I’m no medical expert. If I were I could probably find a much better term to describe the treatment than “stabilization.” Let’s assume the patient had been rescued from the area of radioactive danger shortly after receiving a heavy dose of radiation from a nuclear blast and the ensuing fallout. The radiation would have killed few cells outright. Rather, it would have destroyed their ability to reproduce. Some cells in the body, such as white blood cells and the cells lining the gut, die and need to be replaced on a regular basis. In the patient, these would begin to die, but would no longer be replaced because of radiation damage to the cells’ reproductive process. Given time, the cells would begin to recover. The goal of treatment would be to get the patient through the critical time during which the numbers of these critical cells reached its minimum. By “stabilization,” I don’t mean the patient would be safe during this period. He/she would just have an increased chance of surviving. Many victims who had received what would almost certainly have been a lethal dose of radiation without treatment could be saved.

The Wiki article on white blood cells has some interesting information on the different types, and their average lifespans in the body.

Pam contacted me about your blog and her praise is infectious and accurate. I think you might remember that I used to post at Davids Medienkritik but unfortunately it seems now host to two trolls that don’t really add anything and usually manage to hijack the thread.