Friday, April 29, 2011

Change of Command, managing meds

Zac's command had a Change of Command (COC) ceremony earlier this week. I went to my first COC not too long after we got to Hawaii. I was pretty much clueless about things at that COC, but I still enjoyed the ceremony. This time around I enjoyed myself quite a bit more, as I knew many more people at Zac's command. I've also been serving as an ombudsman for the outgoing commanding officer (CO) and volunteering with the outgoing CO's wife, so I enjoyed being able to see them being sent off with all the warranted pomp and circumstance. And part of the Pacific Fleet Band was there too, which is always a good time in my book.

Ombudsman protocol dictates that I respectfully submit my resignation to the incoming CO. After all, the ombudsman serves at the pleasure of the CO. When a new CO arrives they are not bound to keep an ombudsman on, but often times they'll keep them around for a little while. I was able to to meet the new CO at a meeting before the COC and assured him that I would be glad to continue on, if he'd like. It appears that the incoming CO does wants to keep me on as an ombudsman, so I am looking forward to working with him over the next six months or so until we head out to our next duty station. I've enjoyed being an ombudsman and I'm happy I'll get to continue doing the job. Even though I'm sticking around, I still have to resign. Then the new CO will turn around and appoint me. It's a protocol that has be followed, though it might seem unnecessary.

My current co-ombudsman is going to be stepping down so I'll probably have a new co- sometime in the near future. Many times commands only have one ombudsman, but we are lucky to have two. It makes it a lot easier when one of us needs to travel back to the mainland or take a vacation off-island. With two, there is always someone available. I'm not sure what exactly would happen if it was just me and I was back in MN visiting and something serious happened out here and I needed to perform my ombudsman duties. It's just nice having another person to lean on. Hopefully someone else at the command will want to step into the role.

In other news, Toivo has been having a rough stretch. I mentioned before that the vet put him on potassium bromide to try and prevent the increasing frequency of seizures. After a few weeks at the initial dosage he had a seizure, so we upped the dosage and he was fine for a few more weeks. Then he had another seizure, so we upped the dosage one more time. (We're now at the high end of the therapeutic levels that he can handle.) Sure enough, two weeks later he had another seizure but this time was different because he had another seizure less than 12 hours later. (The first one was at 7pm, the next one at 3am the next day.) Toivo has never had seizures that close together. I was pretty freaked out. I scheduled another vet appointment to figure out what to do.

The vet decided to put Toivo on a second medication - phenobarbital. That started last week and from the initial doses we notice that he seemed a little wobbly. Then last night Toivo really started having a hard time. He wasn't able to control his back legs and hips very well. He collapsed a little when he tried to go out to pee. He had a hard time gracefully standing up and also laying down. He would trip over himself. He tried to go upstairs and his hind end gave out but he was able to pretty much pull himself up the last few. I was pretty shaken up and spent a good part of the night tearing up every time I looked at him. Is is the meds? If it's not the meds, is this it? Is he getting closer to being . . . gone? I didn't sleep well last night and I was relieved when I heard Toivo bark at me this morning to let him outside.

Luckily I had scheduled an appointment for Zoe at the vet for today. I called the vet this morning and asked if I could keep the appointment but bring in the other dog. They said sure, so Zac, Toivo and I headed back to the vet for the umpteenth time today. The vet agreed that it was probably the phenobarbital that was causing the issues as one of the main side effects is ataxia (loss of coordination or hind end weakness). The vet decided that we should check his blood work to see what levels he was at with his meds and halve his phenobarbital dosage. I know that it took Toivo almost two weeks to get used to the potassium bromide, so I'm hoping that this is the same thing and he'll adjust in a little while. It's just hard to watch in the meantime.

It's also an inopportune time for Toivo to be not 100%. We're supposed to be heading over to San Diego here in the near future and I hate to be that inaccessible when things are a little up in the air. I know our friends will take great care of him, but I'm sure I'll still worry some.

As I mentioned, we're heading over to SD for a few days to get a lay of the land. We're hoping to get a better sense of where we might want to live and hopefully Zac will be able to meet up with his new command to get a sense of what his new job will be. I'm looking forward to it. There's only so much house-hunting you can do online. And while I appreciate all of the great input our friends have given us about what neighborhoods are best, nothing compares to being there in person. We'll probably even spend some time purposefully driving in rush-hour traffic to see how much time it takes to go places. Doesn't that sound like fun? All I know is I don't want a crabby husband coming home from work every day because he had to sit in 60 minutes of traffic. If this trip can help us figure out where to live that would avoid that, it will most certainly be worth it.

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