The Honest Truth

I have to admit this, especially since I am such a healthy patient. Its a constant issue for me.

I hate needles. I can't watch TV about the flu or another disease when they show people get injections.

Going for blood work is a bad day for me. And the last time I went I left behind yet another water bottle. Every Wednesday my husband gives me my methotrexate injection for my rheumatoid. I hate that part. I would never be able to give myself a shot.

Then today I had to take the cats to the vet and both of them got shots, and I was in the same room. They had my deepest sympathy on their discomfort from the shots - mental and physical anguish.

But now we can all take a deep breath and get on with our day. Until my next shot next week. Yuck.

Crowdfunding

So crowdfunding is a great concept. It helped get a friend's son injured in Thailand home in a first class seat when he was too injured to sit in a regular seat. It helped numerous independent movies get started. It can raise funds to help a family displaced by fire or other disaster.

But what about crowdfunding medical device design and start up? I would never have thought of that. I prefer my crowd funding to go to individuals and not to companies, especially overseas companies which makes me feel there is little or no recourse to get my money back or new product.

What I find a tad scary is companies are using crowd funding to fund the design and meet FDA approval requirements. So even if you think the concept is awesome, why are you prepaying for something that may never happen - and may end up with the 'As Seen on TV' label.

But now it seems companies are crowdfunding their new medical devices. Maybe it may make them get to market sooner but it doesn't speak to the company's financial stability. If you give them money to get off the ground, how are they going to continue to be solvent as the product develops? And what if they need to make multiple modifications to get approval? Will they continue to crowdfund? Go back and ask everyone for more money?

I kind of get the heebeejeebees on this one.

Progress with a certain degree of ickiness

Would you walk around with wires sticking out of the top of your head which is covered in bandages? I am not as concerned about how I look but the idea of wires sticking out of my head. And you have to change the transducers every three or four days. Hence the ick factor.

Glioblastomas are nasty brain tumors, the type that killed Senator Ted Kennedy. They are not easily treatable. These new devices use electromagnetic fields to control the tumor cells.

"The sophisticated system involves covering a shaved scalp with insulated electrical transducers, which transform electricity into electromagnetic energy. The transducer devices are affixed to the skin with wide overlapping bandages, giving the appearance of a high-tech shower cap. 

Electromagnetic fields — generated from electricity produced via a 6-pound battery pack that patients carry on their backs — pass through the skull and brain tissue, and target rapidly reproducing tumor cells, disrupting their delicate process of cell division.

The electromagnetic fields don’t damage the brain’s healthy neurons and anatomical structures because those structures are not undergoing cell division. The fields exert force on proteins — which become electrically charged when the tumor cell is in the process of dividing — and that halts the cell division and destroys the cancer cells."

So you have to carry around a six pound battery pack. That alone would slow me down with my bad back. The other problem is it costs, brace yourself, $21,000 each month. And currently Medicare and many insurers won't pay for it.

However the manufacturer expects, but is not guaranteed, FDA approval in the next year or so. But there is no guarantee of any insurance coverage in the future. To me there is the ick factor and the idea of big brother watching what you are thinking through your brain cells...

Heebee jeebees!!!!

Do you ever wonder about new cancer treatments and their potential side effects? As medical research capabilities advance, so do the weird things they do to our bodies. Surgery used to be where they cut you open and take out the bad things. Now they leave little markers behind or radiate you (intraoperative radiation) while you are sleeping.

I just found out that herceptin is not a medication in the sense that its something your body absorbs and uses. It is nanotechnology- meaning it is a created little thing that is infused into your body where I assume it decays and goes away.

Nano particles sometimes are used as carriers of medicine but I hope  they leave your body asap. I mean what if they stick around and hang out in your liver or something. What kind of problems might they cause later????

I have a surgical marker implanted in my left breast to prevent confusion on the part of radiologists when they look at mammogram readings to say 'this part isn't cancer so you can ignore all this little disaster'. When they put it in I wasn't concerned.... but now as I think about it, will it ever rot or decay? Now it kind of gives me the heebee jeebees that it is still there.

What else do I have in my body? Not much but as new research comes down the pipeline, I hope nothing gets left behind.