Holy Cow! What a night!

The shingles lasted about two weeks or so. The rash itself wasn’t a problem. But since shingles is an inflammation of the nerve endings, it was quite painful. But by that time, Ken was having so many pains in so many other places, it was just one more thing to contend with. The doctor prescribed Neurontin, which is actually an anti-seizure drug usually given to people with epilepsy. He said, though, that it calmed the nerve endings, and thus, would help alleviate that part of Ken’s pain.

Ken had only taken one or two doses of the Neurontin when he started acting weird. First, he was just extremely argumentative (“pissy”, for lack of a better word). Nothing seemed to suit him. He snapped at the boys while they were playing and I could not say a word to him without him hurling back something hurtful. As the evening went on, Ken’s agitation grew. He kept getting louder and louder and yelling things that didn’t make a whole lot of sense. I finally got the boys to bed and started to hook Ken up to “Bill” for the night, hoping he would finally settle down. Well, NO SUCH LUCK! He griped at me the whole time I was getting the stuff ready for the tube-feeding. I knew how much he was hurting, so I was trying to let it go. I apologized to him for the things he said I did–or did not do– and tried to keep him calm. When I went to take my bath, he followed me in, dragging “Bill” along with him, and stood there the whole time I was in the tub, HOLLERING at me!

By this time, I’m kind of figuring out that his behavior, at least for the most part, must be due to some of his meds. Since the Neurontin was the only thing he hadn’t taken before, I figured it must be the culprit. I tried to explain it to Ken, but he was still following me around the house, dragging that feeding pump behind him, yelling as he went. I was really afraid he would wake up the boys, so I tried to get him into the living room so he could sit and “chill”. He was in such a frenzied state I was truly afraid he would rip out his feeding tube and take off out the door. I could see in his eyes that he was absolutely exhausted, but he just couldn’t stop hollering.

I begged him to sit down with me and watch a movie I had just gotten. He was still very agitated, but finally agreed. Ken laid his head in my lap and, almost immediately, fell asleep. But it was a fitful sleep, still agitated and restless. If I shifted in my seat or moved the least little bit, Ken would grab hold of me and mumble stuff under his breath. I was so afraid that he would wake up and start ranting again, that I sat stock still all the way through the movie and well after. I barely even breathed, so as not to disturb him. We sat that way until about 3:00 a.m. That's when Ken stirred a little bit, then looked up at me with those sweet blue eyes and said, “Well, hey, Darlin’. What are you doing still up?” Then he went right back to sleep, peacefully, this time. I was finally able to ease off the couch, cover him up and go to bed for a couple of hours.



Next morning, Ken woke up smiling and had very little memory of the previous night’s events. First thing I did when I got up was to flush the rest of the Neurontin prescription down the toilet. Geeze, Louise... didn’t we have enough to worry about without meds that made Ken CRAZY?!!