h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Whether or not you consider the banned researcher with whom I live a friend, keep them in your thoughts and, if you're the praying sort, in your prayers.

They're very ill. We're waiting for lab results on blood work, which will almost certainly result in the insurance gods authorizing a kidney biopsy. The kidney biopsy can yield one of three results. That they just need a course of antibiotics for a few weeks is so unlikely as to be almost nonexistent. That they will need a multi-year course of immunosuppressive drugs is very possible. That they will need regular hemodialysis and, ultimately, a kidney transplant, is equally possible.

Messages of support can be sent to them via my email address, which is on my personal space.

David Conway

Please keep us updated, David. My thoughts are with both of you - all of you.

Ben

You have my sympathy and best wishes. Waiting to know is the worst part.

We get to wait a bit longer. Seems the lab *lost* the 24-hour urine specimen and the three vials of blood.

Here's hoping that they can manage to keep track of the new fluids they'll be getting tomorrow better than they did the first time around.

Oh the nightmare when health services behave like the bureaucracies they are....

Thanks for the update, David.

Ben

I am praying as hard as I can, you can bet on it.

Thanks for letting us know. All the best wishes to them.

More blood work scheduled for Tuesday. In the meantime, the nephrologist has prescribed medication to treat some of the more unpleasant symptoms and informed us that it's...


are you ready?





are you *sure* you're ready?




......a nephritic condition!

BTW, Blues Shark, I left a thank you note on your personal space for some words you wrote a few months ago (a little late, I know). It was moderated "on the grounds that it contains content that other
readers may find offensive."

It was a sincere thank you. This particular act of moderation actually made me laugh out loud. I guess I'll just say "thank you" here, and leave it to you to figure out why.

David Conway

I didn't see the above post, but I hope that it was not attacking the former researcher who is so ill.

(I also hope it wasn't attacking the Italics, or h2g2, but they aren't ill, so far as I know).

It is an incredible shame that someone failed to see how grossly inappropriate it is to post a moderatable post in this particular thread.

David, please know that I am still thinking of all of you both. (I have never mastered the language here). And do please keep us updated.

Ben

(This seems to be the best use of my 'first-brief-chance-to-post-in-weeks' opportunity. Damn.)

It hadn't occured to me that the moderated post might have been an attack; I thought that it might have contained information relayed from they-who-dare-not-speak-their-name and so have fallen under the 'posting for a banned researcher' ruling. (Which, I feel, would have been a tad shabby to strictly insist on given the current situation...)

I fear, Ben, that your intrepretation is probably the more correct. Double damn.



And so concludes our 7opportunity7 to participate for the time being. I'll be back when I can.

-rob

Well, if it came from 7you7 then it is pretty clearly not an attack on David's co-habitee, and therefore not inappropriate. Shame it was modded, but there we go.

B

Whoops. That appears to have come out wrong. I found this thread *after* your comment on the moderation, Ben. My first comment was the one above, not the hidden one. I have no idea of the who/what/where/when/how of it. Sorry to have left things so open to interpretation otherwise - I guess I'm more out of practice here than I thought...

The post awaiting moderation is mine. It included a medical update (more bloodwork to come this Tuesday, *then* schedule a kidney biopsy) and a word of thanks to another researcher for some past kind words. It's possible that it may have been considered passing along a message from a banned researcher, although it did not include any direct quotations and similar messages have been left alone.

There was no attack on anyone.

David Conway

Thank you David for starting this thread. Let's keep things positive. They are in our thoughts and prayers ... ('us' = 'Willem and inner cohabitants') and they mean *so much* to us ... we wish we could tell them just how much, we wish we could do something for them that would show how much ...

Update:

As I previously noted, treatment of the problem has not yet begun, but treatment of some of the symptoms has. They're getting some measure of relief, having, in the last three days, lost 20 of the (about) 50 pounds of water weight they had gained.

That's some good news, anyway.

David Conway

Please keep us updated ... have they got the kidney biopsy yet? Or any result from the blood-and-urine tests?

Update: The normal and expected protien level in a 24-hour urine specimen is about 100 (no, I don't know 100 *what*). LeKZ's was 10,000. The other really strange (but not really strange in the case of kidney problems) lab finding was that their cholesterol level was 486 (200 is considered high), Remember, we're talking about a life-long vegetarian here. The doctor prescribed more medications, to treat those symptoms.

Pending the availability of a hospital room, the biopsy in scheduled for June 12th. There's not likely to be much new information between now and the day we get the biopsy results back.

Thank you all for keeping them in your thoughts. It's appreciated.

David Conway

I have a question for David. Are you, for some reason, unable to send emails?

H.

Bloody hell, David. Thanks for the update.

B