Chemo - session 2

Worldwide (Map) 
October 6, 2022 – 619,794,750 confirmed infections; 6,552,300 deaths
October 7, 2021 – 236,735,200 confirmed infections; 4,832,640 deaths
October 8, 2020 – 36,069,000 confirmed infections; 1,055,000 deaths

US (Map) 
October 6, 2022 - 96,552,300 confirmed infections; 1,061,500 deaths
October 7, 2021 – 44,086,000 confirmed infections; 708,200 deaths
October 8 , 2020 – 7,550,000 confirmed infections; 212,000 deaths

SA (Coronavirus portal) 
October 6, 2022 - 4,019,800 confirmed infections; 102,185 deaths
October 7, 2021 – 2,909,000 confirmed infections; 88,000 deaths
October 8, 2020 – 685,155 confirmed infections; 17,250 deaths

Post from:
Oct 7, 2021, “Confusion and complication” 
Oct 8, 2020, “Debatable” 

News blues

As Meso Mary heads into chemotherapy session  - 2 of 4, we hope, and no more needed, at least for now – we’re heartened by ongoing research into this environmental disease brought exposure to asbestos.

Vaccine therapy is a new mesothelioma treatment option that involves immunotherapy. A cancer vaccine instructs your immune system to make antibodies against cancer cells, similar to how the flu vaccine prepares your body to identify and attack the influenza virus. Mesothelioma vaccines are still in clinical trials where scientists are testing them for safety and effectiveness.
In a phase II mesothelioma clinical trial, patients who received the WT1 vaccine had a median overall survival of 21.4 months compared to 16.6 months for those who received a placebo. Doctors are also testing the benefits of combining mesothelioma vaccines with immunotherapy drugs such as Opdivo.

Read more >> 

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On war…
Photos of war in Ukraine (warning, don’t view if you are squeamish) >>

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The Lincoln Project:
President Biden Speaks in Florida Following Hurricane Ian  (1:17 mins)
Mitch found out  (0:49 mins)
Ron DeSantis on Hurricane Ian Looters  (0:43 mins)

Healthy planet, anyone?

A “luxury game reserve” is planned for on at least 580 sq miles (1,500 sq km) of land in Loliondo, bordering the Serengeti national park of Tanzania, and evicting more than 70,000 Maasai from ancestral land.

Lawyers for Maasai herders who say the Tanzanian government is trying to violently evict them from their ancestral land to make way for a luxury game reserve have lodged an appeal against a court ruling that dismissed their case. …
The government says the land is within the park and should, therefore, be given over solely to conservation purposes rather than being disrupted by human activity. But the herders say the land has been rightfully theirs for generations and accuse the authorities of wanting to use it to create a luxury game reserve run by a UAE-owned company.

Read more >> 

In Africa’s Sahel,

Russian mercenaries may be poised for further expansion in Africa’s strategically important Sahel region after the latest coup d’etat in the region, western officials and analysts fear.
Ibrahim Traoré, a 34-year-old army captain, took power in Burkina Faso on Friday, overthrowing Lt Col Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, whom he accused of failing to effectively counter rising violence by Islamic extremists in the unstable and poverty-stricken country.
…
Many believe Traoré is likely to invite assistance from Moscow to boost the country’s flailing struggle against Islamic extremists…
Over the weekend, hundreds of protesters, some waving Russian flags, lit fires, tore down barbed wire and threw stones at the French embassy in the capital, Ouagadougou, and attacked a French cultural centre in the city of Bobo-Dioulasso.
The coup comes amid a new push by Russia to win influence and gain access to valuable raw materials in sub-Saharan Africa in recent months, after years of careful if opportunistic efforts across the continent.
Some of the efforts are led by paramilitaries from the Wagner group, a complex of companies linked to the Kremlin and founded by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian businessman and close ally of Putin.

Hmmmm. Russia? The Wagner group? (a private Russian mercenary business). Businessmen and close allies of Putin?
My unsolicited advice? Avoid entanglement with Russia. As pointed out above, Russia’s efforts “to win influence and gain access to valuable raw materials in sub-Saharan Africa” follows “years of careful if opportunistic efforts across the continent.”
South Africa’s entanglements with Russia “unquestionably represented Russia’s biggest foreign policy success story on the continent.”  Continued “foreign policy success” stories will likely mean Russians will build nuclear power plants in South Africa. Imagine. South Africa, a country proving every day for the past dozen years that it has been incapable of supplying “traditional” coal-powered electricity  trends towards accepting Russian “help” to build and run nuke power facilities.
This portends an utterly predictable disaster spreading toxic nuclear waste across southern Africa if greedy South African politicians succumb to Russian blandishments – and lots of money.
Just sayin’….

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Another session of chemo pending becomes real when Mary takes one of two Decadron – generic for Dexamethasone – the day prior to chemo. She takes another two today, the day of chemo, and plans to take the final two of this session tomorrow.
Decadron is a steroid that reduces inflammation, “helps the symptoms of inflammatory conditions… also helps calm your immune system... and when taken for nausea and vomiting … is thought to work on chemical messengers in the brain to reduce feelings of sickness.”
Roll on, Decadron – help Mary "treat conditions."
Last go round, Mary did not suffer vomiting but did suffer nausea and who knows what "other conditions."
This time around, she’s taking seriously advice received about the four different types of anti-nausea meds she’d been prescribed … and she's settled on Zyprexa (although she's not taken any yet. Results pending). She avoided this drug during her first session – trooper that she is, she simply put up with nausea – as Dr Google described Zyprexa as “an antipsychotic medication that affects chemicals in the brain [and is] used to treat psychotic conditions such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder (manic depression) in adults….”
Chemo, indeed, has side effects, but what to make of treating nausea with drugs designed to treat “schizophrenia and bipolar disorder”? To mangle a quote: Ours not to wonder why, ours but to swallow and not die.
Dr Google's warnings about Zyprexa that impacted Mary's decision

• Zyprexa may impair your thinking or reactions. Be careful if you drive or do anything that requires you to be alert.
• Avoid drinking alcohol while taking Zyprexa.
• Zyprexa is not approved for use in older adults with dementia-related psychosis.
• You may gain weight or have high cholesterol and triglycerides (types of fat) while taking this medicine…. Your blood may need to be tested often.
• Olanzapine can cause high blood sugar (hyperglycemia). If you are diabetic, check your blood sugar levels on a regular basis while you are taking this medicine.
• Avoid getting up too fast from a sitting or lying position… Dizziness or severe drowsiness can cause falls, fractures, or other injuries. Get up slowly and steady yourself to prevent a fall.
• Avoid becoming overheated or dehydrated….It is easier to become dangerously overheated and dehydrated while you are taking Zyprexa.

Hmmmm.
National Cancer Institute reports that:

Scientists think they may have found a promising treatment for people with advanced cancer who have nausea and vomiting not caused by chemotherapy. In a small NCI-funded study, treatment with olanzapine (Zyprexa) greatly reduced cancer patients’ nausea and vomiting compared with a placebo.
Many people with advanced cancer experience chronic nausea and vomiting that can make it difficult to eat and can lessen their overall well-being. 

The scary part of this report?
“… a promising treatment for people with advanced cancer who have nausea and vomiting not caused by chemotherapy.”
So many treatments for mesothelioma are “promising” rather than confirmed. Mesotelioma is described as "rare" - therefore, IMHO, not worthy of funding as it's unlikely to produce profits over time. Additionally, Mary’s oncology team presents Zyprexa as an effective anti-nausea drug, not a drug for “people with advanced cancer who have nausea and vomiting not caused by chemotherapy.” This disconnect will be further explored with the oncology team.

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Tuesday, I posted about a less than stellar visit  with a phlebotomist likely fresh out of phlebotomy school who poked Mary twice with a sharp needle before “finding a vein” and extracting blood.
Wednesday, Mary’s inner elbow – the site of the poking – is bruised although no longer swollen. I’d fretted that the bungled extraction might lead to infection, right at the time Mary is most vulnerable to infection. Judging by the lack of swelling, we have one less side effect to worry about.
However, Mary received a phone call from the oncology clinic to return to the clinic to extract more blood. Not only had the green phlebotomist made a hash of the blood letting, she'd not taken sufficient blood to complete all pre-treatment tests. Grrrr, the day before chemo, the patient is advised to "rest". Running around to pick up the pieces of a boteched blood extraction during late afternoon traffic on the roads (no time for bus riding) is hardly restful.

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Darker earlier and later in the San Francisco Bay Area 

SF Bay Area:
Sunrise: 7:10am
Sunset: 6:44pm

KZN, South Africa:
Sunrise: 5:30am
Sunset: 6:03pm