Killed Instantly

He/She was killed instantly.

One often finds this phrase used, in newspaper articles, television news, or in simple conversation--a phrase that is punctuated somehow with a sense of deeper implication. It has a certain ring, something that demands a bit more air. Killed instantly.

Why is this significant? Did the deceased have insufficient time to enjoy his demise? Or perhaps it is the survivors who have been short changed by brevity--no time to weep or bring flowers, no time to devote to the passage, and then deposit for later use in fable, in autobiography--all the stuff that constitutes self image.

I should have thought that being killed instantly would be pretty easily preferable to being killed slowly and painfully, with plenty of time to appreciate the process.

Then again, perhaps deep down--I mean really deep down--the truly regretable thing about the instantaneous nature of this sort of departure is that it robs the stricken of one last chance for self-examination, of viewing life for once with an objective eye even as the light of the eye dims, to think of things unthought since the silence of the womb--life, spirit, soul, God.

I find at least the latter possibility appropriately touching.

Rituximab, most often associated with the (generally unsuccessful) treatment of cancer is now being talked about more and more in connection with the treatment of MS (as well as a handful of other innocent diseases). It is, they say, exciting news. The good news about this particular drug is that it is not very likely to kill instantly (although it is certainly possible). The thing about chemotherapy (i.e. the use of toxic chemicals on the vital systems that sustain human life) is that it's a process, as is made apparent in the therapy part of chemotherapy.

These things take time.

I read this in an online description of Rituximab, which may or may not be pertinent:

WARNING: FATAL INFUSION REACTIONS, TUMOR LYSIS SYNDROME (TLS), SEVERE MUCOCUTANEOUS REACTIONS, and PROGRESSIVE MULTIFOCAL LEUKOENCEPHALOPATHY (PML)

Hm. Kind of gives a guy pause to think.

Playing the Odds

We find, in the latest issue of MS Focus, that the upcoming oral drug, Cladrabine, has proven very effective in treating MS. However, it is also found that some people using the drug have developed significantly increased risk of serious infection and cancer.

All righty then. Lemme see now . . . uh yeah, I hereby withdraw my enthusiasm.

The funny thing is that this little caveat should be conveyed in such neutral seeming tone (like Oh by the way, perhaps we should mention). Research, as it seems to me, becomes enamored at itself, overly impressed with its achievements, under appreciative of the odds that the same could kill.

If you have MS, and if you go to a neurologist, chances are pretty much 100 percent that you will be put on the latest regimen of injections--despite the fact that the same will make you sick, or cause otherwise unnatural sorts of reactions--and if you are obstinate enough to refuse, you will be made to feel stupid, and careless, and maybe even fired from the particular clinic. Why? Because you have insulted the latest wisdom of medicine, and you have failed to appreciate the cutting edge reputation of your clinic.

Doctors are convincing as hell, and a person who is fearful, who is suffering, seeks to place his faith in the nearest hope.

We see the same thing with chemotherapy every day. That is the treatment. You got cancer, now you got to have the treatment. Period. That's how it is done.

Yes.

As far as I know, it killed by brother, my father, and my mother, and more quickly so than the cancer itself would have done.

I started out on Avonex. It was the best, I was told. At first you might suffer some side effects--flu-like symptoms, aches, chills, fevers--but these would likely fade and then for the most part disappear within a month or two.

For more than a year I patiently endured being sick as a dog every Thursday and Friday. I alternately shivered and burned, I endured aches in my legs that felt like broken bones, I walked around in a fog thicker than any that MS on its own had previously caused.

For you see, I wanted to do the right thing. I had a responsibility to myself and to my family. To shun the benefit of being 30 percent less likely to have a new attack of MS would be tantamount to sheer carelessness. Would it not?

And so that's how it works, folks. Now I am on Copaxone, which does not cause flu-like illness. It only causes burning or itching of the skin, bruises and weird raised welts, and sometimes, if you hit a bad spot with the needle, a feeling like you have shot yourself there with a small caliber pistol. So much better.

Or is it?

One often reads, in researching Copaxone, that exactly why it works is not exactly known. Interesting. Exactly what else, I wonder, is not exactly known about it?

And what are these persistent, itchy lumps that sometimes develop beneath injection sites? I put the question once to a Copaxone Rep over the phone. Well . . . you guessed it. It is not exactly known.

It is said that prayer has been shown in blind trials to produce curative results in test group being prayed for. It is not exactly known why.

What I'm wondering now is whether the percentage here is comparable to that gained in the medicinal results. Thirty percent, after all, is not all that much to shout about.