Cancer Blog #88
By Brian Zimmerman
Begun on July 31, 2021
Email: dyingman1@yahoo.com
My Dying Words
Entry #88– Medical Update
July 7, 2023
Medical Update: Just a quick update as I have been asked a number of times how I’m doing on the Ritalin. Things are about the same as the last update (Entry #87). I’m still having problems with the tardive dyskinesia making me move my mouth and jaw constantly. It makes my teeth ache sometimes and my jaw muscles sore. It’s involuntary so it’s hard for me to control. I guess the only good news is that my wife tells me it’s small enough that she can’t see anything in my face and jaw that are out of the ordinary (I guess that’s good, right?). I sent a note to the oncologist about it and his reply was that the drugs that control tardive dyskinesia have bad side effects so he’d rather wait for a few weeks and see what happens. I certainly concur with that opinion. I have a dental appointment on Monday, July 17, to have my teeth cleaned and I’ll ask the dental hygienist and the dentist if they have any ideas. My only idea is that I could wear a clear retainer on my bottom teeth at night and I was wondering if I could wear something like that during the day. It wouldn’t help the tardive dyskinesia, but it would help mitigate its effects on my teeth. And, I’ll ask the dentist if he can detect any damage to my teeth thus far.
The weird side effects I get might be helped if I changed the doses of Ritalin around. Right now I’m taking 10 mg in the morning, and then 5 mg in the afternoon. What if I took 5 mg in the morning and 10 mg in the afternoon? I may try that tomorrow and see how that does. There’s this constant balancing act in trying to fix the chemo side effects with other drugs without having those drugs create their own side effects. I remember once when I was doing PT in home health that I went to see a patient who had a list of medications that were literally more than a page long. He told me that once his MD’s had stopped all his medications because they had gotten to the point where they couldn’t tell whether his symptoms were from a medical condition (of which he had quite a few) or from side effects of the drugs. Sometimes the cure really is worse than the disease.
When you have a chronic medical condition you can never just put it on autopilot. You have to constantly monitor it (if possible) and know your drugs and doses. By “know your drugs” I mean know their effects and their side effects. Of course, what happens is that new drugs may get added with slightly different effects and new side effects. You have to regularly review your medications to be sure you’re not taking drugs that you no longer need (you wouldn’t believe how much that happens) or taking drugs that are causing problems you thought were from the medical condition but are really from the dose or side effect of one of your drugs. For instance, I saw many patients with a fall as a result of dizziness. It was obvious to me that it was low blood pressure, but the patient was not measuring their bp before taking their medicine (sometimes when I got to their house their bp was 90/50 and they had taken their bp medication) and the MD was prescribing the dose as if they were dealing with a 50 year old. That all changed before I left home health.
God has been good to me though as I have such a wonderful circle of friends, usually brothers and sisters in Christ who pray for me and offer encouragement and comfort. I have read repeatedly that that kind of support is crucial for a chronically sick person’s wellbeing. Of course, I find great encouragement and comfort as well as warning in the Bible as well. I believe this illness is no accident, but an act of discipline of God to help me grow spiritually. It’s important, therefore, that I approach it in that manner. To seek to grow in the fruit of the Spirit, to put to death the old man with my own peculiar sins, and to prepare for death as Christ would have me do: with courage, prayer, and looking always for an opportunity to be a witness of His grace. May we all follow our Savior’s example of facing suffering and death, trusting that He understands our plight. Yet for the glory set before us we are not despondent or despairing but exhibiting that fruit of joy as He leads us in this life to prepare to enter the house of our Father!