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pameladeanIt's been some time since I posted. I thought I would try dividing things up into smaller posts rather than doing one huge looming one with cut-tags and ending up with a strange interlarding of comments on twelve different pieces of news and six different issues.
A close family member (not a partner or a member of my household) has been having a cancer scare. She does not in fact have cancer, but it was a very stressful month, in which a cascade of different kinds of scans and blood tests and visits to various oncologists was rendered much worse than it should have been by a slow-moving iatrogenic trainwreck. This began with a severe allergic reaction to the contast medium for the CAT scan and continued on through gigantic hallucination-causing doses of Benedryl to end in several other nasty drugs and an extended period as a couch potato, a role very ill-suited to the person in question and disquieting to everybody. Only this week has ordinary life seemed to be re-establishing itself. The patient, who was incorrectly diagnosed with a different flavor of cancer in 1996, has had frequent occasion to make use of my subject line.
I preferred to have solid information, whether good or bad, before posting; and it seemed difficult, mostly because of my habit of flinging everything into a single post, to write anything without mentioning it.
Pamela
A close family member (not a partner or a member of my household) has been having a cancer scare. She does not in fact have cancer, but it was a very stressful month, in which a cascade of different kinds of scans and blood tests and visits to various oncologists was rendered much worse than it should have been by a slow-moving iatrogenic trainwreck. This began with a severe allergic reaction to the contast medium for the CAT scan and continued on through gigantic hallucination-causing doses of Benedryl to end in several other nasty drugs and an extended period as a couch potato, a role very ill-suited to the person in question and disquieting to everybody. Only this week has ordinary life seemed to be re-establishing itself. The patient, who was incorrectly diagnosed with a different flavor of cancer in 1996, has had frequent occasion to make use of my subject line.
I preferred to have solid information, whether good or bad, before posting; and it seemed difficult, mostly because of my habit of flinging everything into a single post, to write anything without mentioning it.
Pamela
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Date: 2012-05-31 03:32 am (UTC)When I read up on the CAT scan procedure the number generally give was that five to eight percent of patients would have some form of allergic reaction, with the most severe or fatal at 0.1%. They can't test for it beforehand, though, which makes me seriously unlikely to ever want a CAT scan.
My mother had had MRI's before, during the other false cancer diagnosis, and that medium doesn't bother her, at least.
P.
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Date: 2012-05-31 04:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-31 08:47 am (UTC)Wait, huge doses of Benadryll can cause hallucinations...? That would explain a few things... >.>
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Date: 2012-05-31 12:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-31 02:17 pm (UTC)We all have allergies; mine seem mostly to be household dust and tree pollen.
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Date: 2012-05-31 04:44 pm (UTC)I'm sorry for what your friend went thru and yes, indeed, it is the "practice" of medicine. I do hope things work out well for her (or him).