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Want to avoid bladder cancer? Get bladdered on beer or wine.

Such welcome news for boozers ... according to a meta-analysis of alcohol intake and risk of bladder cancer conducted by the Department of Urology at the First Affiliated Hospital (School of Medicine) at Zhejiang University in China...

"The overall current literature on alcohol consumption and the risk of bladder cancer suggested no association, while the consumption of beer and wine was associated with reduced risk of bladder cancer," says the abstract. "Further efforts should be made to confirm these findings and clarify the underlying biological mechanisms," the abstract concludes.

Drinking wine didn't stop me getting bladder cancer and now I no longer have a bladder, I suppose this information is irrelevant. But I'm going to continue drinking wine just in case...

Labels: bladder cancer

posted by Suzan St Maur @ 9:32 AM   0 Comments 
Police now classify urostomy bags as offensive weapons According to various articles in the North American press, it seems that a certain Monica Avila - proud owner of a urostomy - found a useful new role for her urostomy bag recently when displeased by the boys in blue who were pursuing her by car, attempting to arrest her.

Ripping off her bag, which we must assume was due for emptying at the time anyway, she threw it at the officers who were then splattered with urine. Much encouraged by this I am delighted to be in possession of a potentially offensive weapon ... handy to deter muggers, pickpockets, charity tin rattlers, traffic wardens, etc. I think even the hardest-bitten hooded teenage chavvy-yob would run like hell rather than get sprinkled with fresh human pee...

Read one version of the whole story in the Toronto Sun ...

Labels: bladder cancer, police, urine, urostomy, weapons

posted by Suzan St Maur @ 10:58 AM   0 Comments 
It's vampire time for me In a fit of peak no doubt caused by hospital visit withdrawal symptoms, my body has now found a clever way to get me back in.

Noticing that one of my legs was fatter - even fatter - than the other I had it checked and I now have a small deep vein thrombosis in the left thigh.

So I have been commuting to the vampire department at our regional hospital daily for over a week. My abdomen looks like a road map of Ontario after all the heparin shots, and the inner-elbow vein in my only available arm (other has lymphedoema) is standing out holding a up a white flag and saying "enough, already."

But still the vampires must taste my blood, although we're now down to every other day. And I'm chewing rat poison pills every evening (a.k.a. warfarin.)

Anyway, all thanks must go to the good folks at the Anti-Coagulant department of Northampton General Hospital who have been treating me so good humouredly. (See pic, above, senior member of their staff...)

Labels: anti-coagulant, blood clot, cancer, DVT, heparin, oncology, vampires, warfarin

posted by Suzan St Maur @ 12:14 PM   0 Comments 
You thought I had vanished, didn't you ... go on, admit it ...

Well, I might have, I suppose. But thankfully I made it through the removal of my bladder, uterus, ovaries, fallopian tubes and numerous lymph nodes in my lower abdomen ... plus the creation of a stoma using a chunk of my small intestine as a conduit, sewn to my kidneys one end which sticks through a hole at the other... OK, too much information.

(The upside? I lost 20 lbs! Without even trying! Major surgery and the off-putting effects of hospital food for 3 weeks beat the pants off the Dukan diet, I can tell you...)

If you really want to know the gory details, have a look here.

Having so many bits chopped out of me has left me feeling a bit tired and jaded, hence not up to so many jokes as in previous times.

But don't write me off just yet. My sense of humour is coming back at an alarming rate. And I'm rapidly getting used to my small plastic friend which has replaced my very nastily diseased bladder (see pic on the left.)

In the meantime, let's celebrate medical humour with a few gags passed on by my delightful cousin Alyson in Ottawa, Canada...


A man comes into the ER and yells . . .'My wife's going to have her baby in the cab.'
I grabbed my stuff, rushed out to the cab, lifted the lady's dress and began to take off her underwear. Suddenly I noticed that there were several cabs, and I was in the wrong one.

Submitted by Dr. Mark MacDonald ,

'Big breaths,'. . . I instructed.

Submitted by Dr. Richard Byrnes ,
Seattle , WA

Submitted by Dr. Susan Steinberg

' Which one ?'. .. . I asked. 'The patch...

Submitted by Dr. Rebecca St. Clair ,
Norfolk , VA

Submitted by Dr. Steven Swanson-
Corvallis , OR


I was performing rounds at the hospital one morning and while checking up on a man I asked, 'So how's your breakfast this morning?'

I then asked to see the jelly and he produced a foil packet labeled 'KY Jelly.'

Submitted by Dr. Leonard Kransdorf ,
Detroit , MI

Submitted by RN no name...


posted by Suzan St Maur @ 7:50 PM   0 Comments