Rumors of my demise have been mildly exaggerated.
From an email I just sent:
Every once in a while I fall prey to the delusion I may actually accomplish
something before I go on a coil-shufflling-off gig. I have been playing
with solid state drives, copying hundreds of gigabytes of disc clutter,
learning a teensy bit of HTML and CSS, and trying valiantly not to worsen
the lesion on my leg I have had since last October. It is some smaller, but
since my left leg has almost no circulation even band-aids cause me big
trouble with lost skin. I have been having dizziness which seems to be
related to whether or not I wear compression stockings.
It has been snowing a lot, and I am doing my annual hibernation. I have
occasionally read TiMS, but I have probably missed a lot.
Didn't have much to say. The whole situation has left me relatively
speechless. I heard a radio documentary on Henry Morgenthaler, and the
whole thing had an eerie familiarity. The differences are there: they
haven't put anyone in jail yet, and nobody has been shot. It just shows
that doctors and drug vendors are more sophisticated than religious fanatics
and policemen. Politicians nowadays are no different. I have one in my family.
This morning, a thought occurred to me. Will a catheter damage a valve
unintentionally? They usually are inserted against the flow of blood, in
the direction of reflux if there is any. Depends where you are with respect
to gravity. For example, reflux in the legs happens because the blood gets
past valves which should keep it from going back down. So, I would have
thought, in the case of putting a catheter down a leg vein wouldn't you have
to blast through valves in the wrong direction?
In the case of the CCSVI procedure, won't you damage valves, normally there
for keeping reflux out of your brain, if they are there, when you shove the
catheter past them, whether they work or nor?
These are things I think about, when I'm all alone, and the TV is broken, as
George Carlin used to say.