That's good doctor advice, Bill. They're not all so wise. Some of the best advice and observations I've heard from doctors over the years are: "With cancer, anything is possible," "If you spend the rest of your life worrying about cancer, you'll waste the rest of your life," and ...

the Tramadol may be more of a low level "background" pain relief and they often add in heavier stuff for break through pain so you're not on the big guns at higher doses all the time ( multimodal balanced approach = often much better results with less side effects ) The best thing about T...

Well, I've lived longer than I expected when diagnosed, so I'm already reaping the rewards of that approach.

My, I'm getting chatty these days. Must be because I'm all caught up on my work and don't have any medical stuff for another month or so. So, please bear with me, if you choose, as I ramble on. As I've observed many times before, cancer forces you to make some tough life choices--choices that you ca...

One of my hospital roommates last year--a young guy in really rough shape--was getting Methadone. I assumed that he was a heroin addict who needed the stuff to avoid withdrawl, but a nurse later told me that they use it for pain relief as well. Fortunately, I'm not on anything other than Tramadol at...

I'm far from "narcotic naive," having had more than my share of surgery and other procedures requiring painkillers, but I don't really understand the difference between them and why a doctor would prescribe oxycodone over hydrocodone or dilaudid or oxycontin or fentaynal. I've had all that...

I don't know if you saw my note, but next time you're in there, especially if you're around for a few days, and you need some errands run or what have you, let me know. I'm only an hour away, and at MSK every two weeks at least anyway. "I'm going to give you a mild dose of Ativan so that we do...

Still glad to see you back :) Thanks. Me too! I have a couple of funny ICU stories. Here's one: I'm sitting there, minding my own business, when one of my surgeon's PAs comes in and says, very seriously, "Mr. BrownBagger, I see you're a drinker and I think you're nervous about not getting a dr...

Nice snags. You could do breath mint commercials w/those. :wink: Porcelain or ceramic, crowns, veneers? Natural looking. BS Partial crowns. They're porcelain crowns, I believe, that wrap around the front and bottoms of the tooth, but keep the existing tooth structure in the back. My insurance would...

Thanks for the memorial/reminder, CRG. But our friend Starbuck will never be /OT. Just say'n (and I'm sure you agree).

Jumper cables, maybe. This was actually the setup for an echocardiogram to rule out a heart problem, which it did.

This is the other post of mine from the other day that went "poof" in the electronic realm. I'm rewriting it now because it's an example of me "putting my money where my mouth is, i.e., "act like you're going to live a long time, etc." (see my motto at the bottom of my sig.)...

The original post about this went "poof," but I'm resurrecting it FYI and as a reminder that being knocked out for surgery is never a routine procedure. I went into the Sloan-Kettering hospital in Manhattan for what was supposed to be my first of three radiation treatments (aka brachythera...

All the best to you, Frenchie. You've hung in there like a champ. Hard not to admire that.

Good journeys from here on out, my friend.

Back in October I went in to Sloan-Kettering for a bronchosopy, which is typically an in-and-out-the-same-day procedure. For some reason, I got held overnight afterward "for observation" according to an email that I wrote to a business associate. I've been in and out of the hospital so man...