Spring Has Sprung (in California)
As I expected, my doctor decided today that I must have a bacterial antagonist living inside me because I shouldn't be running fevers this long after having the flu. She prescribed an antibiotic; we'll see how that goes. In other news...
As seen on the drive home...
I drove behind a postal police car all the way across the Bay Bridge. I've never seen a postal police car! It had a rack of lights on top and looked very official, in that "armed officers will hunt you down and make your life scary" kind of way.
I couldn't help but imagine the car speeding up to a house with a large, overgrown garden, a woman in her 80s wearing a housecoat standing in front, holding the mail with unsteady hands. As the car approaches, an officer shoulder-rolls out the passenger side, megaphone in hand. He rises halfway to his feet, then blares through the megaphone, "Drop the letter and back away! It is not addressed to you!"
Hee, hee, hee.
I also drove through Rockridge (pretty area of Oakland) and saw a lovely sight. By the roadside was a huge patch of daffodils. Spring had sprung here in Northern California! I've always seen daffodils as an announcement of the change in seasons. What pretty, happy flowers.
More doctor-ly stuff...
Back at home, I had a phone conversation with the director of DNA Direct, explaining my test results for the CYP2D6 test. That's the one that determines whether I am an extensive or poor metabolizer of drugs like Tamoxifen, based on certain genes.
As it turns out, I am something I hadn't yet heard of - an intermediate metabolizer! That means that I have one functional CYP2D6 gene and one non-functional one. This may mean that I get more side effects from drugs that need this enzyme to metabolize properly (and that I metabolize it slower) but they really don't know for sure. Intermediate metabolizers are no doubt not as interesting to study as poor metabolizers.
It just figures that if there is a test done on me, the results will always be vague, intermediate, or inconclusive. It's my way. Drives me nuts!
It might seem a moot point to get the results of this test because, after all, I already stopped taking Tamoxifen. To be honest, I was kind of hoping I'd be a poor metabolizer, kind of as a "get out of jail free" card. Who could argue me discontinuing Tamoxifen if it wasn't going to help me anyway? But, alas, that wasn't the case. It is interesting, though, because there are other drugs that are metabolized using the same enzyme and those that I've taken before have given me lots of side effects with very little benefit. Coincidental? I really don't know. But it's food for thought.
Similar yarns
Technorati Tags: - ‹ previous
- 261 of 409
- next ›
Post new comment