Emergency Room Series: Substance Abuse Can Be Fatal

She is back with a blast!!!!

Hello everyone. Happy new month. I'm back! (Hehehe).

 I surely missed you guys and I hope you're all doing very okay.

I'm excited to be back to educate you about emergency room stories, happenings and trends in the medical field. You guys motivate me to keep posting stories because the feedbacks have been amazing and I'm glad you're all learning a thing or two from the series. Sorry about the sudden break tho.


You know, I keep saying that there's no greater gift in life than having a very good health. It comes with a price for some, for others they are very lucky they don't have to pay for it. For some, they pay little to get better, for others, they have to pay enormous amounts to stay alive and there is no guarantee that they'll come out of such illnesses. 

That was the case of a young man in his late twenties that was brought to the ER. He was said to have slumped at home and became unresponsive. I knew him, he was a regular patient at the hospital although I hadn't seen him in a while.

 He would get admitted and would be treated for gastric ulcer most times on the wards. He was really good looking then, good accent, clean skin with finely crafted tattoos. I could tell he was very well to do. I had read his case file once because i would see him at least once a month at the outpatient unit and I was curious to know what the problem was.

 I asked a fellow colleague who was part of the team treating him and I was told that he was an alcoholic, tobacco addict and a drug addict. I was told that despite his ulcer, he still continued with that sedentary lifestyle. He was warned several times and was even booked to see a psychiatrist, but he refused, stating that he wasn't 'mad'. He would only visit the hospital whenever the ulcer pain was unbearable. Even while on admission, he would sneak in alcohol into the hospital room. 

A doctor once saw a sachet of gin in his room bin and that was how they found out he drinks on admission. Whenever he was on admission, Not only do they have to deal with the ulcer which makes him vomit blood sometimes, they also have to deal with his alcohol withdrawal symptoms, he would begin to run a fever, scream and fling things around in his room for no reason.

Anyways, back to the ER. He was brought in semiconscious. His mother was with him. Poor woman was so worried. Little did I know that things had gotten out of hand since the last time I saw him. His mother said while they were on a short vacation in another country, he fell ill. He was taken to an hospital there where they ran tests and he was diagnosed with Stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer!. 

Just like that? I wondered. Is that how fast people now jump the cancer ladder? He was still looking okay the last time he came around, or so I thought. Now he looked so ill and pale. His eyes were very yellow which means the cancer had spread to the liver. He had lost so much weight in such a short time. His alcohol habit must have hastened things up!

He was placed on oxygen, had IV fluids and his blood was taken for series of tests. His sugar level was very high which was understandable because the pancreas is an important organ in controlling blood sugar. He was placed on insulin and several other IV meds. The mother said He was supposed to start chemotherapy but they had to return home because they had overstayed.

 His blood level was very low too so he had to be transfused. I felt pity for the mother who has to watch her child battle a terminal illness, one that could have been avoided. A few hours after the blood and other treatments he came around. He had to be referred to where he could start his chemotherapy, of which its just a palliative kind of care. The doctors who knew him and once treated him came to see him when they heard, they felt sad for him. He had all the classical symptoms of Stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer, trust doctors, they were quick to pinpoint them out from what they've been taught in med school.

 They couldn't agree more, the symptoms were glaring. Its going to be a sad, long and painful journey for him. Its going to be a lonely journey too, because I'm sure those friends that hailed him as a 'bad guy' and sat with him to do drugs will desert him and leave him to bear his cross alone. 

The days of partying drinking and testing new drugs are over and reality will set in. I can never forget his story. Chemotherapy wont cure it, but there's nothing God can't do.

I keep saying that there's no single benefit of taking illicit substances. People are drinking codeine like its water, sniffing cocaine like its nothing special. There are some very few lucky people who drink so much but are 'graced' that they don't develop any health related issue, but for a large majority, it eventually leads to death, and trust me, dying from alcohol can be the slowest and the most physically and emotionally draining death ever. Say no to drugs! Guard your health.

 Its so good to be back! (smiles)