Saturday, January 31, 2015

2014 Recap

Ok, now that I have finished blogging about 2014 it is time for the 2014 recap, following more or less the same format I used for the 2013 recap.

First, here is what happened in the blog in 2014:
  • 27 new blog posts were written, which is an average of one every two weeks.
  • 21 articles were reviewed in 19 blog posts.
  • 22 additional countries visited the blog, bringing the total to 101.
  • The blog received 25 spam comments. Here are my favorite sentences from those:
Cuticles function as barriers to bacteria and fungus, but they can often overgrow.
The Hair Loss and Business Conference is just one of the new hairs against one of your longer hairs.
Reading through this post reminds me of my old roommate! He always kept chatting about this.

In personal news, here is what happened in 2014:
  • After being removed from the kidney transplant list in November of 2013, Mom was put back on the list in May of 2014 due to a change in how they categorize transplant candidates. Her wait time continued to accrue while she was off the list, which is good news.
  • During 2014 Mom had the following notable medical procedures and events:
    • Kidney ultrasound
    • Echocardiogram
    • At least two EKGs
    • At least two colonoscopies
    • Capsule endoscopy (swallowing a pill camera) 
    • Four emergency room visits for a recurring GI bleed, leading to three hospitalizations with a total of 16 nights in the hospital
    • Blood transfusions on three separate occasions
    • One overnight hospitalization for increased heart rate
    • Diagnosed with diverticulosis (not diverticulitis)

Dialysis was not a major issue this year like it was in previous years. Mom did switch to a new nephrologist at the dialysis clinic and she has changed her dialysis time to the late afternoon/evening slot, and the situation with dialysis is stable.

So what's in store for the blog in 2015? Generally speaking, more of the same. In addition to the updates on Mom as necessary I do want to try to publish at least one article review per month. There are not very many left that provide any significant information on fibrinogen amyloidosis, and I think I have reviewed all of the articles I am aware of that deal exclusively with fibrinogen amyloidosis. So I might finish the reviews of all relevant published articles this year.

In real world happenings, the big event in 2015 will be the familial amyloidosis meeting in Chicago at the end of October. Mom and I already have our rooms reserved, so hopefully we will see you there. It looks like one of the breakout sessions on the agenda is specifically for non-ATTR variants, so that should be informative for us aFibbers.

The next post will be an update on the situation with Mom's elevated heart rate. Stay tuned!

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