Hello,
I have a question regarding my sister who is sick overseas. She was hospitalized in Croatia and diagnosed with Colitis. While in the hospital she was left in unsanitary conditions and contracted infections from her hospital stay. She was also given a blood transfusion without her consent. She was fortunate enough to be able to get transferred to another hospital in Austria, but her health status has been moving up and down. Her last down episode involved her having dry heaves during a bowel movement then blacking out. Her blood pressure dropped as well as her hemoglobin. The doctors there have had to delay another blood transfusion as the previous one at the other hospital introduced antibodies in her blood that make it more difficult to match. The doctors are also saying this could cause long-term health effects. I’m used to thinking of antibodies as positive things. For example, I’m on an immune suppressant and wasn’t supposed to be able to develop antibodies for chicken pox, but contracted chicken pox and survived after a lengthy period of treatment and developed those antibodies. What determines whether antibodies are good or bad things to have?