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Wednesday, March 12, 2008

So I Was Up All Night

So here are the bare outlines of this story:
A) The Chief and I have managed to wind up separated by 1000 miles again. I am not happy, but now I am the one stuck in the NE for medical treatment. Back in November when we first realized the Chief was in trouble I wasn't feeling very well either. It appears that I got a hold of some medication that was not what it purported to be. Believe me, I do not buy it from online pharmacies either and it is particularly aggravating to pay the premium price and get fake medicine. Anyway, I couldn't do much about it until we took care of the Chief, so a few weeks ago my medical ordeal began.

B) The worst of it appeared to be over for the time being, and I had begun to sleep again over the last few days. Yesterday morning I was feeling pretty rested and more optimistic.

C) Last night around 10 PM I started to get agitated. By about 11:00 I was wandering around in a pitiable state of distress, followed by Rescue Dog who was worried, followed by the Brat who disapproved of this disruption in routine. After fighting for hours with the impulse to call the Chief in the middle of the night for no godddamned good reason, I finally talked myself down out of the trees and took a nap at around 6:30 AM this morning. I am basically fighting chronic meningitis, and mood swings are a definite possibility. So I chalked this up as a symptom to be fought off.

D) By 10:00 this morning I was pacing the floor wondering how soon I could call the Chief. He is supposed to be golfing every morning and no way was I going to call him in an emotional fit and disrupt his morning communion with nature. But I still wanted to speak to him as soon as possible solely because I needed to for emotional reasons.

E) At about 10:30 he called me. Here is his side of the story. He had shrimp for dinner last night. He started to feel bad after a few hours. He got sicker and sicker, broke out in hives, bad belly-ache, etc. Sometime after midnight he headed out to the car to drive himself to the ER, realized that he was dizzy and short of breath, and could not make it, and called 911. He was fighting the urge to call me (at this stage I was wandering the bedroom with tears rolling down my face, exerting every last ounce of courage and will I could dig up not to call him), but thought he did not have the time. The EMTs came and took him to the ER, where they treated him for an anaphylactic reaction. He was released at about 6:00 this morning.

F) We agreed to both get some sleep today and talk this evening. He said he feels fine.

Comments:
Bloody amazing, but I believe it. Recall your Silesian Grossmutti, a complete dunderhead in so many ways but she had that "ability" as well.
 
Wow! Get better soon, both of you.

I hope you consider some kind of legal action (even if only sufficient to warn the provider) again whomever provided you with the wrong medication.

Carelessness without consequences (be it NASA Space Shuttle launches, mortage underwriting, or prescription handling) simply breeds more of the same.
 
wow, am glad to hear that you both managed to pull through. The shrimp thing reminded me of how I found out that DH is allergic to scallops.I got some and cooked them up. He became sicker than a dog. Then he said, "I had them once before and they made me sick. Guess I'm allergic to them." Hope it doesn't take the Chief two tries to avoid shrimp ;)
 
Mama, this is amazing. I am so sorry to hear you two had to suffer like this. I also certainly hope you will check into the wrong medication ordeal. That is so dangerous and people have gotten killed by mistakes like that. I hope you get to feeling better very soon. I hope the Chief does as well.

Please let us know if any of your Cyper friends can do anything for you. Take good care!
 
MoM,

You think you had sympathy pain across the miles? Hang in there!
 
Frank, I am sure it wasn't the pharmacy's fault. Apparently there is some fake medicine in the system. They ordered the real stuff. The pills looked normal.

It seems that there have been a number of problems with counterfeits getting into the supply chain. RFID efforts have not come to fruition yet. However I had always heard that it was mostly online pharmacies, and I walked into the pharmacy and bought these. They were out and had to order them, so perhaps they got an odd lot fed back into the wholesale system from a pharmacy.

It's very disturbing now that the Chief has to take heart drugs. The only thing the doctor could tell me is that he thought the Mom and Pop pharmacies were safer than some of the big chains.
 
Yes,amazing, get better soon, both of you!

Like what I callliving a bad movie that you can't turn off or turn the tape backward to start again to redo.

And, yes, find some way to report was wrong med. as a consumer.



Independent
 
Dr. M & Viola, the Chief is fine now and so am I.... I spoke to him this evening.

Teri, he apparently felt something the last time he ate shrimp - not last week but the week before. He still denies that he has a pork allergy even though if he eats it very much he gets hives. Men can be extraordinarily stubborn. I think he really needs to go kosher. I am concerned about him developing another food allergy given that he recently started on all the medication. I am going to make an appointment with his doctor to discuss this. The Chief was a research biologist working directly with pesticides and herbicides, so his total chemical exposure puts him at a higher risk than the general population.

However this was quite life-threatening, and he has agreed not to eat any more shrimp. Shellfish is a common allergen.
 
Anon - that is it EXACTLY. That's exactly the way I feel.
 
Well, if you don't want to sue or threaten such, at least consider reporting to the FDA:

https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/medwatch/medwatch-online.htm

Despite my cynicism, I think there can be some collective effectiveness at the government level, and I am familiar with this kind of complaint process. Though you personally may never hear the outcome, the pattern that the FDA sees can help address underlying problems.
 
Pesticides can definitely lead to sensitivity problems. DH was spray poisoned with paraquat back in the 70s. (And I mean to the point he was deathly ill for two weeks. No medical insurance for farm workers, so he suffered through it at home.) Even now, he can get a reaction to sprays on fruits and vegetables. I'd definitely run it by the doctor, even though they aren't always up to date on that sort of stuff.
 
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