Re: Robert Jordan

[The Fool]

> From: William T Goodall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

> I know some people on this list read him.

<>

>From Locus:

Dear Locus, 
I have been diagnosed with amyloidosis. That is a rare blood disease
which affects only 8 people out of a million each year, and those 8 per
million are divided among 22 distinct forms of amyloidosis. They are
distinct enough that while some have no treatment at all, for the
others, the treatment that works on one will have no effect whatsoever
on any of the rest. An amyloid is a misshapen or misfolded protein that
can be produced by various parts of the body and which may deposit in
other parts of the body (nerves or organs) with varying effects. (As a
small oddity, amyloids are associated with a wide list of diseases
ranging from carpal tunnel syndrome to Alzheimer's. There's no current
evidence of cause and effect, and none of these is considered any form
of amyloidosis, but the amyloids are always there. So it is entirely
possible that research on amyloids may one day lead to cures for
Alzheimer's and the Lord knows what else. I've offered to be a literary
poster boy for the Mayo Amyloidosis Program, and the May PR Department,
at least, seems very interested. Plus, I've discovered a number of fans
in various positions at the clinic, so maybe they'll help out.) 

Now in my case, what I have is primary amyloidosis with cardiomyapathy.
That means that some (only about 5% at present) of my bone marrow is
producing amyloids which are depositing in the wall of my heart,
causing it to thicken and stiffen. Untreated, it would eventually make
my heart unable to function any longer and I would have a median life
expectancy of one year from diagnosis. Fortunately, I am set up for
treatment, which expands my median life expectancy to four years. This
does NOT mean I have four years to live. For those who've forgotten
their freshman or pre-freshman (high school or junior high) math, a
median means half the numbers fall above that value and half fall
below. It is NOT an average. 

In any case, I intend to live considerably longer than that. Everybody
knows or has heard of someone who was told they had five years to live,
only that was twenty years ago and here they guy is, still around and
kicking. I mean to beat him. I sat down and figured out how long it
would take me to write all of the books I currently have in mind,
without adding anything new and without trying rush anything. The
figure I came up with was thirty years. Now, I'm fifty-seven, so anyone
my age hoping for another thirty years is asking for a fair bit, but I
don't care. That is my minimum goal. I am going to finish those books,
all of them, and that is that. 

My treatment starts in about 2 weeks at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester,
Minnesota, where they have seen and treated more cases like mine than
anywhere else in the US. Basically, it boils down to this. They will
harvest a good quantity of my bone marrow stem cells from my blood.
These aren't the stem cells that have Bush and Cheney in a swivet; they
can only grow into bone marrow, and only into my bone marrow at that.
Then will follow two days of intense chemotherapy to kill off all of my
bone marrow, since there is no way at present to target just the
misbehaving 5%. Once this is done, they will re-implant my bmsc to
begin rebuilding my bone marrow and immune system, which will of course
go south with the bone marrow. Depending on how long it takes me to
recuperate sufficiently, 6 to 8 weeks after checking in, I can come
home. I will have a fifty-fifty chance of some good result (25% chance
of remission; 25% chance of some reduction in amyloid production), a
35-40% chance of no result, and a 10-15% chance of fatality. Believe
me, that's a Hell of a lot better than staring down the barrel of a
one-year median. If I get less than full remission, my doctor already,
she says, has several therapies in mind, though I suspect we will
heading into experimental territory. If that is where this takes me,
however, so be it. I have thirty more years worth of books to write
even if I can keep from thinking of any more, and I don't intend to let
this thing get in my way. 
Jim Rigney/Robert Jordan 

Further updates by Jordan himself:
<>

<>

So help me, if I don't find out definitively who killed asmo, rggrgr!
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RE: Another study show cell-phone tumor link

[Dan Minette]

I just read an article on the FDA review of this research.  Unless the FDA
is wrong about their methodology, the research can be dismissed as
worthless.  They got their data from responses to a mailed survey.  Self
selection is an obvious problem here.

http://tinyurl.com/nf7o7


The Food and Drug Administration said that finding was inconsistent with the
conclusions reached by other studies and pointed out several shortcomings,
including the design of the study, which was conducted by surveys
distributed by mail, and the lack of supporting data from laboratory
animals. That makes the conclusion "difficult to interpret," the FDA said on
its Web site.




Dan M.



> -Original Message-
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
> Behalf Of The Fool
> Sent: Sunday, April 02, 2006 9:05 PM
> To: Killer Bs Discussion
> Subject: Re: Another study show cell-phone tumor link
> 
> > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 
> > In a message dated 3/31/2006 6:28:23 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
> > [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
> >
> > > A total 85 of these 905 cases were so-called high users of mobile
> > > phones, that is they began early to use mobile and, or wireless
> > > telephones and used them a lot," the study said.
> > > "The study also shows that the rise in risk is noticeable for
> tumors on
> > > the side of the head where the phone was said to be used," it
> added.
> > > Kjell Mild, who led the study, said the figures meant that heavy
> users
> > > of mobile phones, for instance of who make mobile phone calls for
> 2,000
> > > hours or more in their life, had a 240 percent increased risk for a
> > > malignant tumor on the side of the head the phone is used.
> >
> > The relationship between location of tumor and side of phone use
> would have
> > to be more than noticable. It should be incredibly strong. For
> instance
> > radiation therapy can induce brain tumors but it occurs in the
> radiiation field and
> > at the site where the radiation enters the skull. The inverse square
> rule would
> > have to hold. In addition there has to be a mechanism by which the
> radiation
> > causes mutations.  I no of no evidence that the energy associated
> with cell
> > phone use can cause cellular damage in particular since it must first
>  penetrate
> > the skin and skull. I think this is like the famous power line
> causing cancer
> > myth. While there certainly can be unknown effects these effects
> cannot be
> > mystical. If brain tumors are more frequent then there must be energy
> that can
> > cause mutations. This energy must get to the brain cells in the way
> that all
> > energy does; that is it must obey the rules of physics.
> 
> < tml>>
> 
> "Acoustic neuromas are slow-growing noncancerous tumors that develop on
> a nerve linking the brain and the inner ear."
> 
> ""We looked at DNA damage in animals, not in humans, and found that
> cell phone radiation can damage DNA," he said. The body's immune system
> has the ability to repair DNA breaks, but sometimes it can make a
> mistake and cause a mutation, which could be the first step toward
> cancer, Lai said."
> 
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Robert Jordan

[William T Goodall]

I know some people on this list read him.

From Ansible:

"JIM RIGNEY, who writes as Robert Jordan, told _Locus_: `I have been
diagnosed with amyloidosis. That is a rare blood disease which affects
only 8 people out of a million each year ...' His treatment (drastic  
bone

marrow replacement) starts this month, and he's determined to beat the
statistics that suggest a median life expectancy of four years.
"
--
William T Goodall
Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Web  : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk
Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/

The surprising thing about the Cargo Cult Windows PC is that it works  
as well as a real one.



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Re: FEAR THE FUTURE: In-Sleep Advertising

[Max Battcher]

Dave Land wrote:

Folks,

No, really: In. Sleep. Advertising.

This is a sign of the end times.


Leela: Didn't you have ads in the 20th century?

Fry: Well, sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio. And in 
magazines and movies and at ball games and on buses and milk cartons and 
T-shirts and written in the sky. But not in dreams. No, sir-ee!


Bender: Quit squawking, flesh wad. Nobody's forcing you to buy anything.

Amy: Yeah. I mean we all have commercials in our dreams but you don't 
see us running off to buy brand-name merchandise at low, low prices.


[After a long silence they get up and run out.]

--
--Max Battcher--
http://www.worldmaker.net/
"I'm gonna win, trust in me / I have come to save this world / and in 
the end I'll get the grrrl!" --Machinae Supremacy, Hero (Promo Track)

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