Today's Stats:

BM Breakfast

Blood Glucose:     Time:  1159     Reading:  117

Blood Pressure:     Time:  1211     BP:  143/61     Pulse:  55

    I'm not quite sure why her BP and BG have been higher than usual over the last few days right after she awakens. It's not that she's sleeping any less, or any more, for that matter. Oh well. The mysteries of Ancient bodies.
    I served her ham, again, for breakfast, with her eggs, OJ and toast.
    Her Bowel Movement occurred at around 1430. Unusual movement, really. When she first went into the bathroom she was convinced that she didn't "have to go", that she was merely taking a pee break. I've been mentioning to her, today, that she'll probably have a bowel movement but she didn't think this was the time. Then, when I checked on her a few minutes after she settled onto the toilet, she announced that she thought she "had to go" but "nothing was happening." A few minutes later I checked on her and she was asking me where the toilet paper was, to which I sang my usual refrain, "I'll be cleaning you in all the most familiar places." Anyway, although she thought it was a difficult movement, in fact it was the opposite: Fairly good volume; excellent consistency; easy elimination, despite what she said; easy clean-up.
    We're back to two teaspoons of Benefiber° in the morning. I think the deal with this fiber supplement is that you have to let the body get used to it and allow for a few smeary bowel movement during that period.

Non-stat Lunch
    Lunch took place at Costco, today, and consisted of Mom sampling anything and everything we passed. When she realized that my shopping list was slim and we wouldn't have to hit every corner of the store, she insisted that we "take the tour" so she wouldn't miss any of the sampling kiosks. As well, she had half a Berry Smoothie.
    Since we arrived at Costco about 1515 and didn't get home until 1715, it was a long day for her so I didn't bother to take stats when we got home. She was clearly tired and wanted to take a nap before dinner.

Dinner

Blood Glucose:     Time:  2009     Reading:  81

Blood Pressure:     Time:  2005     BP:  138/70     Pulse:  55

    Her blood pressure has been high enough all day so that I decided to administer four 2.5 lisinopril tablets in all for the day, two of them at dinner tonight, primarily to see if it jump-started her back to her normal range in the morning. She also received the fourth lisinopril at 2300, about 30 minutes before retiring (and turning off her light, which were simultaneous, tonight...she was tired).
    For dinner she had her beloved Costco chicken pot pie, which she requested, with a dollop of sour cream to cut the salty taste.
    I noticed when I rubbed her feet and legs down (rather, I rub them up, which is better for her) that her feet were unusually warm. They were not swollen (her feet haven't been swollen for some time, actually), their color was good, they turned their usual deep pink after I rubbed them, she reported no pain when I asked her and she is not losing sensation in them. It could be that she was sitting hear the heater (which is an electric baseboard heater), which I ticked up tonight for her comfort. They were warm enough, though, to touch off my concern so I took her arterial forehead temperature while she was getting ready for bed: 100.2°, which is at the upper end of normal range but still normal. So, I guess she's fine, she just had warm feet tonight.

Today's Stats:

Breakfast

Blood Glucose:     Time:  1154     Reading:  116

Blood Pressure:     Time:  1220     BP:  145/63     Pulse:  53

    I'm not pleased with her systolic, but I'm tired of making excuses for it, so it stands as it is. Yesterday was Day Three of Three 2.5 mg lisinopril a day.
    Breakfast involved a slight variation: I served her some of that no-nitrate Canadian ham with her egg and toast.

Lunch

Blood Glucose:     Not taken

Blood Pressure:     Time:  1647     BP:  110/59     Pulse:  57

    Nice reading! Although I gave her a choice, she chose lunch the same as yesterday: 11.5 oz V-8 juice, 8 oz yoghurt and 1/2 cup MCS's Bread & Butter pickles. Her other choice was Marie Callendar's Chicken Pot Pie soup with extra curry, chicken and vegetables and one of the left over pieces of grilled garlic/Parmesan bread from last night. I was surprised with her choice, since she spent most of what could be considered her morning on her feet. But, I respected it.

Dinner

Blood Glucose:     Time:  2049     Reading:  73

Blood Pressure:     Time:  2041     BP:  156/73     Pulse:  60

    As of the above blood pressure reading, taken after a couple of hours of relaxing in her rocker and watching TV, I'm willing to consider that she might be ready for double her lisinopril dosage, perhaps most beneficially distributed as one 2.5 mg tablet at breakfast, none at lunch one at dinner and two at bedtime. I'm going to run this by her doctor for confirmation, but I think we might be There. I want to keep the prescription for 2.5 mg tablets, in case she has days when it would be best to administer a little less. Although the 2.5 mg tablets are tiny, the 5 mg tablets, while slightly bigger, are a bitch to split and ensure that crumbs of the medication are lost in transit, so to speak.
    For dinner she had Mac & Cheese, heartier in the vegetable part than I've ever made it. I'd suggested a beef stir fry with vegetables and hoisin sauce flavoring, but she nixed this. "I want something cheesy," she said.
    "What if I give you a couple slices of cheese as a side with dinner?" I suggested.
    "What if you make that cheese mixture with macaroni that's so good?"
    That's what I did. Maybe tomorrow for the stir fry. Then again, we need to make one of our weekly trips to Costco tomorrow...depending on her slant, maybe we'll get one of their chicken pot pies.
    Although she did not officially have a Bowel Movement, she spent a good 10 minutes on the toilet after dinner thinking she was going to have one, expelled a lot of gas and, without realizing it, a mini-mini turd, so I'm expecting The Full Meal Deal tomorrow.

Today's Stats:

BM Breakfast

Blood Glucose:     Time:  1217     Reading:  99

Blood Pressure:     Time:  1215     BP:  126/64     Pulse:  57

    Everything looking good. Because it had been a little longer than I like since she's had a bowel movement, I gave her two full teaspoons of Benefiber. I'm sure it wasn't what prompted her to eliminate so soon after breakfast, but it should help later.
    Her Bowel Movement occurred at 1350: Good volume; very good consistency; very easy elimination; easy clean-up.

Lunch

Blood Glucose:     Not taken

Blood Pressure:     Time:  1602     BP:  99/52     Pulse:  58

    Whoa! Interesting blood pressure reading. She's been watching the afternoon line-up of M*A*S*H on one of the cable channels and has just switched over to the afternoon line-up of Murder, She Wrote on another cable channel. She isrecovering from the last few days. She asked me after breakfast if "we had to do any running around, today."
    I told her if she wanted to, I could come up with a couple of things we could do.
    "No, no!" She exclaimed. "I don't want to do anything today! Can we put everything off?"
    Yes. Of course.
    For lunch she's having 11.5 oz V-8 juice, 8 oz yoghurt and about 1/2 cup of MCS's Bread & Butter pickles. Although it might seem a little early for lunch, I'm just pleased she's not heading into the bedroom for a nap at this time. When she said she was hungry and asked, "Whatcha got?", I was happy to oblige.

Dinner

Blood Glucose:     Time:  2011     Reading:  88

Blood Pressure:     Time:  2009     BP:  133/62     Pulse:  60

    Although I'll check again at bedtime, I'm sure her blood pressure will be in an acceptable range to administer a third 2.5 mg lisinopril at that time.
    For dinner tonight I didn't ask her what she wanted, I simply served a modified Cobb Salad. This means I discovered that quite a few of our greens had wilted, thus it had significantly fewer greens than usual, but included fresh peas, celery, carrot, Bermuda onion, sun dried tomatoes, pimiento stuffed green olives, half a boiled egg, radishes and some chopped honey ham with home made Ranch dressing and lots of cracked black pepper. It was accompanied with a slice of grilled Artisan Roasted Garlic bread sprinkled with fresh grated Parmesan.

Bedtime

Blood Pressure:     Time:  2157     BP:  131/59     Pulse:  63

    Looks good for handling a little more medication, so I gave her a third 2.5 mg lisinopril.

Today's Stats:

Breakfast

Blood Glucose:     Time:  1057     Reading:  120

Blood Pressure:     Time:  1109     BP:  133/68     Pulse:  58

    Looks like today is a good day to institute three 2.5 mg lisinopril a day. I'm going to wait to see if the "third" pill would be best placed at lunch or dinner. Aside from Mom being bathed and eating breakfast before noon, today, everything is normal.

Lunch

Blood Glucose:     Not taken

Blood Pressure:     Time:  1608     BP:  111/60     Pulse:  65

    Now, there's a BP I like to see! Thus, I'll be waiting until just before bed to administer her third 2.5 mg lisinopril. Lunch was, again, lunch-lite: I'm reorganizing the banana eating to after dinner or later in the evening, since I think it will be easier for her body to work off the fructose over night; assuming, of course, that she wants a banana. She did, today, for lunch, but easily took my suggested substitution of 8 oz lemon non-fat artificially sweetened yoghurt with her usual 11.5 oz V-8 juice.

Dinner

Blood Glucose:     Time:  1926     Reading:  81

Blood Pressure:     Time:  1925     BP:  132/64     Pulse:  58

    Now, there's a pre-dinner Blood Glucose reading I like to see! I'm surprised at her BP but this is a good argument for administering her third lisinopril just before bed. Considering how prodigiously she sleeps, especially at night, this timing is probably best.
    Although I had planned Cobb salad for dinner, Mom decided she wanted pizza. As it happens, we had plenty of pizza frozen from a few nights previous. It took almost an hour to heat it from frozen to eatable, mainly because I didn't want to burn it and had it heating at 250° for the first half hour, at which point I bumped it up to 300°.
    I should mention that we had an active evening prior to dinner, which may have helped reduce her blood glucose: Although I couldn't get her interested in looking for cookie cutters pre-nap, she awoke from her nap with cookie cutters on her mind. I did some calling around and discovered that the kitchen store at the mall had an entire rack full of cookie cutters of all kinds. Mom was an enthusiastic participant. She even lingered over the Christmas section at one of the department stores we had to traverse in order to take the short cut to the kitchen store. She's a sucker for kitchen stores, as well, and was on her feet most of the time except for about 15 minutes toward to end of our deliberated selection of cookie cutters. When we got to the car I asked her about her back and knee. Neither was giving her any trouble. Excellent! We're in another honeymoon period! I'm jazzed.
    I should also mention that I will probably not bother to take her BP before I give her the bedtime lisinopril, as it clearly irritates my mother to have her BP taken often and I'm sure that the third dose of 2.5 mg is not going to throw her into a blood pressure crash overnight.
    As well, I'm prepared for the possibility that on some days I may be administering four 2.5 mg lisinopril doses, just depending on how her BP readings look. I'm hoping, though, that as her body registers the elevated dosage, more than three will not be necessary very often.

Today's Stats:

Breakfast

Blood Glucose:     Time:  1200     Reading:  120

Blood Pressure:     Time:  1219     BP:  128/72     Pulse:  61

    I let her go until noon, today. When I entered her bedroom she was already up on her elbows, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, babbling about plans for Christmas. I think this may be why her blood pressure was a little high. I've decided, though, that for the next week I'm going to routinely give her three 2.5 mg lisinopril a day and a fourth at bedtime, after measuring again, if her BP at dinner is high (anything above 125 systolic), to see if this helps even out her all over the map, unpredictable pressures.
    Breakfast was normal. I started the 1.5 tsps Benefiber® today. We'll see how that works, too.

Lunch

Blood Glucose:     Not taken

Blood Pressure:     Time:  1751     BP:  154/70     Pulse:  60

    Although I think the height of her blood pressure is due to her unusual excitement when she arose from her nap, I decided not to take it again. For this coming week, until her next doctor's appointment, I am taking her blood pressure only two to three times a day and changing her lisinopril medication schedule to three to four tablets a day, regardless of her readings. I want to see if upping her lisinopril slightly helps to regulate her blood pressure.
    She did, indeed, receive a "third" lisinopril at lunch, which consisted, at her request, of what has become her usual banana and 11.5 oz of V-8 juice.

Dinner

Blood Glucose:     Time:  1921     Reading:  176

Blood Pressure:     Not taken

    There's the recently eaten banana in her blood sugar. Since dinner followed so fast on the heels of lunch, I didn't take her blood pressure again, just administered her usual pills so that she has had three 2.5 lisinopril tablets today. I was tempted to take her blood pressure but didn't, thinking I'd postpone the last reading until before bed. As it turned out she went to bed only a mere two and a half hours after dinner, so I didn't bother. I'll see what her blood pressure measures in the morning.
    We had a left-overs dinner tonight, one of Mom's favorite types of dinner: left over Mac & Cheese with all those vegetables added, left over sauerkraut with artichoke/garlic/sundried Tomato sausage (which is actually pretty flavorless so once we finish off this package we probably won't be eating it again) and left over potatoes au gratin to which I added green onion and green pepper.

Today's Stats:

BM Breakfast

Blood Glucose:     Time:  1035     Reading:  146

Blood Pressure:     Time:  1005     BP:  156/80     Pulse:  61

    Well, it's a mixed up day, to be sure. I'm not sure why either of my mother's stats was so high. In addition, since it was a blood draw day for both a CBC and BMP and I knew I wasn't going to be able to hydrate her much before blood was drawn, the only medication I felt safe giving her was her iron, vitamin C and Protonix pills.
    We went out to breakfast at her insistence after the draw. I, of course, didn't have her medication with me. She decided on the buckwheat Belgian waffle with two slices of bacon baked into it and maple syrup. She also had a small glass of orange juice (probably 8 - 10 ounces). Sugar, sugar, sugar.
    She finally took her pills at about 1345, after we arrived home. Without taking her blood pressure a second time, I gave her two 2.5 mg lisinopril tablets. We'll see how this performs when she awakens from her nap and has lunch.
    Before that, though, immediately when we arrived home, at 1315, she had her Bowel Movement, yet other Cleaner Outer: Excellent volume; somewhat soft consistency; very easy elimination; slightly messy, prolonged clean-up.
    She had no Benefiber® this morning, which is probably just as well. Although I like the fact that her bowel movements are cleaning her out, I'm thinking it might be wise to mediate between two teaspoons and one rounded teaspoon of Benefiber® every morning. We'll try 1.5 teaspoons for awhile and see how that goes.

Lunch

Blood Glucose:     Not taken

Blood Pressure:     Time:  1629     BP:  141/62     Pulse:  75

    Well, her blood pressure isn't as low as I'd like but I'll wait until dinner before I decide to medicate her for it.
    Her lunch continued in the "lunch-lite" vein she established about a week ago: a banana and 11.5 oz V-8 juice.

Dinner

Blood Glucose:     Time:  1918     Reading:  101

Blood Pressure:     Time:  1912     BP:  142/65     Pulse:  62

    You bet I gave her two 2.5 mg tablets of lisinopril at dinner tonight.
    For dinner she had, let me think (I'm reporting for 10/24 on 10/25): Oh, yes, four chicken/mozarella raviolis with my usual tomato marinara with lots of other stuff chopped into it and a piece of grilled roasted garlic Artisan bread with garlic butter and fresh shredded Parmesan.
    She went to bed relatively early for her at 2200. Her light went of at 2215.

Today's Stats:

Breakfast

Blood Glucose:     Time:  1141     Reading:  121

Blood Pressure:     Time:  1141     BP:  137/69     Pulse:  59

    Although her BP is higher than I'd like, instead of giving her two lisinopril I thought I'd wait and see how things shake out at lunch and dinner. All morning from the time she awoke we were having an animated conversation about going to a couple of places to look for cookie cutters and getting her a new Timex watch at Costco. It was hard to get her to relax her arm and I'm not sure I was ever successful.

Dinner

Blood Glucose:     Time:  1822     Reading:  95

Blood Pressure:     Time:  1821     BP:  132/67     Pulse:  65

    No lunch stats. We made the trip, although the only place we went to was WalMart and the only errand we accomplished was replacing her watch. She did a fair amount of walkering but was very tired when we got back to the car and announced, of her own accord, that she "just want[ed] to go home." She ate a banana and went to bed.
    I should mention that today she had another dry morning, although she is plenty well hydrated (for her). In fact, to her delight, she took an abbreviated bath because she was so dry and I was able to get away with only changing the bottom sheet of her bed. She does not appear to be retaining water unusually. Maybe we've hit our stride with hydration. Finally.
    We ordered pizza tonight, which she ate lustily. I did give her two 2.5 lisinopril tablets because of her blood pressure. It clouded up and threatened to rain all day today and she was more stiff than usual so this could account for her higher pressures today.