I have been on the Ruxolitinib trial for two years now. It has been good so far. The trial was designed to address the symptoms of CLL and prove, disprove, or measure its efficacy in individual patients. The requirements of the trial were that each person enrolled must not be treatment naive, meaning that they…
I seldom try to organize my thoughts when I start writing. Perhaps you’ve noticed. No doubt, you’ve noticed. I just start and let ‘er fly from there. “We probably need to start you back on regular treatment (formerly chemotherapy and immunotherapy, now just immunotherapy),” said Dr. Gooday at the Big-as-Texas Cancer Center (BATCC) on Monday.…
Several of you have e-mailed me since my hiatus from FaceBook, wondering if I am OK since I have not posted to my blog in a while. I am making it, me and this ruxolitinib, making it in spite of the August torpor, miasma, and malaise that strikes Mississippi every year. August is the most…
I had been seduced by righteous eating. Steven Bratman, MD It was purely by accident that I stumbled across Steven Bratman, a physician who practices alternative medicine. He has written books and done studies on what he describes as a mental condition known as ORTHOREXIA, or the perhaps unhealthy compulsion to eat healthy foods. Goodness…
Jonathan Gruber. “I don’t know who he is,” said Nancy Pelosi, recently. “You meant to say Hans Gruber,” someone said. “No. Jonathan Gruber, not Hans Gruber. Hans Gruber is the bad guy, John McClain’s nemesis, in the movie Diehard,” someone offered. “Well, they seem a lot alike to me,” was the reply, “Only Hans knew…
This month is the 6th anniversary of the unknown infection that put me in the hospital for a week. Mainmost (one of my long-time physicians) failed to find any specific thing wrong, but after a week of non-stop testing and IV antibiotics, I improved enough for them to let me go home, having had, they…
After my hospital adventure with the kidney stone, I return home on Tuesday, April 22, pain medicine in hand, to wait it out until I went to see Uroman, my long-time urologist, on Friday the 25th. He knows me well and is a friend as well as my physician. He has always been helpful, lays…
Understanding health insurance and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is as complicated as a Chinese typewriter. But, I admit it. I have benefited from the ACA in spite of my previous lamentations. I have written many times about the frustration with my health insurance, presenting fictitious dialogs with Plan Admin, the name I gave to…
“Formulary? I didn’t even know I had one,” you might say. “What is a formulary?” Your formulary is the list of approved medications for which your health insurance will pay full policy benefits. The amount of benefits varies under all policies, based on whether the drugs are generic or single-sourced under patent protection. Naturally, the…
Mississippi Chris Sharp CLL Blog 