Death by a Thousand cuts

I somehow managed to get a papercut in my mouth last night that will inevitably look like herpes, I just know it.

 How does this happen?

 By taking mepron (yellow paint like liquid to prevent pneumonia) right out of the pharmacy issued single envelope like containers. 

That's how that happens. 

Just another minor ache. 

This is like death by a thousand cuts. 

I think I have been cut ann poked or prodded a thousand times by now, but whose keeping count? 

My chest pain is officially costochondritis. 

I used to feel so cool knowing that big diagnostic word for ribs and/or cartilidge inflammation causing incessant chest pain. 

Its much cooler to diagnose it on someone else.

Everything is. 

Luckily, dr. G finally offered up relief in the form of motrin. 

Now I'm finally breathing a sigh of relief, literally.

Motrin and tylenol have been off limits for so long I never consider them first. 

I don't need gi bleeds or liver failure. 

That reminds me of a local 16 year old who received a transplant at Boston Children's that, unfortunately, didn't take. 

One of the risk of transplantation is failure of the graft to implant. 

If this happens, the patient's immune system has been erradicated through chemo, the back up has failed, sometimes another infusion of cells can be arranged but that may not happen and it probably won't take. 

In this particular instance, knowing the patient would die, nurses and family began giving her tylenol when the inevitable fever set in and kept giving it to her for comfort until she passed.

 Unfortnately the autopsy stated the cause of death was an overdose of tylenol instead of failure to implant after a bone marrow transplant for leukemia. 

The truth is this result just lead to confusion. This poor young girl would have passed either way.

The tylenol was for comfort while she was dying anyway.

I wonder how many deaths from cancer are erroneously classified as something else?

Major hospitals do track their patients and calculate their own survival rates, so at least we know that's accurate.

Sorry to leave on such a downer, but I'll have good news later ;) and pictures snatched from mom's camera since mine has been broken since July!!!