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An Observation Made Over the Holidays
My In-Laws Discussing Their Medical Issues: “Well, I had to check in at Johns Hopkins last week because of my blood pressure, and the doctor there told me my enzymite levels were off and they told me the Diamethysizpam that Doctor Tiramisu prescribed for me was reacting with Ectozamprom that Doctor Smithsonfrinjinson prescribed for me, and that caused the cytosine levels in my blood to get too high. They were going to prescribe me some Sodacan if they didn’t get down, but after the results of the Osterman Test came back, they decided to try me on Dawberpam instead on account of my last bone density scan they said was abnormal because I’m not absorbing calcium on account of the Juniorprom they gave me when my leucocytes tested high, so instead, they sent me to doctor Narwhal and he put me on two different things, Stopitol and Lexluthor and took me off the Damitol and told me to come back next week so they could run a Heinecken-Schlitz test because I might have too many Type-D proteins in my arteries. But the real problem is the inflammation in my bowels that was caused by the Rataplan I’ve been taking for my Epicondylitis, let me tell you about that…”
My Family Discussing Their Medical Issues: “Did I tell I had cancer last year? Yeah, I’m over it, now. We got any more beer?”
Published in Healthcare
I think that’s about the level my sister and brother in law understand their medical issues and my sister is dead now. And one of my sisters daughters is a nurse. Asked after a cardiac catch whether they had put in any stents, she said she didn’t know. Sad.
You gotta watch that Sodacan; leads to excessive weight gain.
Sounds like you were treated to quite an organ recital.
Brilliant, and quite timely for me. I just discovered one of my siblings has gone over the edge into quackery; her doctor is of the nose-bone variety. He handles her knees (failing from disuse and weakness) and his … something involving dry needles and soybeans. I may write a post about it; if so I’ll steal your technique of applying funny names to irrelevant technical jargon.
Love me some Dawberpam. Tried to get my doctor to prescribe some, but my wife vetoed it.
Medical narcissism. I hate people who dominate conversations with these boring details of their condition. And worse when people pretend to care. They don’t.
Sorry your health isn’t perfect. Next subject please.
Yeah, okay. I’d take that test.
I like watching drug commercials for the entertainment value of figuring out where they got the name from.
“That one’s from Star Trek, that one’s from Lord of the Rings, that’s a Pokémon.”
I just want to take a moment to acknowledge that you took the time to get the accent right.
What really ticks me off is it eats into time that could be better spent analyzing my health problems. Some people are so selfish.
I didn’t! It did that for me.
These are my favorites. Especially the Damitol.
Sounds like every conversation I have with my mother. The first, not the second. My MIL, on the other hand, fell last year and broke her face into a whole bunch of tiny pieces that took 6 hours of surgery to put back together, spent three weeks in Trauma ICU, and several months in various institutional forms of rehab and shrugs it off like nothing happened. Even the 12-weeks of jaw wiring seems like a distant memory. She was an amazing and cheerful trooper through all of the treatments and hard work and is back to living largely on her own. Turned 90 a few weeks ago.
My mother…her entire social life is going to doctors. Nothing is ever good, just a string of complaints. It’s quite tiresome to listen to and then she wonders why I don’t phone more often. It would be less often if not for the 5th commandment! I’m trying…
Blessed are they who call their chronically complaining mothers.
Or extra-strength Damitoltohel
This is timely – have been muddling a post on a related subject but I can’t get the tone right.
I ran into a “neighbor/friend” recently. (He’s actually the husband of someone I consider a friend; I’ve known him for 20 years and find him insufferable.)
Anyway, 20 or so minutes spent on his elderly mother’s pneumonia (I was partially listening as I was distracted by the memory of when my mother was alive and he said, more than once “pneumonia, an old person’s best friend.”)
Then onto his own recent trip to the doctor who is the best whatever and treats … famous people (I guess) who’s names I didn’t recognize.
At some point a sentence was said that sounded like a query (a rare event) and I mentioned something or other about not having seen my doc in years.
I got a lecture about health and doctors that I didn’t listen to, and managed to escape.
He’s 400 lbs and an alcoholic and on about six different medications. And he’s lecturing me about health.
My family is the same as yours Victor. There’s a million different subjects that we’d rather discuss than health.
I definitely laughed at all of this, but it’s also painfully on target. Over the past 2 years we’ve been struggling to extricate my mother from all of the different drugs that 3 different docs had put her on. She’s had high BP her whole life. After a major fall in August 17 (only the third most recent) we discovered that she was on 3 different BP meds prescribed by 3 different docs. Her BP was bottoming out and she was passing out, thus the falls. One of the docs – the cardiologist – couldn’t be bothered to talk to her, us, the ER doc or anyone else. And none of the other docs would tell Mom to stop taking anything he had prescribed.
The Ricochet CoC prevents me from telling you the terms I use for all of them.
Would this be prevented by using a single drug store, I wonder. I had all of my mom’s prescriptions filled at CVS, and the pharmacist was terrific at pointing out duplications or interactions that came up on the computer program she used.
I can definitely relate. My parents have had every cell in their bodies scanned and probed so when one is out of line it’s a major issue. My mother is currently planning on an operation that I consider to be the equivalent of having your leg amputated for an infected ingrown toenail.
The in-laws, on the other hand, are in much worse actual shape. However, until a doc tells them there is a problem they assume all is well. And, of course, they never ask any questions. Why would they? The doctor may tell them something they don’t want to hear.
A good friend’s mother was reduced to apparent dementia and spiraling down in assisted living, when a conscientious doctor or pharmacist threw the red flag on the cocktail of meds she was being fed. Off all but one or two low dose meds, she has her life back, is back in her own home, and goes out with her friends every week.
There are probably lawyers who do this kind of thing a lot. This is not an endorsement of same, but I suspect the docs might be a little more attentive if they had a possible court date.
I attended a lecture in grad school on the various causes of dementia and drugs were one of the primary causes and always the first I look at. Beyond the problem of drug-drug interactions, there are also changes in metabolism of some (or all) of the drugs with advancing age, and patients often do not remember or misunderstand the proper dosing. A good drug inventory and review, as well as removing those that are or may be problematic and assuring that those that remain are dosed properly, is often the beginning of the lifting of “dementia.” Would that all types were as curable!
Yes, that was part of the problem as well. Trying to figure out her health care has been a challenge exceeded only by trying trying to figure out her financial situation. Sheesh!
The thought has crossed my mind, definitely. The past year and a half has been overwhelming to put it mildly – we’ve been in reaction mode on all of life. Wife and I were involved in an accident that involved lots of medical, a totaled car, a lawyer and eventual settlement while all of the stuff with my Mom was going on as well. I frequently think back to 15 years ago when my Dad passed away. He had COPD and I’m 100% certain that a steroidal inhaler his doc gave him knocked 6 months off his life (sent him into a cycle of repeated pneumonia until he finally succumbed). We didn’t pursue anything on that – it would have been a completely miserable 6 months anyway.