Paul does have a broken collar bone. It's right on the end and the bone is displaced. The normal treatment for that is to operate and put a pin in until the bone heals. It's done as an outpatient, and the doctor was getting ready to set it up, when he noticed that Paul is taking Decadron. He asked why Paul was taking it (I guess he didn't look at the chart very closely) and when he learned about the brain tumor etc., he said he wants to consult with Paul's primary physician to make sure Paul can tolerate the surgery ok.
Paul has been sleeping a lot. At first I thought it was because of the pain medicine. They gave him Tylenol 3 with codeine and Ibuprofen 400 to take, depending on the severity of the pain. Friday night he took 2 Tylenol and Saturday he took 1 Tylenol and 1 Ibuprofen. Yesterday he didn't take any pain medicine, but he still slept a lot. Last night he took an Ibuprofen and today he hasn't taken anything again. He still slept quite a bit again today.
He says the pain isn't bad, but I can see him wince whenever he moves. It also seems like he's been having more difficulty with words than before. I had sent email to Dr. Nicholas at the U of C to let him know what happened, and he wrote back that sometimes tumor symptoms will temporarily worsen after a fall like that.
Paul thinks he can stay home by himself tomorrow, so at this point I'm planning to go into work. We had made an appointment to talk to the benefits counsellor at the hospital tomorrow to get some information regarding disability, etc., so I guess I'll go ahead and see her by myself.
We had planned to put off any decision regarding Paul going on disability until we see whether the Decadron helps relieve his symptoms, but it hardly had time to have an effect when this happened. At this point we don't know how long he'll need to take off because of his ribs & shoulder, or how long it will be til the tumor symptoms are alleviated, or even if they will be. I guess we'll just take one day at a time. Tomorrow I'll try to get some information and we'll see what the doctors say about the shoulder surgery.
Continue to: Aug. 4, 1998
Return to: Diary of a Brain Tumor Patient's Wife
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Created: May 31, 1999
Last updated: July 18, 2010