"Listen, People, To What I Say...."

Part of my issue with the medical community is that they sometimes give the impression that they aren’t listening. Not all of them, mind you, but more than there should be.

Case in point, my first contact with Aurora this year. When I came back from Florida I thought I had gastritis. It got worse until I could no longer wait the two months for my first appointment with my new doctor. I called and got an appointment to see a Dr. Nitke in a couple of days.

When I went in, he was more interested in going through my file than in looking at me, the customer, which is why I was there in the first place. I told him that I had lost 30 – 40 pounds since the end of March, and that I couldn’t eat food. I was reduced to sucking bottles of Ensure. I was hurting so bad I was shaking.

One of the defining characteristics of cancer is inadvertent, significant, weight loss. The result of that visit was that I left with the prescription that I obtain and use Prilosec OTC. He must not have heard me, or didn’t pay attention to me.

When I started dealing with the oncologists and the nutritionist, I told everyone that would listen that I wasn’t eating solid foods and that I couldn’t even drink a glass of water without stopping. I was reduced to sipping my sustenance.

So, I went into my first round of chemo totally malnourished. I had mouth sores before I left the building.

When I finally was able to start eating solid and semisolid foods, I pointed out to anyone who would listen that what I ate in the morning stayed with me all day. It seemed like it never left the stomach until sometime during the night. And that I didn’t like that at all.

Have you ever awakened in the middle of the night, choking on stomach contents that had slipped by the esophageal sphincter and had been aspirated? Stuff that came up one pipe from the stomach and went back down the other pipe into the lungs? I have, several times.

My first sister, Christine, died at the ripe old age of eighteen months after developing pneumonia after she drank kerosene and then aspirating stomach contents when she threw up.

One of my favorite authors,Peter McWilliams, died in his bathtub, suffocating on his own vomit, after the Federal government denied him the access to medical marijuana that the State of California had voted in referendum to allow! The marijuana that would have prevented the nausea and vomiting that ended up taking his life.

Now, the Wikipedia article mentions that the coroner’s report states that Mr. McWilliams died of a heart attack. This is the first I’ve heard of that. It also points out that a citation is needed to authenticate that fact.

The forward to his book, Ain’t Nobody’s Business If You Do, the book that brought him to my attention has a forward by William F. Buckley, Jr. who states that Mr. McWilliams died because he aspirated his own vomit. BTW, the link goes to the online version of his book on the absurdity of “consensual crimes.”

All that being said, I lived in fear the first few months after waking up choking and gagging. I wouldn’t go to sleep if I had eaten too late in the evening. I wouldn’t eat if there was a chance that I would be going to bed early for whatever reason. To this day, I still sleep with three pillows, propped up to make it physically more difficult for the situation to occur. The fear never goes away.

Which is why the issue with the fatigue has made me nervous. I never knew when I would fall asleep. I couldn’t hydrate while I’m sleeping. And I run the risk of losing my lunch while sleeping. I had to stay awake, but that appeared difficult. And, I'll have to face all that all over again after my surgery.

So, when talking to Nurse Diane about my eating habits, she was the first one that seemed to understand what I was saying. She clarified that I would eat something and that it would seem to stay with me in my stomach all day long. I was SO blown away when she said that that was no problem; they had drugs to take care of that. She would talk to the doctor about it.

The interview with the doctor came and went with no mention of the new drugs. The call for a new prescription for my antacid/ magnesium supplement came and went with no mention of the new drugs. I was back to not eating in the afternoon so I wouldn’t have food in my stomach when I went to bed.

So, this morning, I tried a capsule of digestive enzymes. It appeared to work; I was hungry by noon! But supper seems to be sticking with me, now. We’ll have to see.