Today started our week of appointments for Timmy. We are in the midst of 3 weeks of appointments for dentists, chiropractor, and eye doctor visits for the family, but Timmy started his big week today with seeing his cardiologist. This was the first cardiologist appointment in just over 4 months! 4 months! We're pretty excited about that. We're also pretty excited about having another good report from the cardiologist. Nothing has really changed - which is a really nice blessing when you have health conditions like Timmy.
Over the past 4 months, some questions had been building. Not life-or-death questions, but musings we had. The big question was how we would know when it was time to adjust his medications (as in increase dosages). The cardiologist increased 2 medications very slightly for us to try, and then suggested taking another medication away! (With the hope to take 2 more away in the next several weeks if this one goes well)
If you had asked me which one we should do away with, I would have picked the chlorothiazide (Diuril). Several reasons: 1 - the insurance only covers a form of the medication not being made currently, and this one costs $55 a month (not earth shattering, but not just pennies), 2 - the mixture they make of crushed up pills in water does not stay mixed well, even with twice daily shaking, 3 - it always runs out ahead of the 30 days it is supposed to last (because of sludge left in the bottle that won;t mix back in with shaking). Without knowing any of this, the cardiologist told us he wanted us to try to go without the chlorthiazide. His reasons were: 1) Timmy is healthy now and doesn't need 3 diuretic, 2) this one pulls more electrolytes out of the body. I like his reasons, too, but it feels nice to be moving toward a few less doses a day. From 9 medications down to 8 as of today.
Timmy was celebrating the good news by banging out some tunes on his piano.
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