Trisha, I'm late to this thread, but your questions are NOT stupid. Sometimes doctors or nurses can make us feel that way, but no question is a stupid question. (Well, not most of them. And no medical question, ever, when it pertains to you or a loved one.)

When I had my chemo and radiation, they had some add-ons that were supposed to help me deal with the treatments. I, being the obsessive type, read over the paperwork while they were hooking me up and found some of the fine print disturbing. One of them very clearly said, "Do not give to patients with a good prognosis." The nurses told me they had no idea why it said that. I told them that, in that case, I wasn't going to sign off on it. So they didn't give me that. Very simple. I wonder to this day if they ever got an answer to that question, or if they hid that fine print from other patients, or what. Wish I'd had the presence of mind to jot down what the thing was, so I could do research later, but I was also post-surgery and scared and all that, so my brain was mush. But it was still a fair question.

As for the 'death' thing ... half my meds probably have that as a side effect somewhere. Falls under allergic reactions, probably, when it doesn't fall under a black box depression warning. It's not something doctors should joke about, but it can be an issue just because of the nature of medications. If they can't give you a reasonable answer, they need to do some looking or at least some comforting. I just added a new med to my allergy list ... Zofran, the magic standby for everyone's nausea ... and when I did some reading on its side effects, they are pretty ghastly. (Don't go there.) It's a wonder drug for most folks ... but it's now one I can't take. Oh well. But it just goes to show, what it might do and what it usually does can be totally different things.

((hugs))

Kristen