Ativan

The day before yesterday, at the nurse's suggestion, we used a 1/2 dose of Ativan to deal with Frances' late night coughing spell. That plus another early in the morning did make it easier for her to breath, but even at those low doses, she slept completely through the day, didn't eat, and barely took any water. She never got up, only moved with lots of assistance, was unresponsive to questions, and didn't take part in any conversations. Basically, Ativan just gorked her out for an entire day and a night.

The bottom line is that for palliative care, someone with low body weight and depressed appetite, ativan may be too much of a downer, especially with its synergistic effects when combined with narcotics. Frances is using a low dose of morphine and this may be contributing to the significant effects that Ativan is having on her.

Today, 24 hours post-Ativan, she woke at a normal hour and ate a home-made ham-and-egg biscuit plus one of the koulourakia I baked last night. She's napped much of the afternoon, but this is an improvement over yesterday.

Around 3:00 she woke up, had a big cup of decaf and another of my koulourakia. The photo above shows the three-C's: coffee, cat, and koulourakia (well, two C's and a K).