Instead of computers, let's talk a little medicine...

I'm an "old fart" as you may be aware, and a year or so ago, I was in the hospital for what I thought was the flu, but was really pneumonia. I had trouble breathing, and after they checked me over, I was moved from Emergency upstairs to the Cardiac Ward. I spent a week there, constantly on oxygen, and with a Holter Monitor on my chest, wirelessly connected to receiving stations at the nurse's station and the main station on the floor. I could plug in my oxygen tank, and walk out into the hallway, and watch my ECG graph on an LCD display on the wall above the nurse's station.

That ECG didn't look like my traditional chart, which usually went along with four spikes, and then a missed one, and four more and a missed one. That's because of "faulty wiring" in my heart's timer, or more specifically, damage that resulted from a heart attack back in the 1960s. This chart was a bit more erratic, but it was quite steady and reasonably strong, so I didn't get the impression that I was in a lot of danger.

However, a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed younger assistant to the resident Cardiologist decided that I should be on an anticoagulant called Xarelto. You may have seen its ads on TV, singing its praises. It is intended to prevent clotting of blood if you're suffering from Atrial Fibrillation. And I'm told that Atrial Fibrillation is a common condition for us 'old farts' and it may or may not display any noticeable symptoms. But that Xarelto can definitely display some noticeable side effects. Like big blood blisters the size of a nickel inside my cheeks and upper lip. And a test for occult blood in samples of urine and poop showed positive in both, suggesting to the uninitiated that I might be suffering from some kind of gastro-intestinal cancer. 

When I discovered the blood blisters inside my cheeks, and asked my family doctor about it, he said, "It's your medication!" So I asked "Do you have any objections to me quitting the Xarelto, and seeing if that makes a difference?" And he remarked, "I didn't put you on it in the first place, so that's up to you." So I said, "You and I go back 25 years, and this kid that put me on that stuff hasn't known me for 25 months. So I'm off the Xarelto right now, and let's see how another test for occult blood turns out after I have time to clear the Xarelto out of the system, shall we?" And my doctor said, "Yes, we can do that."

So I've been off Xarelto (also known as Rivaroxaban) for nearly two months, and I just got back the latest test results for that occult blood in the stools, and I'm not showing any now. So I was right - it was the Xarelto, not some kind of cancer in the gut. And I'm going to have an interesting conversation with that hotshot young specialist who put me on that stuff when my next appointment comes along. And if you Google for the side-effects of Xarelto what you'll find will probably scare you. Just in case what I've just said hasn't already.