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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ish who wrote (49164)	6/7/2004 5:49:00 PM
From: michael97123	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 793912

My mom is in the early stages of alzheimers. It is not pleasant to watch the deterioration. Its less about loss of memory than loss of self awareness. Its very sad. mike PS Glad about your dad. The body can be fixed but when the brain fails, not much to do.

To: Ish who wrote (49164)	6/8/2004 12:08:15 AM
From: unclewest	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793912

my father had a split in his aorta Ish, Fascinating that you should say that. That is called an arterial dissection. They are very very serious. I know exactly what you must have learned. I am too familiar with dissections. Know more than I want. I have had two. Left internal carotid artery and right renal artery. With the first, the docs asked me if I ever got hit in the head...I laughed. With the second, the docs asked me if I ever took a blow to the midsection...I laughed again. Usually injury related, can also be disease related, but that is rarer. Some are operable...Others not. Dissections often mean instantaneous death. Others create deadly aneurysms. The weakened state of the artery makes many vascular surgeons reluctant to operate. The survival rate is quite low but some do survive. Bypasses are used if the arteries are readily accessible. Stents are used elsewhere. Stents in the brain are not approved and strictly experimental with very poor results to date. UCSF is the lead medical center for brain arterial dissections. The two lead docs there (and world authorities) are Higashida and Gress. I have met with them several times and opted to accept my situation. Gress told me I was passing up an opportunity to volunteer to do something for the greater good of mankind. I told him that I had already spent 20 years volunteering for everything and anything that came my way. I told him that I was willing to take what I had left...and after 10 surgeries related to volunteer military duty I did not want to leave any of my life on his and Higashida's operating table with less than 10% survival odds. I gave their names to Faultline when he had his stroke because they are in FL's backyard and I wanted him to have options. Not yet sure exactly why, but those two dissections convinced me to reorient my life from fighting wars to assisting the victims of war. I would luv to be on a team because I believe I could spare a young guy and his family some grief. I have however learned from working with refugees that they too need some relief. uw