I do still have fliers that I didn't hand out though, I keep thinking that I am going to hit the neighbors up one of these afternoons when I find myself with time to work on this thing.
I honestly don't know what to say this week. I find myself wishing that I had saved some sort of, 'best for last' type of thing. Honestly I was giving all I had during the length of the internship itself, so I don't have much left.
It is not as though there are no more meds to discuss; but most of my focus is now centered on doing the final analysis. All of the information might be interesting, but without a summary statement of some kind...all other effort would be sort of lacking.
This week I am going to skip doing a feature. Until I get an email telling me when the program is going to officially be over this could very well be my last post.
Over the last 4 months I have noticed several things; in previous posts I have made brief mention of some of these things, but I think now would be a good time to list them in greater detail. Also, doing this will help me to write out some ideas for a final analysis.
After all of the research and work I have put into this the most I think I have learned is about people. There is so much of social construct in what we do. Whenever I approached someone about their medications they were quick to inform me that they did not take medications, or drugs, of any kind and they tried to be as natural and healthy as possible. That is what prompted me to make the paper surveys in boring old OTC medications, because then I could talk people into doing surveys. There is not a single person from the western world who has never taken an over-the-counter anti-inflammatory drug; I am sorry, but to say you have never taken Tylenol or Ibuprofen ever is just laughable. We even have a version that is made for kids that they can chew and is supposed to have a bubble gum flavor or something.
The other thing that is funny is this idea that somehow introducing a 'foreign substance' like Tylenol into your body is a bad thing. Yet another thing that seems to have happened to us in the western world is this idea that older cultures somehow knew what they were doing and we are just a bunch of fools putting toxic things into ourselves. Not all natural things are good; if the body were left to it's own devices - as it often was in older times - to sort out a fever or broken bone etc. then the person either didn't live long, or walked with a limp and so on. One of the ancient codes of law known as Hammurabi's Code talks about there being a punishment affixed for botched surgery, and it affixes the payment. There are futher instances of surgical codes, but I have chosen to quote the two that are most relevant to our discussion.
If a surgeon has operated with the bronze lancet on a patrician for a serious injury, and has cured him, or has removed with a bronze lancet a cataract for a patrician, and has cured his eye, he shall take ten shekels of silver.
If a surgeon has operated with the bronze lancet on a patrician for a serious injury, and has caused death, or has removed a cataract for a patrician, with the bronze lancet, and has made him lose his eye, his hands shall be cut off. (http://www.commonlaw.com/Hammurabi.html)
If the age of something makes it better or more 'natural' then why are we currently using surgical stainless steel in place of bronze lancets?
I have also learned that there is no pharmaceutical treatment of the hydrochephalic child. That seems a shame to me. There are treatments for adults, but not children. In one of my earliest blog posts I mentioned a drug called Diamox which is being used for treatments of this kind, and may one day be used for treatments for children as well. More research is needed before any solid answers can be given. I have been thinking about this for a long time now, over the course of this internship all the way back to when I had occasion to speak with a man who is doing research on hydrocephalic rats - who happens to be a good friend of one of our neurosurgeons. This researcher talked about there being possibilities for pharmaceutical interventions, but also told us that the medications have been known to turn the patients' teeth yellow so they would not be considered in pediatric populations (I ask you, what is better? To have to have a shunt and potential revisions and ALL of the complications that go with that, or to have yellow teeth? Seems a no-brainer, in my opinion).
Though, despite all of these concerns and complaints I am better off for having this experience. I find that there are ideas rattling around my brain in relation to what I should write my final analysis on, but when I see the raw data I think I will have things narrowed down considerably.
Until I know the nature of things better, these are my thoughts today, I will hopefully post at least one more time, but who knows?
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