Frustrating day

It's been a very frustrating day. With dh texting me this morning that he wasn't doing well again, to his not texting me for hours, to unanswered questions, and to not understanding what they are doing with his meds today.

Once he started feeling bad early this morning, he needed to start having the pain meds again, of course. Yesterdays treatment, which seemed to work very well, was a half dose of the dilaudid as well as a very small dose of fentanyl at the same time. He said it was explained to him that the small dose of fentanyl was so that is quickly takes the edge off, so the half dose of the dilaudid isn't having to work so hard.

So, a whole new day crew on shift today. The nurse is not giving him the fentanyl with the pain med, like yesterday. He asked why and she said she couldn't give it to him with the dilaudid still in his system. He's like ? that's how they did it yesterday all day. So, so far today, he has had no fentanyl.

While this is going on, I'm at home waiting and waiting for him to text me an update! A couple hours go by. Then the lab calls to tell me his Covid test was negative. I text him this info, see he reads it, but he doesn't text me back. What the heck. I wait like a half hour and send him a text "what is happening?"  Finally he reads it like 45 min later and still no response. I wait 5 minutes and call the hospital to ask for an update. They tell me a nurse will have to call me back. So, while I'm waiting I text dh again that he is freaking me out, not answering me, and that I'm waiting for a call back to find out what is going on.

I ask if he's on same pain meds/schedule as yesterday and she says yes, she has fentanyl on the orders, too (but at this time I didn't know she wasn't giving it to him, because he wasn't communicating with me). He finally starts texting me. He's totally fed up with this nurse/day shift and says just screw it, I'll wait until night shift comes back on and figure my meds out (I'm assuming he's expecting the good nurse he got again last night). I ask for the doctor to also call me and she said yes, the dr said she is going to call you today, but she's busy working in the clinic right now, so it won't be until like 5pm. I ask if the phone consult with the specialist got done. Yes. It sound like when that happened he was starting to do better so it was just "ok, watch his vitals". I asked why, after feeling so good all night, he would have a fever, aches, and hurts to breathe? She said it's just part of the pancreatitis.

Just a new update from dh. He's miserable. When they give him the pain med every 2 hours he asks for the fentanyl too. He said he's asked them several times why change from yesterday and he wants an explanation and they just keep saying they will ask and then don't tell him anything. It's after 4pm so I just called and talked to same nurse and asked if his meds order got changed from what they were doing yesterday. No..ok, why isn't he getting the fentanyl? well, it's for breakthrough pain. I said yes, and he's been asking for it all day and it totally worked for him yesterday. He was very comfortable all day. She said she'll have to ask the provider....OMG. She just told me earlier that fentanyl was still on the med order. and if it wasn't and he's asking for it then ask the damn doctor why and tell him why or why not.