While waiting in Lobby to see Rhuemy...

I went to my Rhuematologist appt. yesterday, we were waiting to be called.  A couple came out and sat down, all of a sudden this gentleman, started saying "I'm going to die, I have Lupus and now I have to do chemo for this dumb disease", he then made a cell call and told subject he just found out he has Lupus. Also, the wife was very rude to him in front of everyone.

Gosh, this man was loud everyone could hear him, he was just very negative.  This scared me and my poor hubby sensed it. But, what could we have said?. It reminded me of my mom, she had to take chemo, like 7 years before she passed away. I felt so sad.

Has anyone had similiar experiances while waiting in a DR.'s lobby?

One more thing, the man said he had stage 4 Lupus...I've never heard it classified  in stages, has anyone?

I believe the stage 4 is probably talking about his kidneys. That is classified in Stages 1-5, 5 being the worse. My guess, the chemo he is referring to is probably Cytoxan, which is typical treatment for severe nephritis caused by lupus. To be honest, I had close to the same reaction, not yelling in the waiting room but I thought I was going to die as well. But turns out everything has ended up being ok. The Cytoxan is one of the more potent drugs used primarly for the more severe forms of lupus. It is generally given in a outpaitent setting and lasts all day. It is done through IV and they give you about 3 diffent medicines(IV as well) before/after the treatment of Cytoxan to help make side effects minimal. Generally it is administerd once a month for 6-9 months. If he was just hearing all of this for the first time, I can completly understand his feelings. It truly is a very terrifing thing to be told and its even scarier until you have your first treatment. Then you know what its gonna be like and that its not as bad as you have imagined it to be