Under Pressure Part 2

Grandma stayed again last night. When I talked to her this morning, after starting laundry and changing our sheets, she told me that The Boy had thrown up after eating "first breakfast" but seemed okay. She called me again when the nephrologist came in.

The Boy's blood pressures were high again last night. He was given Pro-Cardia twice overnight, and she said that there is protein in his urine. Big problem. She said that she is going to adjust his medication again, and she told me to buy a blood pressure monitor, which I did. I brought it here so that we could test it. By the way, my BP was 117/75. Perfectly fine for an adult. And better than The Boy's. I also tested his cuff (he gets his own) in the machine on my own BP. Similar measurement. We'll have to check it against the monitors in here to see how it compares.

Initially, after speaking with the nephrologist, I just lost it. I got scared that we'd lose him. It just...didn't make sense to me. I am very irritated that the IV line isn't being considered as a factor. The amount of fluid that he gets in a day is roughly a bottle of water a day, or half a liter. It doesn't seem like a lot, but that is what is being pumped into his veins as extra fluid to be processed by the kidney. I said "kidneys" but that's not what The Boy has. He has never been on a line for this long and it is, according to the doctors, the minimum amount required to keep the vein open and prevent clotting in the port.

Anyhow, after getting myself together, I bought the BP monitor and went to the hospital. On the way, Grandma called and said that The Boy had some more to eat and was fine.

He doesn't have high BP in the hospital normally...because when he is in for chemo, his BP drops.

I just hate having to medicate him so much and my fear was that once he is home and off the IV but still on all the meds, his BP would be so low that he'd just shut down.

Good news in the medication department, though: he is cooperative in taking small crushed pills when we mix them with purple grape juice. He drinks some with a straw and the rest straight out of the medicine cup. Grape juice is a strong flavor. We even had to wake him to take something and this method still worked. He wasn't thrilled, and he didn't go back to sleep afterward, but he did take it. It was BP medicine, which is pretty important for him.

Grandma is leaving today and will come back when The Boy has chemo. Hopefully we still go home tonight, but if his blood pressures stay high, we might not, was the feeling that I got from the nephrologist. If he doesn't go home tonight and is just monitored for BP, maybe he'll be off the IV fluids, at least, and the pressures can go down from that.