The Start of Summer Vacation

Well, this summer vacation did not start as I would have hoped. Gene complained of a headache off and on the last couple of days of school. On Friday, the last day of school, the headache was worse, to the point that I was considering taking him to the ER to check for a subarachnoid hemorrhage. This was certainly the worst headache he has ever complained about! By Sunday, tylenol with codeine was not making much difference in his pain. In the past, one of the nurse practitioners at NCC had said taking a decongestant can help to differentiate if a headache needs further workup or is a sinus headache. I talked Gene into taking some Nyquil for the headache. He had just finished taking the Nyquil when he said, "What is this rash on my forehead?" After some time looking at his forehead and searching the internet, we determined he had shingles and learned Valtrex was the best treatment for it. I had him take 2 of my Valtrex tabs right then. I was hesitant to take him to the insta-care, when he was a little groggy with tylenol, codeine and nyquil, and have him complain about the intense pain when he could not even keep his eyes open! I had him sleep off the codeine and nyquil and took him to the insta-care right after I got home from church. (This was the same insta-care I went with Jessica to the night before for her internal and external ear infection which closed off 80% of her ear canal. Jessica and I were lucky, there were only 2 cars in the parking lot.) The "doc in the box" agreed with us, and began discussing the meds for shingles. She wanted to give him acyclovir, but I suggested Valtrex, and got her to agree to 1 gm three times a day, rather than the 2 times she suggested. She also started him on lortab for the headache, and prednisone for 5 days. She cautioned him about blindness from the shingles occurring in his eye, and the need for an opthamalogy consult if his eye started hurting. So . . . . Monday was the third day in a row for a doctor visit. This time we went to the Moran Eye Center and he had 2 lesions in his R eye. They told us to come back on Wed to see if anything had changed.

We didn't go visit any doctor on Tuesday, but Gene was definitely in need of lortab every 6 hours. This is how the shingles looked on Tuesday. We did contact his GP on the phone Tuesday, and she kept telling him he needed to be seen NOW, but we managed to convince them the Moran Center checked him on Monday and we would be there again Wednesday, and that should be enough. OK, they said, we want to see you on Thur. Sure enough, on Wed, there were 16 new lesions on the R eye, and Gene started on eye drops - antibiotics and steroids - 4 times a day. He has his next Moran appontment on Monday. On Thur the GP started Gene on neurontin for neuralgia, in addition to the lortab, and told him he had to take it easy, and NO, he could not run the 5K race on Sat that he was signed up to run. Friday and Sat (yesterday and today) have been spent at times with sharp painful headaches and eye pain, manageable headaches and eye pain, frequent naps, multiple doses of valtrex, lortab, neurontin, ofloxacin eye drops and prednisolone eye drops, but no doctor visits. I guess that means he is getting better. :)