As a child, did you ever eat Alphabet soup? I rushed to see how many words I could spell on my spoon with the swollen pasta letters floating in hot steaming broth. I remember asking my mother for the big tablespoon so I could spell longer words, even though I could barely fit the spoon in my mouth. My strategy was consistent: actual words first followed by new magical words I would create with leftover letters. I have a sneaking suspicion this is how drug companies brainstorm names for new drugs they have developed. I envision a board room full of men and women in white coats, PhD diplomas, bowls of alphabet soup, and the largest spoons they can find.
When my father was part of a clinical trial at the National Institutes of Health to treat his Multiple Myeloma, he was given a plethora of drugs, all with names I cannot easily pronounce: Lenalidomide, Carfilzomib, Omeprazole, Zolpidem, Ranitidine, Enoxaparin, Plerixafor, Filgrastim, Levofloxacin, Azithromycin, Pamidronate, ValACYClovir and more. (Some of you just slowed down to try pronouncing out loud each of these drug names- you know who you are and I love that you tried!) Each prescription included a detailed list of possible side effects, which drug companies are legally obliged to include so consumers can make educated risk/benefit calculations. Sometimes, however, it feels like a dog and pony show. First, how sad our society needs to be instructed NOT to take the drug if we are allergic to it. Messaging to the lowest common denominator does not instill much confidence in the continuation of our species! I appreciate the importance of patients reporting side effects they experience, which is reasonable when there is only ONE drug. When there are over a dozen drugs, and drug interactions, how on earth do the doctors expect us to keep this corollary data straight?
One drug my father ingested had over fifty possible side effects alone, and I laughed out loud in disbelief when I read the list. I acknowledge this is serious business and people sadly die from negative side effects every day, but this list was over the top. The catalog of conditions included basics you would expect like fatigue, nausea, and headache, but also more obscure reactions like nosebleeds, double vision, and insomnia, and life-threatening realities including kidney, liver, and heart failure. It felt like, in an effort to punk the patient, the drug maker considered every possible ailment the human body could experience and added it to this particular list.
A person has two options: not take the drug and die from cancer or take the drug but possibly die from any number of side effects. A real conundrum that would make even a professional Vegas gambler tremble in her shoes. With every pill, I noted behavioral and physical changes in my dad, recorded his personal observations and complaints, and prayed he would experience the fewest reactions possible, especially ones that could kill him. Ultimately, he sampled from a buffet of side effects: some bad, some manageable, some temporary, some permanent, but his cancer is now in remission. So, hats off to the alphabet soup doctors; I am T-R-U-L-Y G-R-A-T-E-F-U-L.
(This is a brief excerpt from my memoir manuscript Scratch My Itch.)
Thanks for a light-hearted look at a very serious subject. If we can't laugh, we'll cry. And I'm glad your dad is cancer-free thanks to the meds and docs!