After doing a little research, Robbie discovered that one of the side effects of the Hytrin medication they’re giving my dad is insomnolence – severe drowsiness. She emailed me the info and I picked it up here at the hospital last night via my trusty OmniSky-equipped Palm Vx. I called my mother who had no idea that they were giving him meds for his high blood pressure or enlarged prostate. So I asked dad’s nurse to look up the side effects in her drug book and then sit down with me.
I made the case that the Hytrin could be a problem, and that since his blood pressure had been fine for days, why not discontinue it for now and just watch him carefully to see if he becomes more responsive? She called the on-call doc and got permission to hold the meds till our family conference after lunch today. I came in this morning, hoping that he’d be more alert, but he’s actually worse. I’m unable to feed him. Someone shaved him, too, evidently thinking that his gray beard of 20+ years was just stubble. That kind of pissed me off that they didn’t check with me before doing that, but in the scheme of things, it’s not a big deal.
His doctor just came in while I was typing this and it wasn’t pretty. He’d already seen his chart and knew that the meds had been stopped but he didn’t raise the issue with me. So I did, and he became pretty defensive right away. He said he was willing to try another drug, but he felt Hytrin was the best. When I asked him why another drug was necessary since his high blood pressure was not an immediate problem, he argued that he didn’t want it to become a problem. I argued that dad’s stupor was a more serious problem right now, and since he was super sensitive to medication of all kinds, why add another unknown to his situation? He retreated to an unsatisfactory “Well, I just feel it’s important to keep the blood pressure from becoming a problem” and then abruptly got up to leave, saying, “We’ll talk more about this at the family conference.”
I tried to not put him on the defensive, but to no avail.
It’s not easy for me to stand up to these guys, just like it’s never been easy for me to return merchandise in stores. But I’ve gotten better at it over the years, and now it just takes me a little psyching up and I can do it. So this doctor looks to be uncomfortable in knowing how to handle an assertive family member. I got to be careful not to make this a testosterone moment (The Bastard! The Weasel!) and I don’t want to try to make him look bad at the family conference. But he’s got to be convincing, and not just expect that his authority is enough. Just another learning experience, I guess.