1 result for (book:deavf1 AND heading:"essay 1 thursday april 1 1982" AND stemmed:treatment)

DEaVF1 Essay 1 Thursday, April 1, 1982 3/44 (7%) hospital Mandali backside thyroid arthritis
– Dreams, "Evolution", and Value Fulfillment: Volume One
– © 2012 Laurel Davies-Butts
– Introductory Essays by Robert F. Butts
– Essay 1 Thursday, April 1, 1982

[... 9 paragraphs ...]

I should note, by the way, that her bedsores weren’t infected when she went into the hospital, but were less than a week later. How come? “It’s staph,” several of the nurses told us. A sign warning of infection was put on the door of 3B9, Jane’s room, and stayed there until she went home. “If the infection in that ulcer on your coccyx reaches the bone, it means at least a six-week stay in the hospital,” exclaimed Jane’s principal doctor, Rita Mandali (not her real name). Twice-daily treatments with hydrogen peroxide and a sulfadiazine cream were started. And I began to read up on how many kinds of staphylococcus bacteria alone there are, and indeed how common infections are in hospitals, since by their very nature those institutions are far from being the cleanest in town….

Jane’s hearing is much improved after treatment with decongestants and a pair of minor operations in which tiny drainage tubes were inserted through her eardrums—the procedure is called surery—to relieve internal blockage. Jane’s thyroid gland, Dr. Mandali finally told her, has simply ceased functioning, so the doctor has begun a program of cautiously rejuvenating my wife’s endocrine system, and thus all of her bodily processes, with a synthetic thyroid hormone in pill form (a low 50 micrograms to start). Jane is to take these pills for the rest of her life. At least that’s the current prognosis. Her double vision is not as severe and is supposed to keep improving as the hormone takes effect. Dr. Mandali has prescribed drops to keep Jane’s eyes lubricated, and a liquid salicylate medication (as a substitute for aspirin) to control joint pain and inflammation. Both of these products are taken four times a day. The increased glandular activity is also expected to have some beneficial effects upon Jane’s arthritis, and possibly upon her anemia (a condition that often accompanies arthritis). I asked that she be tested for food allergies, since I’d read that reactions to various foods and additives can trigger arthritis, but Dr. Mandali said that “if Jane is allergic she (Jane) would know it”—a position I came to most thoroughly disagree with. But usually, I thought, the trouble with having something diagnosed as rheumatoid arthritis is that not only do you have it when you go into the hospital, but when you leave it. Such is the state of the art of medicine in this case, unfortunately.

[... 1 paragraph ...]

She hadn’t dozed quite as much in the hospital, for there she’d been roused by much more constant stimuli. And now, we just have to wait an unknown number of weeks or months for the thyroid treatment to rejuvenate her vitality. At the moment it seems that Jane uses her available energy for the main task at hand. If she’s just eaten, for example, her body focuses its resources upon digestion, with perhaps conscious lapses resulting. During other longer periods, say, those resources may direct themselves toward healing or dreaming—or possibly both.

[... 30 paragraphs ...]

Similar sessions

DEaVF1 Essay 9 Monday, May 31, 1982 essay Mandali aspirin thyroid April
DEaVF1 Essay 6 Tuesday, April 20, 1982 candidate joints hospital surgical replacement
TPS6 Deleted Session April 16, 1982 superhuman thyroid crumbled helpless Synthroid
TPS6 Deleted Session May 10, 1982 Dr thyroid dozing Cummins gland