INSOMNIACS place to talk in the wee hours

HELLOoooooooooo i'm here-------- now Monday morning 201 am-------, but it's by choice vs insomnia---------went to a party........... Can't ever just be one of those reasonable people that goes to sleep after a party. Have been on the Cath thread.  Would have caught all of you if I came here first.

Would like to ask if you can think of something funny leave that as your last thought before you leave here.

So, now that puts me under the pressure of finding something funny- HMMMMMMMM

All the stupid things that people have asked about why my husband and I got cancer at the same time -----------as a nurse i gave them answers-----------Genetics for me and likely asbetosis exposure for him......... Its only recently that I realized it's none of their clucking business.    Duh----chemo/ anesthesia brain.

I did a thing on another thread about chemo anesthesia brain that i'm going to copy and paste here.

Squid -yes you got exactly what I was assessing. One nurse to another.

Which you pointed out and excellent discussion point. Anesthesia. You and I are aware of it. But lay people are not told of this. Everyone here almost has had chemo. We all talk of The infamous CHEMO brain. Anesthesia does the same thing and can last for weeks sometimes months. It especially deleterious  to the older the person becomes roughly 75+  and if there is any dementia it enhances it majorly.

For example, In 09 I had one chemo(failure --no more)and 4 anesthesias. Basically, It was 6-7 months beyond the last anesthesia that some else would be considered to be beyond all the effects of anesthesia. I was different because of the concurrent closed head trauma--direct brain injury,  being given cytoxan which crosses that barrier---oh well is another whole different problem---don't dwell on my problem unless you also had a closed head injury.

So, if someone had the original breast sx, then typically 2-4 more sx's for completion of recon +then minimum adjuvant chemo(typically4)in the neg node situation.... or more chemo's in the situation where nodes were involved -------the brain attack, which is my made up phrase, is so significant, months and months to perhaps into the second year, one may feel the brain is not working right.

There is a wonderful protective mechanism in the brain that is called the blood brain barrier. Some drugs can pass this barrier some cannot. Anesthesia drugs are chosen for this reason through lots of research. One statement that always amazed me in reading about anesthesia, is that it is unknown why deep levels of unconsciousness occurs because of these drugs. What is known is that they do cause these deep levels. So, if you ponder this---how long those drugs affect the brain over time cannot be measured truly accurately, if they admit they don't know why they work. Yes, testing is done, but a test can only measure what the questions are asking. No mental test of any nature measures everything. So, if science readily admits that they don't know why anesthesia works, my theory is --then they can't say for certain what the opposite end --or recovery is. What is known is it is different for each person.

Soooo, I hope this gives a little help in understanding further why your brain feels discombobulated(sic?). We say that word , but i can't find Merriam to see if it's actually in there LOL.

Everyone accepts that there is chemo brain------you here little about anesthesia brain. For us that have been assaulted(hence my phrase brain attack) by so many chemicals in such a short space of time have been hit with a double whammy. Then on top of that add in pain meds, antidepressants, and anti-anxiety meds that are designed to cross the blood brain barrier specifically------- well poor brain.

But our wonderful and magnificent designer created this wonderful organ to be so resilient. Again hope this helps.

L&H&P NAMASTE SHEILA

Bdavis if you are here well talk about steroids