TheBanyanTree: Continuing Out of Darkness

[Sally Larwood]

I am hearing more and more about doctors prescribing drugs without checking the medications they've prescribed in the past. 
Two friends have thought they were having heart attacks then it was discovered that they were having adverse effects from the new medication reacting with the old. 
One friend was on blood pressure tablets that kept his BP steady, then the new medication, which was for something else, had the side effect of lowering the BP!
He had chest pains, could stand and couldn't see!  It could have killed him, his BP was so low. 

This is happening again and again, and as my friends are as old if not older than me, one day it could kill them!

Sal 

Sent from my iPad 

> On 26 May 2014, at 0:26, Gail Richards <mrsfes at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I had this happen once...  New town, new doc.  I THINK I have a sinus infection.  He says, "What would you like me to give you for that?"  And that was the only question he asked.  I told him the name of a decongestant that had worked for me in the past and an antibiotic and he wrote two prescriptions.  Luckily, I had been right and the meds worked, but I had never had a doctor do that before.   I felt bad when he was killed in a small, private plane crash a couple years later, but thought it must have been karmic retribution for who knows how many prescriptions he wrote for people.
> 
> I'm so glad you're feeling better, Monique!  Even if it's only a tiny bit better, it's a tiny bit in the right direction and those of us who love you rejoice!!
> 
> -----Original Message----- From: Monique Colver
> Sent: Saturday, May 24, 2014 7:16 PM
> To: Banyan Tree
> Subject: TheBanyanTree: Continuing Out of Darkness
> 
> Last Monday I made a doctor’s appointment, after it occurred to me that the
> ever-present smell of death and decay wasn’t all in my head, and that I
> might actually be sick. These are the sorts of things that one in recovery
> from major depression may not realize at first, because one, and by one I
> mean me, may be dense and not really as smart as I tell people I am. I know
> enough to know that I know virtually nothing, which is just smart enough to
> be trouble.
> 
> Anyway, I made an appointment, and good thing too, since I was really sick,
> as in constant running off to the bathroom. My usual doctor, who usually
> greets me with a bit of trepidation, wasn’t in, and I said I would be happy
> to see anyone at all, because I had a sinus infection and didn’t want to
> wait.
> 
> And so I saw another doctor. She looked me over and pronounced me healthy.
> 
> “No, you don’t understand,” I said, “I’m pretty sure I have a sinus
> infection.”
> 
> “No, I don’t think so,” she said, in her vague eastern European accent.
> 
> “It’s okay, I never present typically,” I told her, which is true, “So
> couldn’t we just try the antibiotics and see how it goes?”
> 
> I was convinced that I had a sinus infection, you see, because it would
> explain why I couldn’t taste food, and why the smell of death followed me
> everywhere. It didn’t explain everything, but hey, my diagnostic skills
> only go so far.
> 
> “It wouldn’t explain the diarrhea,” she said, and I said, “Look, I’m sort
> of in a hurry here, I may need to run off to the bathroom any time now.”
> 
> We reviewed my most recent labs, which indeed showed I’m pretty healthy for
> someone of my age and disposition (rotten, in case you were wondering – I
> have a rotten disposition). She’d like all her patients to have an A1C like
> mine, which I thought was very nice of her to say, since she didn’t really
> know me or anything.
> 
> She decided antibiotics certainly wouldn’t hurt, and gave me a
> prescription, though it was obvious she thought it a pointless exercise. I
> didn’t really care.
> 
> I’ve been feeling my way back so slowly, so feebly, so absent-mindedly,
> almost, as if my head is filled with cotton, as if I’m entering a new
> territory, but it’s the same place, there’s nothing new here, only my
> perceptions, which are still quick to skew sideways if I’m not careful.
> It’s constant vigilance, and sometimes I let myself down, and sometimes I’m
> not sure I can see where I’m going, but I know where I want to be. I just
> want me back.
> 
> Picture me batting around clouds of fluff, innocent clouds of fluff, but
> I’m flailing so energetically that I can’t even tell they’re harmless
> because I’m too intent on getting free of them. It amuses me to picture
> that, which is something.
> 
> Something is better than nothing.
> 
> Anyway, the antibiotics kicked in pretty fast, and the smell of death and
> decay left me. This is no small thing. Sure, when one knows it’s just a
> sinus infection, one can discount the annoying smells, but when one thinks
> it’s all part of the depression, well, it gives one pause. The prior week
> I’d asked for a refill of an anti-anxiety, just to get me past the rough
> spots, and sometimes I couldn’t tell what was anxiety, and what was
> depression, and what was simple fear, and what was physical. It was all
> jumbled together, and pulling out the separate strands so I can deal with
> them and move on has been rather labor intensive. It’s exhausting work,
> this getting better, and sometimes it feels like taking one step forward
> and two back. But sometimes it’s two steps forward and only one back. Some
> days I feel as if the sadness of the world is all within me, a well of
> despair and grief, and I push back at it, because it’s not my place to feel
> all of that, I want only what is rightfully mine. I don’t want all of it,
> and I don’t know why I feel it. But I’d rather not, thank you very much.
> 
> I hope you have no idea what I’m talking about, that all this talk of
> depression is a mystery to you, because if you understand, you’ve felt it
> too, and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.
> 
> Especially you.
> 
> M