 |
| Cancergiggles is an idiot's guide to accepting, living with, laughing at and dying from cancer. The very, very last bit I can't be absolutely sure of, but then who the hell can? I could have written some beautifully crafted, grammatically correct essays but I hope you will understand, that when I say "I don't have a lot of time" I mean it far more literally than you do. I just wanted scribble a few thoughts to maybe light a spark in people - and then it became a book about Cancer, Life, Death, Illness and Politics. ISBN 0955198801 |
Sitemeter
copyright © 2004 Cass Brown
copyright © 2004
Cass Brown
All rights reserved 
WARFARIN
«
H E
»
Humour :: Politics :: Health :: UK Politics :: Cancer :: NHS :: Cancer humour :: Illness :: Living with Illness :: Living with cancer :: Laughter and illness :: Terminal illness :: Alternative medicine :: Colon cancer ::
Cancergiggles ::
email
posted Sunday, 28 November 2004
WARFARIN
A few days ago I had a blood test and then received a phone call from The Vampires to tell me that my INR level was way too high, so could I please knock off the rat poison for a couple of days. There is a common misconception that the drug warfarin “thins” the blood when in actual fact it increases the time it takes for the blood to clot (unless I’ve completely misunderstood or the meds were trying to confuse me). This is pretty much semantics if you have a stream of red liquid leaving your body or your insides have turned to mush, however I firmly believe that if you’re going to be dead, you may as well know the real reason.
My levels were not at crisis point but I don’t really know where that would be. It would be much better if they gave you a sliding scale with, for example, zero being a perfectly fit human body and ten being a Bloody Mary (with Tabasco thanks), thus enabling you to make a good risk assessment. Like in all other branches of their profession this allows the Blood Wizards to use vague terminology such as “a bit high”, fairly high” and “rather high” when you ask them to be specific. You will find that all doctors only use words like “extremely”, “very” and “definitely” when the following word is “dead”.
The upshot of my phone call was that I had to cease and desist with the rat poison for two days and then begin again on a reduced dosage. I long ago discovered that the patient information leaflet which accompanies any drug, lists numerous likely and wildly unlikely side effects but then subtly adds the codicil “and then some”. Consequently, the odds are that if you are ingesting something which has the power of life and death, it’s likely there will be a trade off in the form of you feeling crap. I had been aware that Warfarin was making me feel pretty odd but as my general condition does the same, it was hardly worthy of note. At least it wasn’t until I had a two day break. I realized that I had been operating on a sensory perception level of about 40% as feeling returned to arms, legs and brain. It was as if I had been operating on a reduced voltage which would turn the engine over but which wasn’t quite enough to make the spark causing the engine to burst into life. It was like having every nerve in your body coated in play dough, so when it was temporarily cleaned up the sensation was amazing. Did you know that you can feel air? I didn’t and I don’t mean a breeze or the movement of air – I mean you can actually feel its presence on your skin when your senses are reawakened and believe me it’s bloody wonderful.
Unfortunately, this respite was only short lived so I’m now back to the numbness and tingling feelings. I know that I could stop taking the rat poison altogether but I’m damn sure that 40% of feeling really alive is far preferable to 100% of feeling very dead; so I will listen to the Head Wizard until he is happy that he is only dealing with just the one clot – me.
LEAVE COMMENTS
(7)