Hi Donnajean
Can I send Johnny a belated Happy Birthday, as i have'nt managed to get onto the site for a while.
Hope he had not too bad a day, Go Johnny you can do it.

Hi Cazz, Of course you can send a belated B'day message! I gave Johnny your regards - all of the well wishes by you and everyone here has really helped to boost his morale. I thank you and everyone for your kindness. He had a pretty good day overall. Cake was a bit too sweet and difficult to eat, but he did enjoy some ice cream! Thanks again and I hope all is going well for you. My thoughts and prayers are with you all.

Donnajean,
A belated Happy Birthday to Johnny. I celebrated my birthday earlier this month and was packing to move to a new house. I just got my computer unpacked and hooked up today. I was on liquid percocet after my operation. Can't remember the dosage etc. at this time. After two scrips they gave me pills even though I was unable to swallow. Crushed them and put them in applesauce. Tell the big guy to hang in there, it does get better as time goes on.

Take care.

Anne.

Thanks Anne, Sounds like you have been quite busy with the move to a new house! Congrats on that! Anyways - I'll tell John "happy birthday" from you. John has a follow-up appt. tomorrow to hopefully get that drainage tube out (from the surgery) and perhaps the stitches too. He's going to look into getting some different painkillers. Rosie said her daughter has been helped by liquid oxycodone - so he's going to ask about that. He takes oxycodone now - but I didn't know they had that in "liquid" form. I'll let you know what the doc prescribed, if anything different. Hope all is going well for you. Take care and enjoy the new digs!

Hi, After the last operation I had the pain in my arm was more than I have had with my other surgerys. I usually only take Tylenol with Codine after the hospital stay and cut off of morphine pump. I took oxycotin in the hospital once and it made me VERY blurry, I did not care for it, but when I took Oxycodone(Oxydose) I thought it was a great back up or break thru pain med.We got it in liquid because I was to have NO oral. There was a problem about the liquid as it was condensed the Pharmacy had to call MD to be sure I could have that much. We mixed it with water , dose is 0.25ml.It will make you sleep a lot, unless that is just me!

Hi again, Johnny had his doctors appt. today for a follow-up, and good news.......the doctor said that the pathology report shows that there is no cancer remaining at this point!! Needless to say I am sooooo happy about that!! The doc asked John to move his arm up as high as he could, and he unfortunately could not lift it up that high without significant pain, so the doc told him to call and make an appt. for physical therapy for him to do for awhile. He also has to come back in about a month for another follow-up exam. They finally took the stitches (staples) out of his neck from the modified neck dissection surgery, and my husband said that didn't hurt at all - but when it came time to take the drainage tubes out....Whoa!....He practically lost it there! He said it was extremely painful, and all evening so far he has been saying where they took the tubes out, it feels like someone keeps poking him with sharp "pencils". The doc said he could even go swimming tonight if he wanted to - but he doesn't feel up to it with the shooting pain in his chest wall. The nurse told him not to put anymore Bacitracin on the neck scar, since he is developing "acne" there. (Apparently this is a common problem with Bacitracin, according to the nurse who was assisting the doctor). But so far - everything looks good, and this helps both of us to breathe a little easier - at least until the next doctor's appointment. As far as the pain meds - the doctor just wrote him another script for Oxycontin and told him to keep taking the Oxycodone tabs, if needed. He did not even write another script for the liquid Morphine - he said my husband "didn't need it". John was a bit disappointed in that regard - because the trio of pain meds, did seem to help somewhat - now he has to rely on just the two "Oxy's". I hope he can manage on that, but if not - we'll just have to talk to the doc again and see what happens.

The Oxydose makes Heather sleep a lot, too. And between the government regulations and insurance co crap, it has been a bit of a pain to get. The pharmacy has to call the dr, then the dr has to call the insurance co for approval. One advantage to the tablets is that they are time-released and last up to 12 hours. The liquid only lasts 4-6 hours. As long as Johnny can swallow, I would recommend the time-release tablets over the liquid. I have to get up twice through the night to give Heather the liquid. The tablets got her through the night pretty well. She just can't swallow them anymore, so she has to have the liquid.

As far as being "blurry", Heather had that trouble with the Duralgesic patch. I guess it just goes to show that everyone is different. Sometimes it takes awhile to figure out which med is the best for each person. Just so the dr gets Johnny on something that works for him.

Rosie