But it's just an LWP (little white pill)

It started when Carolyn started having a little more heartburn than usual, then a little nausea, then some cramps, a finally a visit to the Emergency Room.

Like most of us, Carolyn is great at self-medicating (with legal drugs). After all it's very clear on the label what a pill is for. Right? Well, a while ago her heartburn got too frequent for Tums or Mylanta so the doctor upped her Omeprizole prescription to twice a day. But that wasn't quite enough. Then she remembered some "little white pills" that she had been prescribed early in her myasthenia diagnosis. They were to control nausea if that became a problem with the myasthenia medications. That never happened so she stopped taking them and ended up with a large stash of LWP's.

During this latest bout (yesterday) she tried them again after the Omeprezole, Mylanta, and Tums weren't doing the job. At first she couldn't tell if they helped or made things worse. She was outside helping Edward chop down some tree branches when her heartburn and nausea got really bad (8 on a scale from 1 to 10). Fearing a possible heart attack, Carolyn went down like a punctured tire. Plans for the rest of the day were canceled or at least shelved. With Ed and Tiff taking over Ben & Michael, I drove Carolyn to the E.R.

After 2.5 hours we got a diagnosis that was far from definitive. Rather than a heart attack they did find a urinary track infection but her symptoms still exceeded that cause. In reviewing all the medication she had been prescribed. the advice nurse began to think that it really was the LWP.

So while the rest of you were enjoying the beach, the mountains, or just a good movie, we got to enjoy the Sacramento Kaiser ER.