Sunday am 8/6. Not feeling good. And some more history.

 

Most of these posts are vetted by Kristina.  Usually she’ll call and we chat, I write up a post, she reviews and edits it, then I make changes and post.  Today is different.  She’s not feeling well this morning and is having trouble concentrating.   In all likelihood this is normal.  Miserable, awful, and feeling absolutely sicker than hell, but, if we can call it that, the “normal” aftermath of chemo and a transplant. 

Yesterday she did exhibit the symptoms of C Diff, but the tests came out negative.  We don’t have to cover the details, but chemo wreaks havoc on the digestive system and those effects are, simply, miserable.

So that’s all I know this morning is that she’s way under the weather, but this was a well forecasted storm.  If there is news later today, I’ll post it. 

So, taking a sharp u-turn back into history, here’s a bit more on how modern chemo therapy was born.

In an earlier post, we mentioned that the roots of Chemotherapy were laid in WWI owing to the German army’s use of mustard gas.  What I missed was the nexus of why that lead to further research on any possible medical benefits this would have.  And it gets pretty interesting.

While the Germans used mustard gas during WWI, it was actually American made mustard gas during WWII that led to the research.  Americans never actually used the chemical agent, but 80 years ago this month, President Roosevelt signed off on a secret mission to get mustard gas over to the European theater in 1943 in case they’d need to retaliate against German’s usage of the gas.  No formal plans to use it, but a contingency plan if it was used against allied forces.

The SS John Harvey, a liberty ship, carried the secret cargo of gas and was to off load in Bari, Italy in December of 1943.  The captain of the ship, Elwin F Knowles, wanted to expedite the unloading, but secrecy prevented him from telling anyone about the deadly cargo.  The harbor was packed with ships and he had to wait several days for offloading.  Meanwhile the Germans staged an air raid on the harbor and during the attack, about 1,000 people were killed and 28 ships were sunk, including the SS Harvey.

Blogger’s note:  A few years ago I did some reading on WWII and was aware of this occurance.  The US tried to keep it secret, but issued a statement in 1944 admitting to the incident (there were too many witnesses to keep the secret).  It wasn’t until 1959 when the US declassified the records on the attack and it wasn’t until 1976, when a book came out on the incident did it get more widespread coverage.

In the immediate aftermath of the attack, there were hundreds of military personnel and likely more civilians suffering from the effects of mustard gas but prompt remedies were not provided as the medical personnel were initially unaware of what they were dealing with. 

Stewart Francis Alexander, a doctor and expert in chemical warfare, was dispatched to the scene and surmised that the offending agent was mustard gas but the symptoms he was seeing were different than what was observed during WWI.  The difference?  In WWI the soldiers inhaled the gas.  During the WWII incident the soldiers were swimming in the water and the mustard gas agent mingled with oil from the sinking ships and were absorbed through the skin.

It was the follow-up autopsies of the WWII incident where the lower white blood cell counts were recorded.   Autopsies of the victims suggested that profound lymphoid and myeloid suppression had occurred after exposure. In his report, Dr. Alexander theorized that since mustard gas all but ceased the division of certain types of somatic cells whose nature was to divide fast, it could also potentially be put to use in helping to suppress the division of certain types of cancerous cells.  (that last part was cut and paste).

It was that report that prompted the defense department to enlist two pathologists to explore any medical benefits of mustard gas and the initial focus was on Leukemia.

An interesting side note on how chemotherapy came to be.  Yes it was the Germans who initially used the gas, but it took the Americans secretly getting a stash of a weapon they never actually used and a horrible attack with unforeseen consequences that led to a sharp doctor surmising that perhaps there may be a beneficial side to the weapon.

None of this has anything to do with Kristina – except that it has everything to do with Kristina and a nod of the head needs to be given to the past suffering, coincidences and curiosity that lead to modern treatments. 

I would find all of this fascinating were it not for the fact that a dear friend is lying in a hospital bed feeling desperately ill.  Send positive thoughts to her.