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Thursday's visit with Mike was a tad better than last week. At least he walked with me. He didn't really want to, but once I got him moving he did fairly well. It was in the 40's and sunny, so I put his jacket on before we started walking. We didn't stay long, but at least he was able to sit in the sun for 10 minutes and breathe some crisp air.

When I pulled into the parking lot, I was directly facing his room and could see him rocking back and forth through the window. That's a sign of agitation or being uncomfortable or ???  Once in the room, I could see that his left leg was working up and down as his upper body rocked forward and back. So restless.

I spoke with the RN and asked if she would contact the Psych NP - Mike needs something to calm him.  When he first arrived at AH&R, the Psych. doctor took him off of Haldol immediately. Lots of facilities won't even take a person who is on Haldol and they were hesitant, but agreed to take him anyway. I was not sorry to see it go and asked if we could later try taking him off of Amantadine. That was done also. Neither of these seemed to affect Mike's behavior or comfort level, so the Psych. NP increased the Depakote. The nurses and I thought Mike seemed to get more agitated with the increase over a 3 week span. That's when the NP recommended putting Mike on Namenda and if he tolerated that well, then after a month or so we would begin to titrate down on the Depakote which was done slowly and then about 2 weeks ago stopped completely. It didn't work.

I was so impressed with this RN. She immediately called the NP and came back with an answer within 10 minutes or less. They are going to start Mike back on the Depakote.  I do think he was calmer when he was on a smaller dose of Depakote along with the Namenda. It's all trial and error.

Maybe now the gnawing feeling that the medication is a big part of the problem will go away. I've always wondered what he would be like if he were taken off of everything, but no one has wanted to try to do that in the past 5 years. At least here they dropped two and tried to drop a third. There was a small window in there where Mike was better than he is now. I hope putting him back on a smaller dose of Depakote will get us back there. Just watching him is exhausting, so I can't imagine how he makes it through the day. He really has no choice. That makes it so HARD! If only he could say how he is feeling or what he needs, but he cannot. Coveting your prayers for wisdom for the nurses, doctors, NP and me.

God's blessings to you all.