As an aside, a cancer anecdote

Stew wrote the following to me in 2007.

I had the oncologist appointment first and he said, “Things are looking pretty good. Let’s put you on another medication!”

I said fine. He said, “There’s some side effects with this one.”

I said, “okay.”

He said, “Nose bleeds.”

I said, “Annoying but tolerable.”

He said, “It can raise your blood pressure.”

I said, “I’ve lowered it significantly over the past few months… a few points north won’t hurt me.”

He said, (damn I can’t remember the word he used) “IT can cause a tear in your bowels.”

I said, “That doesn’t sound good.”

He said, “Don’t worry. It only affects 5% of the people who take this drug who already had colon surgery.”

I said, “Okay, go on.”

He said, “Blood clots. Do you have a history of blood clots?”

I said, “No. What would blood clots do?”

He said, “Oh…if they traveled to your heart, you’d experience cardiac complications.”

I said, “That doesn’t sound pleasant at all.”

He said, “Don’t worry. It only affects 5% of the people who take this drug who already have a history of blood clots.”

I said, “Okay. Go on.”

He said, “Death.”

I said, “That’s a pretty dramatic side effect, don’t you think?”

He said, “Don’t worry, it only affects 5% of the people who have been dead before.”

I said, “What a wonder drug.”

So…The first time you use this medication (given via IV, so it’s given in conjunction with the chemo meds.) They give it to you over
the course of 90 minutes. “Slow for safety” my nurse said. You gotta worry about any drugs that they need to wear special thicker gloves for. This medication is a liquid, surrounded in plastic bag, inside another plastic bag when they get it from the pharmacy. But still the nurses have to wear special thicker purple hazmat gloves when transporting it from the pharamacy to the patient. But the patient doesn’t get to wear anything when this stuff goes straight into the chest (or arm).

So when they give you this med, they have to take your blood pressure every 15 minutes, and then they come around every 20 minutes or so and check to make sure you’re still alive.

On the bright side….if you do live, the second session with this drug is only 60 minutes. And if you survive that one, then it goes
down to 30 minutes…

What does this drug do? It kills off the blood vessels feeding the tumors. How does it know which blood vessels to kill off? The handout
I got today said, “Researchers are still investigating how <this drug> works, but it appears to kill off just those blood vessels related to
the tumor.”  STILL INVESTIGATING? APPEARS? Is this the best hope we have for the scientific community. Why are they still investigating? Didn’t they create this drug with the mindset that it would kill off the bad blood vessels?

Sheesh…

How was your day?

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