To perpetuate fear based on a guess is just wrong.
Don - I believe you were one of the ones accusing me of fear mongering when I made predictions about the death toll from Covid back in February - I said 200,000 to 600,000 deaths, maybe as many as 1 million in the US before it was all over, and we are at 400,000 right now. Using math and statistics that were available is NOT guessing and I was pretty much right on the nose. And it's not a "guess" that people genuinely suffer from Long Covid and that the incidence is not that rare - I have numbers from my own practice that are shocking to me, it's not a guess. My point is that your ASSumption that Long Covid patients are just anxious or making it up IS WRONG and very detrimental to the poor people suffering from this. Please rethink your position on this as I can assure you these people are genuinely, severely ill with a post viral syndrome caused by Covid.
As for the addiction drug you say is being wrongly blamed for symptoms, I don't know which one you are referencing. But I can tell you that genetic differences exist in how some people respond to certain drugs. Floxin antibiotics like Cipro are used commonly without problems for most people - but in some people they can cause tendon ruptures, and in even rarer cases they can cause a neuropathy that can't be treated (I have one of these patients in my practice- none of the usual treatments for neuropathy have helped at all). It took quite some time for the research literature to catch up with these facts. Most likely these people have genetic quirks that predispose them to these side effects. Propecia can cause permanent sexual dysfunction in some young men who take it for baldness. It's rare but it can happen. Took about 15 years for it to be acknowledged. It's now on the package insert. Prior to that, the guys online talking about it were written off as "anxious".
So please don't blame Covid victims for not recovering the way you think they should. Please don't call facts about the reality of Covid "fear mongering". New variants are appearing that are more contagious and one of them is showing signs in the laboratory of possibly being able to evade the antibodies of people who previously had Covid. We are nowhere near done with this virus. Widespread vaccination however is our best hope of getting back to normal life and slowing the rate of mutations (the more people infected with Covid, the more opportunities for it to mutate).
I miss the controversial medical topic being hiccough cures
How "is" CMM doing these days? Still has the hiccough issues? The science behind that research was peer reviewed ...
On BD H52, W50 T27, M26 S21, D23 BD-9-Mar-16 D-15-Jan-18 Final-19-Apr-18 I am a storyteller. The story may do you no good. But a story is never for the listener. It is always for the one who tells
His hiccups are under pretty good control - he takes a muscle relaxant and when he breaks through, oddly enough, powdered lime packets help (swallowed straight, not in water). He has never allowed me to try the cure I found in the medical literature though hahahaha.
CMM is getting his new CT/PET scans right now - we will see what kind of progress (or not) he has made since last fall. He has had a more productive cough lately - not much, but he had been pretty much free of the morning cough for some time - and I suspect the news may not be great, but we will see. If he's not responding to his current treatment, I don't know what they will advise. There's not much left to try, I imagine they would recommend some slight change that's not really of any significance. There still aren't any experimental trials available for his particular type of KRAS mutation. Unless it's really surprisingly bad, in which case they might not recommend anything at all (but I don't think he's to that point yet). I do need to have him bring up the notion of assisted suicide with his doctor next visit - not that he's anywhere near that yet, but if he doesn't make his wishes known now while he's mentally competent (it is now legal in our state) I'm not sure he would have any options available if, for instance, he developed a brain metastasis or a stroke. Plus I understand it's quite a process just to get the prescriptions. (Actually I'm not even sure if he makes his wishes known but then has a stroke or other mentally incapacitating event that he can go through with it - I'll have to read the new law more carefully. I know that he has said he doesn't want to suffer at the end and would prefer to have control over that.)
P.S. RIP Hank Aaron. I heard a snippet of an old interview with him on the news this morning that broke my heart. He was asked, if he had it to do again, would he have broken Babe Ruth's record, and he said basically no. The racist abuse he suffered for that was so extreme, that he would have rather not achieved what was the crowning achievement in his career? I almost cried.
Well we have the PET scan results. The bone tumor remains quiet and no new metastases were found. A couple of the lung tumors have increased in size and there’s an area consistent with spread along the lymph system. Overall not bad - I’m relieved there aren’t new bony metastases or spread to the abdomen. We will see next week if his oncologist thinks we should continue with the current chemo or try tweaking it.
I'm glad that there aren't any new bony metastases or spreading to the abdomen. Hopefully, CMM will find out whether the current treatment continues or it needs to be tweaked.
Sit quietly, the answers will reveal themselves when you least expect them to. The past is gone, the present is a gift and you need to focus on today, allow the future to reveal itself when it is ready.
His radiation oncologist is going to suggest to his regular oncologist that they irradiate the two active tumors in his lungs - we will see what his regular oncologist thinks of this approach. His bony metastases have been sensitive to the radiation and it's been quite effective there. In the lungs there's a risk of losing some lung capacity but he is doing remarkably well in that regard, not requiring oxygen at present, so if it just meant he had to go back to using oxygen sometimes that would be ok.
Text message from a good friend this morning. She’s been happily (apparently) married to the same guy for at least 35 years and I’ve known them almost as long. She’s maybe 60 and he’s maybe 68-69. Apparently something sudden has happened and she’s scheduled appointments with a divorce lawyer and a therapist. I’ll get more details when she’s off work. She mentioned wanting to talk to me because I’ve been “through it”.
We all know what this likely means - infidelity or some similar issue like addiction or gambling. I’m so bummed. Her husband really was one of my ex’s nicest friends, the only one who really was kind to me when ex left. And at this age you kinda hope people are past MLC nonsense.
Maybe I’m wrong. Could be drug related as he’s had terrible back problems requiring multiple surgeries but last I’d heard he’d had a good result and had a good new job (he’s retired from a good city job with a pension). They just finished putting a beautiful pool in their backyard. They should be getting ready to enjoy their golden years. Their son is grown and married and lives nearby, their home should be close to being paid off, she has a good job that she loves. She’s still beautiful (used to be a surfer swimsuit model back in the day), keeps a beautifully decorated home and seriously cooks healthy gourmet food every night (like, her friends all urge her to write a cookbook or start a restaurant). Her husband has always been the laid back guy who would bend over backwards to help you. I don’t know what’s gone wrong but it sure makes me sad.
