Dangerous Poisons

Little bit concerned today with the INR. No, that isn’t some new undercover taxation squad introduced by Gordon "Tax ‘em till they bleed" Brown (he was the mildest manner'd man, that ever scuttled ship or cut a throat - Lord Byron), it’s the blood level indicator which shows how much rat poison you should be taking. Apparently the acceptable range for this test is between 2.0 and 3.0 and dosages are adjusted accordingly so that this can be achieved over a period of time. There was much clucking a couple of weeks ago when mine went up to 4.2 as it is thought to be a bad thing if your blood does not clot because if you bleed, your body can empty itself of this rather necessary fluid.

As I sat in Dracula’s castle this morning, stupidly trying to predict the eventual LED readout figure I was willing my blood to be right so that I didn’t have yet more visits if it had gone high or low. I am quite proud of my ability to do this and had decided that today I would make my blood a comfortable 2.7. Clearly my concentration level must have slipped because after they beep, the somewhat disconcerting number 6.1 appeared on the screen of the bloodometer. During their training, nurses are taught to gasp almost noiselessly but for the trained eye like mine you can look for dilation of the pupils. This is way too high and warfarin is off the menu until Friday at least when I go back for another check.

As is my practice, I starting doing a bit of research into high INR levels as soon as I got home. If you search "INR levels" on Google the first listing is a study of mortality rates and INR levels but thankfully this is for Sweden so it doesn’t apply to me. Further research indicates that this is one of those complicated fields which is full of statistical analysis i.e. it’s boring so should be left to the Wizards who enjoy reading this sort of stuff when relaxing in the evenings.

I briefly considered putting on loads of quilted skiing gear so that I could avoid bumping into sharp corners in the kitchen. Unfortunately it was 24 degrees outside so that was a non starter. Bleeding profusely would make me light headed but being too hot turns me into one of the most evil tempered bastards on earth. No brainer. I’ll just have to be careful till the all clear siren goes.

Cancer is Marvellous

Cancer is Marvellous. It does admittedly have it's drawbacks, but it can do the impossible. I spent most of the second half of the 20th Century, firmly convinced, that although I knew a tiny number of people who deserved the accolade "human being", the vast majority of the population were really just wasting perfectly good oxygen. Greed, violence, misery and spite have not only become the norm, it seems to be what people actually aspire to. I'm not just talking about those who want to achieve at the expense of others - it's the ordinary folk who all just want. They want money, possessions, recognition, more possessions and everything seems to revolve around rights.

Everyone seems to believe that their "rights" are somehow God given and that they must claim their "rights" at every given opportunity. It gets worse all the time here in the UK but please do not get me started on the US! God knows how things will break down when the last remaining unqualified US citizen gets his/her law degree and there's nobody left to represent. Other than in real extremes, misery in our western affluent society is almost completely self imposed and inflicted. My attitude has basically been - if you are that unhappy with your lot just go. I don't mean, go abroad or go away from here I mean seriously GO. It didn't take the last few years living with screwed up cells to convince me that life is really a pretty damn good thing to participate in. You don't want to? Fine - quit, and for God's sake, when you're going - don't moan about it. O.K, having established my general view of value of homo sapiens I'll come to my point.

Cancer has let me find a much larger than expected number of people with whom I'm really happy to share the planet. Having done the maths, I know that if extrapolated world wide there would still only be enough of them to fill a pretty small cul de sac, but nevertheless it was a shock. I still think it would be sensible to nuke everyone outside this group of people but no doubt there will be detractors to that proposition. I've just come into contact with almost exclusively good people since my first diagnosis. I don't mean goody goodies, I mean down to earth, honest, caring, good.

I've talked about a few of them in other parts of this site but I'll give you another example. I was recently referred by my Macmillan alien to an occupational therapist. Never having had cause to think about this term I vaguely thought they were the people who rubbed deep heat ointment on injured footballers thighs. A brief scan of my mental database picked up the word physio in relation to the footballing function so I had to reclassify the ones of the occupational variety. A very affable lady turned up at our house to discuss how life could be improved bearing in mind my condition and prognosis. As the conversation went on she made some interesting observations and suggestions and I increasingly began to think that her visit was far from the waste of time I had feared.

I also began to gain the distinct impression that I would not like to be in an organisation which was standing in the way of her protecting the interests of one of her clients. Not without a pump action shotgun I wouldn't. Events following this meeting have confirmed to me that indeed, none of the local bureaucracies issue shotguns to their personnel. She is a wand waver.

Low Carb Diet Side Effects

Some of these low carb diet side effects can be problematic for people with health conditions, particularly if they're taking medications for those conditions. Often the side effects are good, but you need to be aware they can happen and talk to your medical care provider because they'll need to monitor your progress and possibly change, reduce, or eliminate medications as you progress.

For instance, a very common low carb diet side effect is lowered, or more even blood sugar levels. This is an important low carb diet side effect for any diabetic, particularly ones that take insulin shots or medication.

Since low carb diets can drastically reduce your blood sugar levels naturally, your doctor may need to adjust your medication levels to compensate for those changes. Another low carb diet side effect is of course losing a lot of weight.
This by itself is not technically a side effect, but related effects of losing weight can include regulation of blood pressure, easing or disappearance of digestive tract problems, and resolution of breathing problems too.

There are some low carb diet side effects that are not harmful, but you need to be aware of them because they are uncomfortable at best. These low carb diet side effects are more common during the first one to five days on the diet, and are side effects of your body adjusting to your eating changes. These side effects can include headaches; nausea; dizziness; lethargy or low energy; severe sugar cravings; irritability; and constipation.