fed up
Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2018 8:27 am
venting re my friend's cancer xp.
i tabled the zinc idea much earlier this year, then gave it up to a large extent when we heard 'no' re zinc testing. or so we thought.
i also had to do a lot more reading, to build up confidence re throwing zinc at breast cancer specifically.
then within the last few days, as a line result in a more recent lab printout, there it is. a zinc result from june. it was 10 umol/l, with no red flag re deficiency. this is at a major cancer centre, operating within a system supposedly using 11.5-18.5 umol/l for its reference range, and the lab was not set up to recognize 10 as a problem. they are not screening cancer patents for zinc deficiency. after success with a much more recent requisition (results still not in, we found the june info while looking for recent updates) it was apparently a big challenge even finding the right vial because, per one of the nurses, 'in seventeen years, i've never had to test zinc'. why??!!??!
so now, she's been through chemo (and was hospitalized for days with a serious infection in the process), all while zinc deficient. awesome.
the next thing that happens is the radical mastectomy, the major concern there being whether the rate at which she heals, will allow for radiation on schedule. yeah no reason to optimize zinc though right :S
oh and her sister who went for mammogram since this all transpired, has lumps. those are still in the process of being tested. that sister had success with her initial zinc test request. 10.3 umol/l. i only saw hard copy and i don't recall details re range, but i don't think they flagged deficiency in her case either.
am i the only one thinking negligence???
ps all this time i was thinking my original deficiency was flagged because i was tested at a large hospital using a good reference range vs a local neighbourhood lab using its own local/internal range. now realizing it was just dumb luck that possible ms patients in that jurisdiction happen to get sent to this one hospital within the city's system, whose lab just happens to be set up to recognize the reference range according to the regional lab standards. yikes.
i tabled the zinc idea much earlier this year, then gave it up to a large extent when we heard 'no' re zinc testing. or so we thought.
i also had to do a lot more reading, to build up confidence re throwing zinc at breast cancer specifically.
then within the last few days, as a line result in a more recent lab printout, there it is. a zinc result from june. it was 10 umol/l, with no red flag re deficiency. this is at a major cancer centre, operating within a system supposedly using 11.5-18.5 umol/l for its reference range, and the lab was not set up to recognize 10 as a problem. they are not screening cancer patents for zinc deficiency. after success with a much more recent requisition (results still not in, we found the june info while looking for recent updates) it was apparently a big challenge even finding the right vial because, per one of the nurses, 'in seventeen years, i've never had to test zinc'. why??!!??!
so now, she's been through chemo (and was hospitalized for days with a serious infection in the process), all while zinc deficient. awesome.
the next thing that happens is the radical mastectomy, the major concern there being whether the rate at which she heals, will allow for radiation on schedule. yeah no reason to optimize zinc though right :S
oh and her sister who went for mammogram since this all transpired, has lumps. those are still in the process of being tested. that sister had success with her initial zinc test request. 10.3 umol/l. i only saw hard copy and i don't recall details re range, but i don't think they flagged deficiency in her case either.
am i the only one thinking negligence???
ps all this time i was thinking my original deficiency was flagged because i was tested at a large hospital using a good reference range vs a local neighbourhood lab using its own local/internal range. now realizing it was just dumb luck that possible ms patients in that jurisdiction happen to get sent to this one hospital within the city's system, whose lab just happens to be set up to recognize the reference range according to the regional lab standards. yikes.