WASHINGTON – Bill Darker grinned as he headed into the operating room for a dramatic experiment: A super-high dose of chemotherapy dripped directly into his cancer-ridden liver, 10 times more than patients normally can tolerate.
Not to fear. Working through small puncture holes, doctors sealed off Darker's liver and washed most of the toxic medication from his blood so it didn't poison the rest of his body.
It's a rigorous effort to fight a notorious killer, cancer that has spread to the liver from elsewhere in the body and left patients with few options and little time.
"I've always wanted to treat this cancer very aggressively since I know the prognosis is very dim," said Darker, 46, who managed to save his eye from ocular melanoma only to have the cancer spread tentacles in his liver. "I just take the gloves off and go for it."
Three times, so far, he has flown from his home in Imperial Beach, Calif., to the National Institutes of Health in suburban Washington to repeat the experimental therapy. Before his last round, Darker's liver tumors had shrunk by about a third.
Now a study at NIH and 10 other hospitals nationwide aims to show whether that kind of shrinkage makes enough of a difference in the length and quality of recipients' lives, and is safe enough, for Food and Drug Administration approval to treat eye or skin melanoma that spreads to the liver.
"It seems like a good weapon," said Dr. Marybeth Hughes of the NIH's National Cancer Institute, as she prepared to treat Darker last week. "If it works effectively it would be very important, because the only other choice patients have is constant chemotherapy."
More than 200,000 U.S. patients a year learn that various types of cancer — from the eye, skin, colon, pancreas — have metastasized, or spread, to the liver. Whatever the original tumor type, few survive beyond a year or two.
Often, cancer this aggressive hits multiple organs. But up to 40,000 patients a year have a life-threatening metastasis confined just to the liver. They're the target of the new approach, called PHP, for percutaneous hepatic perfusion. While the melanoma research is furthest along, NIH is beginning smaller studies with certain other liver metastases.
How do you seal off a liver? With balloons similar to those used in heart surgery, only bigger.
Darker lay under general anesthesia as NIH's Dr. Elliott Levy carefully threaded a catheter through an artery in his left leg all the way up to where it branches off into the liver.
Then came catheter No. 2, through a vein in the right leg and up to the vena cava, the highway where blood normally flows from the liver into the heart. This tube bore an uninflated balloon at each end and holes in the middle. Guided by sophisticated X-ray images, Levy inflated the balloons at the top and bottom of the liver, blocking blood's normal exit route.
The tube's holes capture chemo-saturated blood and reroute it out of the body, to a pump where filters scrub away the drug. Filtered blood re-enters the body through a tube in the neck.
It's done with team precision. "Initiating bypass, 10:31," doctors called.
Is the seal good? They injected a dye to be sure. No leaks.
Then Hughes, the oncologist, was up. "Chemo on, 10:45," she called. For 30 minutes, she dripped a concentrated dose of the drug melphalan through catheter No. 1 into the hepatic artery, saturating the liver. The pump is to run for another half-hour after the drug's done, ultimately removing between 80 percent and 90 percent of the chemo.
"The ability to shrink cancers in the livers of patients who failed other therapies is exciting," acknowledged Dr. Neal Meropol, gastrointestinal cancer chief at Fox Chase Cancer Center, who isn't involved with the study. But he said cancer specialists are watching the work very skeptically, because it's such a complex procedure.
It's not that much more complicated than existing treatments that infuse chemo without preventing bodywide leakage, and which have widely varying results, said Dr. James Pingpank, a former NIH researcher now at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, one study site.
Years ago, NIH doctors created an open-surgery version of the treatment that did help but patients could endure it only once. In a partnership with New York-based Delcath Systems Inc., they've made the procedure far less invasive and potentially repeatable — assuming it works — as often needed.
But it's not risk-free. Not all the chemo is removed, so patients suffer some fatigue and a weakened immune system for a few days between treatments. The pump causes blood pressure to temporarily plummet, requiring quick doses of drugs to push it back up. Because every patient's anatomy is slightly different, doctors must carefully map blood vessels to be sure ones that lead, for example, to the stomach aren't so close that chemo could leak in.
First-stage studies reported few serious side effects, although one patient died during an apparently unrelated operation about two weeks after a PHP.
The required operating-room team means if approved, PHP could cost just under $20,000 — hefty, but fairly comparable to some other advanced cancer therapies.
Darker called the procedure easier than standard liver treatments, saying he felt good two days later: "It's running like clockwork."

From Yahoo News

FDA reversal OKs morphine painkiller for dying

By MALCOLM RITTER, AP Science Writer Malcolm Ritter, Ap Science Writer – Fri Apr 10, 4:23 am ET
NEW YORK – A liquid morphine painkiller given by family caregivers to dying patients can remain on the market, federal regulators have decided after hearing protests over their decision to remove it. The Food and Drug Administration had announced last week that it was ordering manufacturers to stop making 14 medications including the liquid morphine. All were developed so long ago they had never received FDA approval.
But on Thursday, the FDA's Dr. Douglas Throckmorton told The Associated Press the morphine liquid will remain on the market until it's replaced by an approved version or some equivalent therapy.
The reversal was welcomed by experts in hospice care and pain relief. One doctors group had told the FDA that last week's order would "cause extreme suffering for many patients who are nearing the end of life."
The order has not changed for the other painkillers, at least for now, said Throckmorton, deputy director of the agency's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.
The agency said last week that the unapproved drugs might be unsafe, ineffective or poor quality. The order gave manufacturers 60 days to stop making those products.
The liquid morphine is highly concentrated. Other approved forms of liquid morphine are more dilute, and Throckmorton said the FDA had thought the other forms could take the place of the concentrated form.
But reaction from hospice experts and others "helped us understand" that some patients need the unapproved version, Throckmorton said.
In interviews, experts said they didn't have firm numbers on how many patients use the concentrated liquid. But Dr. Diane Meier, director of the Center to Advance Palliative Care at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, estimated that it may be at least 2 million Americans a year.
She called Thursday's decision "fabulous.... It's incredibly refreshing and makes me hopeful about our government."
The high morphine concentration is crucial, she and others said. It allows caregivers to rapidly relieve pain by placing just a few drops in the mouth of a person who has trouble swallowing, perhaps because of confusion, lethargy or other conditions.
The more dilute morphine requires much more liquid, which could make an impaired person choke or sputter, or refuse to take the medication, experts say.
Caregivers can administer the concentrated solution at home, where morphine shots often aren't a good option. Without the concentrated liquid, families could end up calling 911 to rush their loved ones to an emergency room for morphine shots, which would be expensive and against patient wishes, said Dr. Porter Storey, executive vice president of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine.
Storey called the FDA reversal "a really important step in the right direction," showing "an amazing level of responsiveness we're not used to seeing in our government officials."
But Storey said he was still concerned about the other painkillers ordered off the market, products containing morphine, hydromorphone or oxycodone.
While approved medications with those ingredients remain on the market, Storey noted that opiate painkillers are in short supply. So rather than removing the unapproved versions all at once, exacerbating the problem, he suggested the FDA proceed more slowly.
In a letter to the FDA earlier this week, Storey's organization said the painkillers covered by last week's order "have been used safely and effectively for decades."
Throckmorton said the FDA is open to getting additional information about the other painkillers, and would discuss them with experts in hospice and palliative care.
But Storey said that in a later phone call with physicians and pharmacists, the FDA said that the order against the other painkillers would stand.
Further shortfalls in painkiller supply could spell trouble for chronic pain patients such as 62-year-old Ora Chaikin in New York City, said her physician, Dr. R. Sean Morrison at Mount Sinai.
Chaikin takes an unapproved version of the drug Dilaudid — hydromorphone — when her joint pain flares, which is typically on most days. She said she needs that medication "just to be able to walk, to be able to do daily activities (like) putting a coat on."
Although approved versions of the drug are available, the FDA order makes Morrison worry about their supply.
"It's already hard to get them," he said.

-Yahoo News

Medication May Improve Scar Healing

THURSDAY, April 9 (HealthDay News) -- The drug avotermin (brand name Juvista) seems to improve the healing of skin scars, according to three new studies.
Some volunteers had avotermin (Human Recombinant TGFa3) administered to their skin before wounding and again 24 hours later to both sides of 1-centimeter incisions that went all the way through the skin of the upper inner arm to the depth of the underlying muscle. Identical wounds were inflicted on other volunteers who received a placebo or standard wound care.
Two studies found that patients who received avotermin scored an average of five points higher on a visual 100-point scale of scar appearance after six months, and an average of eight points higher after one year.
The third study found that all concentrations of avotermin produced significantly improved total scar appearance scores versus placebo -- from 15 points at the 5 nanogram dose up to 64 points at the 500 nanogram dose. The researcher said 60 percent of scars treated with avotermin showed 25 percent or less abnormal orientation of the collagen fibers in the skin, compared with 33 percent of scars treated with placebo.
"Results of these phase 1-2 studies show that avotermin is a new class of prophylactic medicine promoting the regeneration of healthy skin and improving scar appearance compared with controls," according to Mark Ferguson, of the University of Manchester, U.K., and colleagues. "With low doses injected locally around the time of surgery, avotermin is a well tolerated and convenient treatment. These studies suggest that avotermin has potential to provide an accelerated and permanent improvement in scarring."
The study was published April 9 in The Lancet.
More information
The American Academy of Dermatology has more about scars.

Naltrexone promising for treating kleptomania

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Naltrexone, a drug commonly used to treat alcoholism and drug addiction, reduces stealing urges and associated behavior in individuals with kleptomania, according to study results published in the current issue of Biological Psychiatry.
"Kleptomania appears to share many...similarities to substance use disorders: urges or cravings, tolerances, withdrawal, repeated unsuccessful attempts to cut back or stop, and impairment in areas of life functioning," Dr. Jon E. Grant and colleagues at the University of Minnesota School of Medicine, Minneapolis, point out.
Naltrexone belongs to a class of drugs called opioid antagonists, which among other functions, diminish "stealing-related excitement and cravings," they note.
In an 8-week clinical trial, the researchers examined the effectiveness and tolerability of naltrexone in 25 adults with kleptomania who were randomly assigned to receive naltrexone or placebo. Twenty-three subjects completed the study.
Significantly greater reductions in obsessive-compulsive characteristics associated with kleptomania were observed among patients assigned to naltrexone compared with those treated with placebo. The average effective dose of naltrexone was 116.7 milligrams per day.
Compared with patients receiving placebo, those taking naltrexone had significantly greater reductions in kleptomania symptoms and in overall kleptomania severity. The naltrexone group also had an increased positive response on measures of psychosocial functioning, as well as greater reductions in measures of depression and anxiety.
Most adverse drug affects were mild to moderate in intensity and occurred during the first week of treatment.
The effectiveness of naltrexone in this study provides additional support to the hypothesis that pharmacological manipulation of the brain's opiate system can target the primary symptoms of kleptomania, Grant and colleagues conclude.
SOURCE: Biological Psychiatry, April 1, 2009.

Kids Who Lack Self-Control More Prone to Obesity Later

By ALICE PARK Alice Park – Wed Apr 8, 4:30 pm ET

Children are impulsive. Any parent knows that from experience - they want everything they see, and they want it right now. That's not necessarily a bad thing; grabby curiosity is what spurs kids to explore their world and learn new things.
But that same self-indulgence may also be helping to drive children to obesity. That's the conclusion of a group of researchers who studied the relationship between self-control and weight gain in youngsters enrolled in a government study. In two papers published this week in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, scientists found that preschool-age children who had trouble with self-control and the ability to delay gratification gained more weight by the time they were preteens than those who were better at regulating their behavior. (See nine kid foods to avoid.)
It's not a revolutionary finding, but it represents some new thinking among researchers about how to tackle the burgeoning obesity epidemic, particularly among children. In the same journal, the first national survey of childhood obesity to include American Indian and Asian ethnic groups found that 18% of four-year-olds in the U.S. are obese, or in the 95th percentile of body mass index (BMI), a ratio of weight and height. That rate is almost doubled among American Indian children, at 31%.
"We think a lot about obesity interventions, about prevention and focusing on eating healthy and exercising more," says Dr. Julie Lumeng, a pediatrician at the University of Michigan and an author of one of the current papers on children's behavior and weight. "But all of us, including doctors, are struggling because those interventions are not wildly successful."
The two studies on self-control may explain why. The authors argue that applying well-known theories of child development to improve self-control in kids may help prevent later overeating and weight gain. Both trials analyzed data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD), a long-term study of more than 1,300 children begun in 1989 at 10 sites across the U.S. SECCYD's mission is to unpack the factors that influence child development and behavior, from parenting choices to social and environmental influences. (See pictures of what makes you eat more food.)
In one study, Lori Francis at Pennsylvania State University analyzed data collected on 1,000 children, who participated in two different self-regulation tasks, one at age 3 and the other at age 5, and were followed until age 12. In the first task, designed to measure self-control, the three-year-olds were left alone in a room with a bunch of toys - one of which was a known favorite - for 150 seconds. They were instructed to play with the other toys, but not to touch the favored one. If the children were able to wait 75 seconds or more before touching the favorite plaything, researchers scored them as having high self-control. Children who went for the forbidden toy within 75 seconds were labeled as having low self-control.
In the second part of the study, Francis' team looked at the same children two years later, at age 5. This time, the kids were tested on whether they could resist temptation and delay gratification with food. Each child was asked to pick his favorite among M&Ms, animal crackers or pretzels, and was then placed in a room with two piles of the snack - one large pile, one small. Before leaving the room, the experimenter told children they could eat from the smaller pile at any time, but if they wanted to eat from the larger pile, they had to wait until the experimenter returned. Kids who waited the 210 seconds before the researcher came back scored high on self-control, while those who couldn't wait to eat from the smaller snack pile scored low.
Francis found that the children who scored lower on both tasks were 30% heavier by the time they were 12, compared with kids who were better able to control their impulses. Not only did low-scoring kids gain more weight, but they gained it faster, showing the most rapid increases in BMI over the nine years of the study's follow-up. (Read TIME's 2008 cover story "Our Super-Sized Kids.")
In a second study, Lumeng found a similar association between the inability to delay gratification in four-year-olds (again with favorite foods) and weight gain by age 11. Of the 805 children in the study, 47% had trouble with self-restraint; those kids were 30% more likely to be overweight seven years later, compared with other children in the study. The findings suggest that learning self-control may be an important way for children manage their weight - a logical theory, familiar to anyone who has struggled with self-discipline and impulse-regulation to keep from packing on the pounds. The findings also suggest that treatments for obesity may not be doing enough to encourage responsibility early on among individuals and families. (See pictures of what people around the world eat.)
"There is an emerging understanding that all of the classic concepts in child development have not been brought to bear on the obesity epidemic," says Lumeng. "There needs to be more bringing together of child development and obesity research to find more practical ways of addressing the obesity problem. We can't stay theoretical for much longer."
There are ways to improve children's self-control when it comes to food, such as mindfulness techniques that train kids to stop and think about whether they are hungry before instinctively reaching for snacks. If impulse-control is too difficult for some kids, say experts, parents can remove temptations by limiting access to favorite treats and restricting eating to preset snack and meal times.
Taken together, these studies highlight the fact that old habits die hard: Any efforts to strengthen self-control, not just in eating but in all behaviors, must begin early, researchers say. "I think you can be trained to exhibit more self-control," says Dr. Ari Brown, a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics in Austin, Tex. "But it's harder to do the older you get. As pediatricians, we have the chance to help parents create a lifestyle early on so you don't have to go through behavior modification or a weight loss program to learn healthier eating habits. I think this information is most important for new parents, with infants."
See the top 10 scientific discoveries of 2008.
See pictures of a diverse group of American teens.
From Time.com

Brown fat may help adults lose weight

By Gene Emery Gene Emery – Wed Apr 8, 5:02 pm ET
BOSTON (Reuters) – A sparse form of fat that helps keep newborns warm is more common in adults than previously thought and that discovery that could lead to a new way to lose weight, researchers said on Wednesday.
Once activated by cold temperatures, so-called brown fat burns calories faster than regular fat. It is normally so dormant in adults that there has been debate over how much adults have or whether they have it at all.
In three studies in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine, researchers report finding brown fat in most adults and discovering they can detect it by exposing people to cold. In some cases, adults who had more active areas of brown fat were thinner.
The hope is that if a way can be found to activate this brown fat and get the body to make more of it, people could burn off extra calories without additional exercise.
"Fifty grams of maximally activated brown fat accounts for 20 percent of your resting energy expenditure," Dr. Aaron Cypress of the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston, who led one of the studies, said in an interview. "If you add that up, that's 400 or 500 calories per day.
"Practically speaking, we have a great potential to have a new treatment in our armamentarium against diabetes and obesity."
Dr. Kirsi Virtanen of the University of Turku in Finland and colleagues used positron emission tomography, known as PET scans, to find active brown fat deposits in five volunteers and also took little plugs of both types of fat. Brown fat became more active when the volunteers were cold, they reported.
"If the brown adipose tissue in this example were fully activated, it would burn an amount of energy equivalent to approximately 4.1 kg (9 pounds) of adipose tissue over the course of a year," researchers wrote.
OBESE PEOPLE HAVE LESS
A team at Maastricht University Medical Center in the Netherlands found obese men had less brown fat than lean men.
"Taken together, these studies point to a potential 'natural' intervention to stimulate energy expenditure: turn down the heat and burn calories (and reduce the carbon footprint in the process)," Dr. Francesco Celi of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Disease in Bethesda, Maryland wrote in a commentary.
But Celi cautioned that the vision may be oversimplified.
Cypress said scientists must first find a way to activate brown fat and, perhaps, even persuade the body to make more of it. In addition, the new studies did not directly test whether activating this fat would make people lose weight.
Celi said further research may reveal that even if brown fat is activated, the body may find a way to compensate by getting people to eat more.
"If you think about it, if you eat three donuts, you hit that calorie count right there," Cypress said.
"Using brown fat to treat obesity has been talked about for 30 or 40 years," he said. "But people essentially gave up on it. Many said it didn't exist in adult human beings and many said it didn't have any connection to obesity and weight at all. What these studies show is that virtually every adult human being has functional brown fat in them."
(Editing by Maggie Fox and Bill Trott)

Burger King to scrap ad after complaint

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Fast food giant Burger King apologized Tuesday for an advertisement featuring a squat Mexican draped in his country's flag next to a tall American cowboy and said it would change the campaign.
Mexico's ambassador to Spain said posters released in Europe for Burger King's new Tex-Mex style "Texican whopper," a cheeseburger with chile and spicy mayonnaise, inappropriately displayed the Mexican flag, whose image is protected under national law.
The ambassador wrote a letter complaining to Burger King and requested the ad campaign be discontinued.
Burger King said the ads were meant to show a mixture of influences from the southwestern United States and Mexico, not to poke fun at Mexican culture, but said it would replace them "as soon as commercially possible."
"Burger King Corporation has made the decision to revise the Texican Whopper advertising creative out of respect for the Mexican culture and its people," it said in a statement.
"The existing campaign falls fully within the legal parameters of the United Kingdom and Spain where the commercials are being aired and were not intended to offend anyone," the company added.
A TV version of the ad shows the strapping cowboy and the pint-sized Mexican wrestler -- nicknamed "Just a Little Bit" -- living together as roommates. At one point, the American lifts up the Mexican to help him put a trophy on a high shelf.
Mexico was involved in another controversial ad campaign last year when Absolut vodka posted billboard ads in Mexico with an early 19th century map showing chunks of the United States as part of Mexico.
The campaign angered many U.S. citizens and was later dropped.
(Reporting by Mica Rosenberg; Editing by Eric Walsh)

-CNN

My Horrible Story of Appendicitis at Onslow Memorial

By: Jonny

Chapter 1 – Three Doctors Grim
Doctor 1
This adventure began when my I had cramps all morning and all day, no amount of medicine could get them to go away. So before MedCare closed a local clinic I decided to do something about it. The pain was unbearable in the waiting room as I waited for a good two hours. Finally the doctor could see me, by the time he got to the room I was double over on the examining bench. They took my blood and sent me home with gas
Doctor 2
Later that night the pain became worse, so bad I thought there where knives inside of me. My parents finally convinced me to go to the emergency room. I went, waited in agony, by this time I was vomiting every thirty minutes from the paint and nausea. About two hours went by and they decided it was time to see me. I had a doctor who was probably not a day over 94 years old who after taking my x-rays, ultrasounds, and blood work I waited another hour to see him again and he decided my pancreas. was inflamed and told me to stop drinking alcohol. Yes now I am supposedly an alcoholic. He gave me a pain show and sent me home.
Doctor 3
Upon the next morning I don't know how I was still alive. The pain was unbearable, all day I lay in cramps, vomited, I haven't eaten in days. They day kept by and nightfall came. It was then I decided to go to the emergency room yet again I figured It was something life threatening by now. I couldn't walk unless I was completely hunched over and I ached from vomiting.
I got to the emergency room and put my little slip of paper in the box for admittance and waited in the emergency room. About two hours later they finally decided to triage me. The triage nurse said with much surprise and exclamation: Name, social…cant you repeat that, social…etc…This time they decided to give me a green sticker because it seemed my case wasn't serious to them. So my wait continued in the waiting room, for five more long hours of cramps and vomiting.
Around three in the morning they decided to admit me, They began my x-rays once again and blood work. The doctor came in and for once this one knew what he was talking about, my appendix had burst and I was in need of immediate surgery it seems it had happened quite some time ago. And so the second part of my adventure began.
Pre-Op
Now this surgery had to happen, and it had to happen now, so there was no not eating for a period of time there was no drinking radioactive fluid and waiting 2 hours for reverse xray screening, no they decided the best thing to do at the time in all this chaos was to give me a 32oz enema. Yes in all my vomiting, pain, infection, and disease, I go to lay on a table while (a cute) male nurse shot a gallon of water into my ass. I even got to hold it in for ten minutes so it could fill me completely up and conveniently when it was over I asked where the bathroom was and it was all the way down the hall. So I squeezed my ass and wobbled past a hallway full of people where I spent the next ten minutes in the bathroom crapping my brains out with the trash can in from of me throwing up. I made it back down the hall way and readied for surgery.
My surgeon was Doctor Westbrook and if I ever have another surgery I would definitely ask for him he did a really good job and was really nice too.
They rolled me into surgery, but of course they room they normally use was under construction, so they decided to do my surgery in the birthing ward, so they wheeled my past a hallway full of screaming woman and babies, knocked by our with anesthesia and my surgery began.
CHAPTER 2: Onslow Memorial "Where People !?$!@"
The Awakening
I awoke not remembering falling asleep or where I was I can't remember too much about the next hour just felt in pain and nauseated.
Some fun events at the hospital:
I had extreme nausea for about four days, so they prescribed by medicine for, and when they shot it into my veins the nausea went away, it felt like my body was soaked in oragel and I became a zombie. If that's the solution for nausea let me throw up all day first!
Morphine, everybody knows its a powerful painkiller, but in the middle of the night when you're sweating, throwing up, you don't feel pain, but if you try to sleep, you'll see:
Frogs on motorcycles
Sticks that become bugs
People dying
Creatures beyond imagination
Voices
You'll ride elephants down western blvd.
Colors and patterns that look like an actually kaleidoscope
So you have to keep your eyes open so these things don't try to attack you or an elephant doesn't try to take your for a ride.

I remember one night I woke up extra wet, I checked to see if I peed or not. Id didnt, I had ripped my IV out and I bled all over the bed and antibiotics where running into the sheets for a good 20 minutes, It looked like something from killer clowns a mass of blood and fluid. So when the nurser finally got me out of laying in my own blood I went to the bathroom to vomit, throwing my fingers down my throat I forgot they where coveredin iv antibiotics that tasted like fiber glass.
Fishing – One incident resolved in a nurse who couldn't do an IV she shoved IV's throw my arms and poked my veins for the longest time and when I asked her why this was taking so long she blamed it on me…yea…
In the Middle of the night I got a lot of rest my schedule would follow:
10:00pm dose of drugs and drift to sleep
11:30pm Wake up in a puddle of sweat
12:00am Vital check: Blood pressure, Pulse, Oxygen check, temperature
Throw up
1:00am dose of medicine/Anitbiotics
Diarrhea
2:00-3:00 visiting with the elephants
Throw up
4:00 dosing off to sleep
4:30 Antibiotics
Diarrhea
5:00 Vitals again
Throw up
6:00 Blood draw
6:30 Medication/Antibiotics
Throw up
7:00 bed change sweat covered sheets/shift change new nurses same store
Yeah a nice steady sleep
I'd wake up in the middle of the night soaked in sweat from the morphine and when you push the button and call a nurse the sheets might as well dry them.
Average time for nurses to come after paged: 5 Days
What I ate for 5 days in the hospital and 2 days of illness:
1 can of apple juice
4 bottles of orange Gatorade
A pudding
Cup of Rice Krispies
Total times I threw up: 60-80
Medicine Prescribed through 7 day duration: 16
4 Nausea Medications
5 Pain Killers
5 Antibiotics
1 For Cramps
1 For Diarrhea
0 For Stress
I must thank my mother, father, and sister who assisted me in the hospital. Without them I would have been left in the hands of the nurses, and would not be able to write this today.
Friends, when a family member is sick, NEVER let them stay in a hospital alone sit there beside them and endure the boredom it's the only way they will get the help they need do not rely on the staff.
Thanks also to all who visited, sent flowers, stuffed animals, text messages, and thought of me during this duration.
Appendicitis and In-Patient survivor
Jonathon
A Note added from my sister
YOU FORGOT:*They had a an IV bag hanging with someone else's information stickered all over it.*The food people threw your food on a table far out of reach when you couldnt even lift your arm*The nurses had to ask YOU why you were there and what they needed to do half the time*One nurse said youd go home the next morning 5 minutes after the surgeon said a few more days!*They didnt check your bandages for almost 48 hrs I think? or was it 24*It took them 2 hours to get your damn applejuice lol*They never knew what meds to give you because they wouldn't COMMUNICATE
Posted by Carrie on Friday, January 04, 2008 at 6:50 AM
I went back to the hospital for another 7 Days because of an Abscess
(Latin: abscessus) is a collection of pus that has accumulated in a cavity formed by the tissue on the basis of an infectious process (usually caused by bacteria or parasites) or other foreign materials (e.g. splinters or bullet wounds). It is a defensive reaction of the tissue to prevent the spread of infectious materials to other parts of the body.
So I had another surgery this time it took longer because it wasn't an emergency it just looked like I had a grape fruit coming out of my groin. They loaded me up with pain Meds ran a cat scan and scheduled my surgery for the next morning.
This time was different they didn't sew me up after the 2 hour surgery, they stuck a drain tube in me and left my wound wide open and stuffed it with gauze. I was sore, they loaded me up on pain killers and my stay went on.
The wound this time has to heal from the inside out.
The next day the gauze had to be taken out while I was awake, my awesome surgeon and a very nice wound specialist lined up beside my bed and began pulling out an endless line of bloody pussy gauze while I screamed in agony from the pain, then they stuffed me again with more. I get to go through this every other day for the next two weeks still. Pass the drugs.
MEDICATION UPDATE
Medicine Prescribed through 15 day duration: 32 Medicines
4 Nausea Medications
8 Pain Killers
10 Antibiotics
1 For Cramps
1 For Diarrhea
2 Stool Softners
1 For Itching
3 For Sleep
1 For Sore Throat
1 Multivitamin
0 For Stress
Total COST of Hospital Stay
Bills are still coming in but average I put together is literally over $100,000 (Not including medication) THANK GOD FOR BLUE CROSS BLUE SHIELD!
It cost an average of $7000 a Night just for the room
$15,000 + in surgery and anesthesia
The Nutritionist…
For those of you who know me, I manage a fitness center and remain pretty health conscious. The hospital had a healthy menu of hamburgers, French fries, fried chicken, cakes and pies every day. After having you stomach ripped open the last thing you want is greesy crappy food especially if your health conscious. So I couldn't eat this food and the head nutritionist to the hospital was called. I asked her why there where no healthy foods on the menu and she explained people wanted comfort foods when they are sick. Oh, my, god these people are sick she is the nutritionist shouldn't she be keeping them healthy? I explained to her Id prefer fresh fruit, a wide variety of vegetables and whole grains, with no fried foods and no high fructose corn syrup I wanted to get better and eat healthy. So the next day for breakfast after my depiction of what I wanted to eat I was given no fruit, pancakes and sausage, syrup, coffee, and a non fat yogurt. Yeah, I ordered out for the duration of my stay for healthy food because it couldn't be found in the hospital, they never got one order right the whole time I was there;
At one point I requested Melon. They said they had none, I told the nutritionist mom had brought some up from the cafeteria the night before and this morning and she had gone to get more. The nutritionist ensured me there was no melon. I ate melon for days and she insisted the melon I was eating wasn't really there.
Punch me again…
One Nurse assistant would come in and take my blood pressure, Temp, oxygen level, every four hours. She ripped off my blood pressure device off my arm and her arm slapped against my open wound. She continued I informed her I had a gaping open wound there and she responded, oh a waaa….? Yeah real concerned and informed huh?
More Later Going to bed now…

TOTAL WEIGHT WHEN IT ALL BEGAN 165 LBS
TOTAL WEIGHT NOW 151 LBS
I lost about 15 lbs and I havent shit in a week so when I do it will probably be 20.

Added from My Sister

April 13th, 2009 4:23 Elderly used as front in letter-writing campaign
(From MichaelMoore.com) Gotta Love Him

Across Massachusetts, senior citizens are writing letters to newspapers demanding that their representatives in Congress protect a form of health insurance called Medicare Advantage.
At least that's what newspaper editors are supposed to think.
Some of those seniors are unaware that they have sent any such letters to newspapers. Some of them hadn't even heard of Medicare Advantage.

"I did not write a letter to the editor. It's not from me," said Gloria Gosselin, 75, of Lawrence.
Gosselin's name was on one of three strikingly similar letters touting the Medicare Advantage program that were sent to The Eagle-Tribune.
Writers of letters to the editor are routinely contacted by newspapers to make sure letters are legitimate. In this case, they weren't.
All three of the purported authors of the letters said they had no idea their names were being used to advocate for the health insurance program.
The letters were, in fact, composed and sent by the Boston office of a national political consulting firm attempting to create the appearance of a "grass-roots" movement for Medicare Advantage.
Such campaigns are referred to in the news industry as "Astroturf" — that is, phony grass roots.
Usually, such letters come from people who simply click a "Take Action" button on a political Web site, which results in a form letter being sent to their local newspaper. Few newspapers will knowingly publish such letters.
"There are several things wrong with it," said David Holwerk, president of the National Conference of Editorial Writers, a newspaper industry group. "Most newspapers get more letters than they can print. You want to print the ones that people have gone through the effort to write themselves."
But those people are at least aware that a letter will be sent in their names. The Medicare Advantage campaign is unusual in that the "letter writers" said they weren't aware they were participating in political advocacy at all.
One of the letters came from William Morin of New Bedford and was addressed to the "New Bedford Eagle-Tribune."
No such newspaper exists. The street address on the letter was that of The Eagle-Tribune's North Andover office.
"I wonder who did that. New Bedford Eagle-Tribune — I've never heard of it," said Morin, who is 88 years old.
A letter supposedly from Ana Abascal of Lawrence said she "wanted to express how important my Medicare Advantage health plan is to me and other fixed-income seniors in my community."
But when contacted by The Eagle-Tribune, Abascal was shocked and concerned to learn someone was using her name on a letter to the editor. She did not know what the Medicare Advantage plan was.
The tip-off
A tip-off to the true origin of the letters came when The Eagle-Tribune received a call from a man who turned out to be an intern at the Boston office of the Dewey Square Group, a national political marketing and consulting firm.
The man, who identified himself as Noah, wanted to know if Gloria Gosselin's letter had been published. Asked what interest he had in the letter, Noah replied that he was Gosselin's grandson.
Gosselin does not have a grandson named Noah working in Boston. Her only grandson is a student at Central Catholic.
The Dewey Square Group was founded in 1993 by three veteran Boston political campaigners with Democratic ties. One of the founders, Michael Whouley, was a strategist on John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign.
The Dewey Square Group specializes in grass-roots campaigns, building such overwhelming support from ordinary citizens for a public policy position that politicians are brought into line. America's Health Insurance Plans, an industry trade group, hired Dewey Square to defend the Medicare Advantage program.
Medicare Advantage is a government funded, private alternative to Medicare. Seniors can opt out of traditional Medicare coverage in favor of a range of health plans offered by private insurers. Seniors pay a premium for the private coverage but in return, supporters say, get more extensive health coverage than provided under traditional Medicare.
Government payments to insurers supplement the cost of providing the insurance.
Critics of Medicare Advantage argue that it costs much more to treat patients with the private plans than under traditional Medicare. And that, they say, is a poor and inefficient use of taxpayer dollars.
Democrats in Congress and President Barack Obama have proposed slashing funds for Medicare Advantage and using the savings to expand health care coverage for all. Obama's budget has $680 billion targeted for health care reform; $177 billion of that would be taken from Medicare Advantage.
Insurers fight back
Health insurers are fighting what would be a huge hit to their bottom lines. Their strategy: Get seniors talking to members of Congress about the importance of Medicare Advantage.
Under the banner of "The Coalition for Medicare Choices" (www.medicarechoices.org), Dewey Square operatives are bringing seniors to "Medicare Advantage Community Meetings," featuring "free food" and "door prizes," with congressmen and senators, and offering them sample letters to Congress or local newspapers.
Two spokeswomen for the Dewey Square Group insist the campaign is legitimate, even if the seniors have no recollection of sending or signing such letters.
Perhaps, suggested Dewey Square's Mary Anne Marsh, the time that elapsed between the meetings when the seniors saw the letters and the letters' arrival at the newspaper may have clouded some memories.
"No one's trying to pull the wool over anyone's eyes," Marsh said.
So how can there be legitimate grass-roots support for Medicare Advantage when some of the seniors involved say they've never heard of the program?
Lynda Tocci, who is managing the campaign, said the seniors may only recognize the name of the health plan they joined under Medicare Advantage.
"They don't know what Medicare Advantage is but they know their health plan and they like it."
Those who oppose the spending of public money on Medicare Advantage question the legitimacy of the Dewey Square Group campaign.
'An outrage'
Judith Stein of the Center for Medicare Advocacy said using the elderly to advocate for a program without their full awareness and consent is "an outrage."
The Connecticut-based group would rather see taxpayer money put into an expansion of traditional Medicare.
"It's a misuse of the trust these plans have with their enrollees," said Stein, who has 30 years experience advocating for Medicare clients. "It borders on being fraudulent. It calls into question the good will and intent of those Medicare plans that are launching such an effort."
Stein said she has seen no true grass-roots effort to support Medicare Advantage.
"Are there individuals who are helped by Medicare Advantage? Sure," she said. "But the vast majority of individuals are better off in traditional Medicare than in a Medicare Advantage plan."
Marsh said the support for Medicare Advantage is there. Working with seniors to express that support is difficult.
Seniors fearing scams may be distrustful of outreach efforts. They face financial, health and other challenges that make it difficult for them to advocate on their own behalf.
"That's why it's important we get them these benefits," Marsh said. "Perhaps this effort is not perfect. But it is a transparent, honest and truthful effort. To have it portrayed as anything else is disingenuous."

Study gathers science on best heart healthy foods

CHICAGO – What we know for sure about diet and what protects the heart is a relatively short list.
That's the conclusion of new research based on an analysis of nearly 200 studies involving millions of people.
Vegetables, nuts and the Mediterranean diet made the grocery list of "good" heart foods. On the "bad" list: starchy carbs like white bread and the trans fats in many cookies and french fries.
The "question mark" list includes meat, eggs and milk and many other foods where there's not yet strong evidence about whether they're good or bad for the heart.
"I do research. I also buy groceries for my family every week," said study co-author Dr. Sonia Anand of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, who hopes the findings "decrease the confusion around what we should eat and what we shouldn't eat."
The study, appearing in Monday's Archives of Internal Medicine, doesn't actually read like a shopping list. It's a complicated explanation of how the researchers rated 189 prior studies on the topic.
In short, they used criteria developed by Sir Austin Bradford Hill, the late British scientist who helped establish a link between smoking and lung cancer. When multiple studies on a certain food or diet showed a strong link with better heart health, that put the food or diet at the top of the list.
Dr. JoAnn Manson, chief of preventive medicine at Harvard's Brigham and Women's Hospital, said the analysis underlines that there's a big gray area and a shorter list of foods with strong links to heart health.
Linda Van Horn, professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, said the analysis is more about the strengths and limits of previous studies than advice for consumers.
But she said the analysis reaffirms the benefits of a Mediterranean diet — rich in vegetables, nuts, whole grains, fish and olive oil — compared to a Western diet, heavy on processed meats, red meat, refined grains and high-fat dairy.
Beyond that, she found no reason to tear up your grocery list based on the findings.
"It's really about the totality of the usual eating pattern, rather than whether you ate a hot dog on opening day of baseball season," Van Horn said.
The Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada and the Canadian Institutes of Health supported the research.

Grocery chain recalls pistachios over salmonella fears

(CNN) -- North Carolina-based grocery chain Harris Teeter voluntarily recalled its pistachio nuts because of possible salmonella contamination from its supplier, California-based Setton Farms.

North Carolina-based grocery chain Harris Teeter voluntarily recalled its pistachio nuts.

The products involved in the recall include: Planters Light Salted Nutrition Mix, Planters Dry Roasted Pistachio, Planters Mixed Nuts and Raisins, Roasted Salted Pistachios, Ciao Bella Pistachio Gelato Single Serve, and Harris Teeter Natural Roasted and Salted Pistachios. The recall is limited to packages of various sizes.
Harris Teeter, which has 176 stores nationwide, operates in eight states and the District of Columbia, according to its Web site.
"Currently, Setton Farms is recalling pistachios produced at their facility after September 1, 2008," according to Harris Teeter's Web site.
Salmonella strains were found during routine testing by Kraft Foods, one of about three dozen companies that purchase pistachios from Setton Farms, the second-largest pistachio processor in the nation.

The Food and Drug Administration said subsequent inspection of the Setton Farms plant in Terra Bella, California, "indicates the presence of salmonella in critical areas of the facility and the potential for cross-contamination between raw and roasted products." See list of products being recalled
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The nuts were largely distributed in 2,000-pound containers to food wholesalers who would then package them for resale or incorporate them as ingredients in other products, such as ice cream and trail mix.
Salmonella can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems.
The FDA is advising consumers not to eat any pistachio products, but not to throw them out, either, because additional recalls are likely and having products that could be turned in would allow for easier tracing of contamination.

Why Moms Are At Risk For Internet Addiction

I was scrolling through family photos on my computer, admiring my two beautiful babies, when I spotted a disturbing trend: My laptop was open in almost all of the pictures. There's my daughter, at 8 months, playing at my feet while I typed away on the couch. There's me and my son, a year later, with the laptop at my side as I held him in my arms.
I'd heard about Internet addiction before, but always assumed it was something limited to socially challenged guys who played too much World of Warcraft. Now it seemed my Internet "habit" was slowly but surely crossing the line. Sometimes I found myself up into the wee hours of the morning, surfing the Web while my family slept. I read the news, kept up with friends, and looked up answers to endless questions. I wrote my personal blog and read dozens of others, just for something to do.

It turns out I'm not the only mama who plugs in and zones out. Coleen Moore, coordinator of resource development at the Illinois Institute for Addiction Recovery in Peoria, says that she's seeing more and more women coming in for Internet addiction. They're young, they're often new mothers, and they're addicted to blogs, message boards, and Second Life, she says.
These moms are contributing to a growing global addiction. There's a movement among psychiatrists to recognize Internet addiction as an official mental disorder (just like alcohol dependency). And a recent Stanford University national survey found that 14 percent of Internet users find it hard to stay away from it for several days at a time; 9 percent try to hide their "nonessential Internet use" from their loved ones; 8 percent admit they use the Web as a way to escape problems.
You're likely not the kind of addict that Moore has seen -- women who don't bathe and abuse drugs to help them stay "up" for more online time. You may have noticed, though, that going online has become an imposing part of your life, which, at the least, means a load or two of laundry goes unwashed (and who cares about that?).
But it may also mean you're missing out on time with your baby -- something you probably do care about. Here, why we're so susceptible as new moms to that blue glow of the screen.
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'I feel like I'm going crazy'
Tonya Barksdale's son Joshua was born prematurely and released from the hospital under the condition that Barksdale keep him at home for two months without any visitors. Since her husband works long hours, Barksdale was alone most of the day.
"When my husband got home from work, I was clingy and dying for someone to talk to. I started to feel like a crazy person. I was becoming depressed without any interaction," she says. Parenting: When postpartum depression lasts
Desperate, she went online and found the community she needed. "I'd talk to people in chat rooms for hours." But not about babies or parenting. "I needed to feel like a normal person who could have normal conversations that weren't about breastfeeding or how many ounces my son gained." Soon, she was spending as many as eight hours online every day.
"In addiction treatment, we talk about the fact that there's a void," says Moore. "Whatever that void may be -- whether it's emotional, spiritual, physical -- typically, we're trying to fill it."
For many new moms, she says, that void is the isolation -- both the tangible isolation of being home alone with a demanding newborn and the mental isolation of diving into uncharted waters -- they often experience during the transition to parenthood.
"Being a mom of young children can be very solitary," agrees Jay Parker, cofounder of Internet/Computer Addiction Services in Redmond, Washington. So it's easy for them to turn online, he explains, to find other parents and create a world there where they are not alone. Once that world is created, it becomes an escape that moms may turn to whenever they're stressed, lonely, bored, or sad. In addiction, they become dependent on that escape. Parenting: Ways to beat new-mom stress
"I called it my 'avoidance cycle,'" says Jessica Rigby (her name has been changed), a pregnant mother of three from Idaho who used to write four blogs. "Whenever I felt overwhelmed, I would escape into mindless Web surfing. I'd find myself circling through the comments section on my blogs to my photos on Flickr to see if anyone had commented on them, and then over to Twitter to see if anyone was chatting with me there. I'd waste hours just waiting for someone to respond to something I'd said or posted." Because she'd skip errands and allow her kids to make a mess of the house, she says, her stress only amplified, and she'd dive into the avoidance cycle all over again.
And even now that Barksdale's son is a healthy 5 months and allowed to socialize, she still finds it hard to resist the Net. "Today, I had to unplug my computer so I wouldn't go online," she says. "I probably spend the same amount of time online as I did when it was all I could do."
'I can be a different person'
If it were just an escape that moms were looking for, however, they could flip on the TV or pick up a book. But according to a recent Babytalk.com poll, more than double the number of moms choose the computer over books or the boob tube during their babies' naps, showing that they're looking for something more than an escape: connection, yes, but also a way to express themselves.
After giving birth, says Moore, many women feel like they've given up their identity to the all-consuming role of "mother."
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"It's another sense of loss common in new moms," she says. Flirting with ex-boyfriends on Facebook or buying a handbag online may remind us of the people we used to be -- the working woman, the woman who had time for art projects, the woman who wore skirts and lipstick.
"I'm just a mother in real life, but online, I can be a whole person," says Ashley Bryan, a mom of 2-year-old twins from Las Vegas, of her four-hour-a-day online habit.
On virtual-living sites like Second Life, where users create avatars, moms can become anyone from a leather-wearing motorcycle chick to a college cheerleader. In moderation, trying on different personas can be healthy, assures Moore. It becomes problematic when the online identity becomes so appealing that you neglect your real-life role. Parenting: Moms' dirty little secrets
"My husband feels like I don't spend enough time with him," says Bryan. "He says that every time he's home and can watch the girls, I dash online."
'I have so much to do!'
Online, you can pay bills, order diapers, upload photos, and look up possible causes of your kid's constipation. In fact, you can almost accomplish too much online.
"Ticking items off a to-do list is intoxicating when you feel like you don't have much control over other parts of your life," says Parker (and what's more uncontrollable than life with a newborn?).
Diane Anderson, mom of a 7-month-old in Memphis, knows the feeling. "I started following coupon sites and became so engrossed in finding deals that I neglected the important things, like time with my son, for a while."
After the Internet, real life can seem, well, unproductive. "When I play with my boys, I feel like I should be getting something done," says one mom of 18-month-old twins in New York City. "I almost get antsy just hanging out with them, and I take regular breaks to check my e-mail, respond to a Facebook friend request, or order photos from Snapfish. I'm addicted to online errands." Parenting: Getting over new-mom guilt
Going off-line
Think you might be hooked? Try keeping a journal of how often you go online for a week. Then assess what you're missing out on when you do it -- sleep, family time, work?
Also note in your journal what was going on each time you decided to sit down at the computer. Was it right after a fight with your husband? Were you bored? By figuring out the triggers that send you seeking refuge online, Moore says, you can come up with alternative activities that help you deal. If you're stressed, for example, you might take your baby out for a walk.
Moore also suggests making small weekly goals that get you involved with the real world: Join a playgroup or grab coffee with a friend. And if you can't control your habit on your own, talk to a therapist who deals with addiction. Parenting: Eight ways to be a happier mom
As for me? I quit blogging after six years and am working hard to meet new people. Jessica Rigby is doing the same. "Getting off-line has helped stop the flood of mama guilt I had all the time. I still have guilt over different stuff, but at least now I don't have to lie in bed and think about all of the times my kids wanted something and I shooed them away because I was absorbed in my Google Reader."
Rachel Mosteller is a freelance writer in Houston.
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