It has been mentioned that a certain member of our forum was denied the use of Remicade because they had been exposed to Human Papaloma Virus. I found this strange and disturbing. I had a irregular pap smear about 20 years ago. Believing that I had been exposed to HPV, they gave me a cone biopsy. Even though I thought of it as ridiculously minor I have always listed that biopsy on my list of previous surgeries. Never the less, absolutely no one has ever suggested I should not try Remicade, or any of the biologics because of it.
This is what I mean when I insist that medicine is an art, not a science. Different ateliers (and I use that word specifically, because I do not mean philosophies or “schools of though” I truly mean “the folks your doctor is hanging around with”) can have vastly different understandings of things, put emphasis in entirely different places. If medicine were quantifiable to irreducible laws, like physics or mathematics, this variation in what is known could not be possible; but it is, because in so complex a system the facts can be quite fluid.
Speaking of fluid, I am loosing some blood, these days, probably from rectum. More specifically, probably from the stricture in my rectum. My colon & sigmoid colon, feel fine—great. The ridiculous pain in my rectum has abated, but the cort-enemas & cortifoam don’t seem to be stopping the cherry red blood.
Dr. P is making an appointment for me at the Cleveland clinic for a second surgical opinion. Maybe at that atelier they have discovered how to dissolve scar tissue. (You know what’s funny? How many people have asked me “Can’t they use lasers?” WTF? What does that mean? Lasers for what?) Before that there is a Colonoscopy scheduled. I’ll need to remind them that the last time I had one of these done they had to use the baby’s scope, to get past the stricture; so they don’t make a colostomy moot before anything further is said, that or kill me with a ruptured colon leaking sepsis into my blood.
