day and he took his Parkinson’s meds from the U.S. as well as the Chinese medicinal tea.

By mid-morning he was very anxious and needed some pain killers to try and relax. We had starting watching Chinese soap operas on the tv without the sound, making up our own dialogue, but today he wasn’t interested. Mid-afternoon, more pain meds. We spent most of the afternoon just quietly talking about our life together.

By evening his breathing was shallow and he felt that he wasn’t getting enough oxygen. He was put on oxygen and the doctors ordered an EKG to check his heart. It was a long night and throughout the doctors and nurses came in regularly to check on him. He was not running a fever, but was sweating profusely even though our room was cool. We directed a supplementary fan on him and and covered him with Jeanne’s silk sleep sack. The fan ruffled the silk against his legs and he was smiling in his sleep.

He awoke in the morning, drenched from a night sweat but asking for toast and eggs for breakfast. I knew he was back to normal!

In conferencing with the doctors we have decided to forego the Chinese Medicine for now, and be extremely careful with the pain meds. There may have been too many chemicals crashing into each other in Jim’s body in addition to the stem cells. This may have caused an anxiety attack.

By Saturday noon he was back to normal and I was breathing a huge sigh of relief!

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