Tender Mercies

Sleeping at Megan's

I am reminded again and again that God is mindful of us even in the small details of our lives. Last week late in the evening I was sitting on the bed reading a book and Mike was watching TV. I looked up at Mike and noticed that his face was flushed, I mean dark red flushed. I asked him if he felt alright and he said that he felt a little dizzy. I felt his face and he was HOT. Then I took his blood pressure and it was through the roof--197 over 110. He doesn't have blood pressure like that. So while I am fussing around and worrying he asks me to look up the drug interactions of 2 medicines that he takes. Lo and behold, these two meds have a negative interaction leading to high blood pressure, rapid heart beat, tachycardia, fever, etc etc. and can be fatal.

FATAL is not a good word. Mike took blood pressure medicine and went to sleep and in the morning I called the VA and left a message for his doctor. Three phone calls later from the pharmacist and one call later from his primary care dr. no one could figure out who or how or why he had been prescribed this combination. The next morning the dr in charge of the clinic called at 8:00 AM and asked if Mike could come in and see him right away. Well, the doc had all the symptoms and complications printed out for the syndrome caused by the 2 meds. He was very accomodating. Incredibly accommodating in fact!! He acknowledged that the interaction between the 2 drugs could be quite serious. (To which Mike replied that FATAL certainly seemed to fall into that category) He dropped the offending drug. Everyone was happy. Except that it took several days for the side effects to clear the system.

I asked Mike why he had me look up those two specific drugs, and he said that he had seen an ad that afternoon on TV that mentioned the danger of taking Imitrex (one of the 2 meds) with certain other medications. I have never seen that ad before or since. But it was there when we needed to know.