Palliative Care team swing into action

Message from Lynne
Over the last ten days the community branch of Palliative Care have swung into action. Peter is registered and on their books and we have already had 3 home daytime visits from the nursing team. The team provides care and ongoing support for patients at home; with a team of nurses and medical staff providing 24/7 support.  Help is just a phone call away for us, which is very reassuring.

On Wednesday we saw Dr Ann Oxner at Claire Holland House (the ACT Hospice) and she wrote out scripts for additional medication and has provided a medical pain management plan. The Hospice doctors will work with our own local GP, Dr Michael Brown.  Dr Brown is taking a well earned holiday just now, and we will be working with the locum who is taking his place.

The idea is that Peter takes drugs through the day time, which should mean that the pain is kept under control and the break thru pain is kept to a minimum.  We have another drug to take to deal with break thru pain. Most days are fine, but Peter has had 2 consecutive very bad nights on Thursday 1 July and Friday 2nd. The break thru tablets were not working to control high pain Thursday night. We made our 1st call for a night visit and a morphine injection just before midnight, with the nurses arriving quickly and waiting to see that the pain went away.  It was back again at 4.00 am. Peter was back on the break thru medication & had a nurse visit on Friday morning.  Friday night was better, with evening break thru pain controlled, but back again later in the night with break thru tablets  at 2.00 am, 4.00am and again at 4.30am. We have increased the doseage of one of the regular daily drugs today, and will see how tonight progresses.

The oedema that Peter had when he came home from hospital - swelling of his stomach, lower legs and feet gradually went away from his legs & feet and reduced in his stomach, but it is back again now in his stomach and feet.  He has a nasty blotchy red rash all over just one foot, and a hand.  Both of these we believe to be side effects of the trial drug, (they are on the list given to us).  Insomnia continues (another trial drug side effect, possibly?).  Peter can be occupied thru night hours reading, on the computer or watching tele - football, cricket, Wimbledon & the Tour de France starting this weekend - why, its a treat for the sports lover just now! That is fine when he is comfy & pain free, and we are hoping to work back to that status again.

On Monday it will be 6 weeks since Peter started on the trial drug.  He is booked in for a scan which will show any cancer in his body.  This will be conpared with the one taken before he began the trial. We will find out the result when Peter has his monthly checkup with Dr Yipp, the oncologist in a fortnight.

We are looking forward to a visit from our son, Jeremy and grandson Finn during this week for a 2 days and 1 night flying stay.  Jeremy, Claire and Finn have just moved into their new home in East Bentleigh, so its wonderful that they are coming at a busy time!  Claire's sister Laura, husband and young son are visiting this weekend in Melbourne.


Canberra, Australia snusher@gmail.com