Older blog entries for mikal (starting at number 884)

Weekend update

Robyn's blood test results are showing a slight decline in both liver and kidney function. She was awake for slightly longer periods this morning, but was back to being really sleepy this afternoon. Based on her ability to stay awake this morning they were talking about removing her breathing tube.

Robyn is still breathing on her own but she but they want the breathing tube to stay in place until she is more conscious and able to be roused. Disappointingly this afternoon she was back to being mostly un-responsive. Over all her condition is stable but she has a long way to go.

Tags for this post: health robyn liver sydney
Related posts: A further update on Robyn's health; Bigger improvements; Robyn's Health; More on Robyn; Continued improvement; Small improvements; In Sydney!; In Sydney for the day; Planes at 600 meters!; Sydney next week; Getting ready to leave Sydney; What are we doing with the pets?; Slack talk at SLUG; Don't use Jetbus Sydney if you want to catch your flight; Travel details so far; In Sydney; Sydney 1, Mikal 1; Sydney redeems itself, if only a little; Google? Sydney?; On the potentially sorry state of second hand science fiction book stores in Sydney

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Syndicated 2012-03-25 02:59:00 (Updated 2012-03-25 11:08:32) from stillhq.com : Mikal, a geek from Canberra living in Silicon Valley (no blather posts)

Continued improvement

Here's the next status update. Robyn is awake for brief periods. She is on marginally less medication for her low blood pressure. Overall the ICU nurses say they are happy with how stable she is. It should be reinforced that she's still very ill and has a long way to go, but she has improved marginally.

Tags for this post: health robyn liver sydney
Related posts: A further update on Robyn's health; Bigger improvements; Robyn's Health; More on Robyn; Small improvements; In Sydney!; In Sydney for the day; Planes at 600 meters!; Sydney next week; Getting ready to leave Sydney; What are we doing with the pets?; Slack talk at SLUG; Don't use Jetbus Sydney if you want to catch your flight; Travel details so far; In Sydney; Sydney 1, Mikal 1; Sydney redeems itself, if only a little; Google? Sydney?; On the potentially sorry state of second hand science fiction book stores in Sydney

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Syndicated 2012-03-21 17:04:00 from stillhq.com : Mikal, a geek from Canberra living in Silicon Valley (no blather posts)

Bigger improvements

Last night Robyn went for a CAT scan. That involved detaching her from dialysis. When she got back from the scan they didn't bother to connect her back up, and her kidneys seem to be coping on their own now. Since this morning she has also been breathing without assistance, which is also good. Robyn continues to respond to input which is also good.

Next steps are that Robyn needs to increase her blood pressure, her kidney function needs to improve, and her kidneys need to start producing urine again. The kids also need to decide at what point they're going to go back home, which is hard for them at the moment as they're all pretty tired. It seems that discussion will happen tomorrow sometime.

Tags for this post: health robyn liver sydney
Related posts: A further update on Robyn's health; Robyn's Health; More on Robyn; Small improvements; In Sydney!; In Sydney for the day; Planes at 600 meters!; Sydney next week; Getting ready to leave Sydney; What are we doing with the pets?; Slack talk at SLUG; Don't use Jetbus Sydney if you want to catch your flight; Travel details so far; In Sydney; Sydney 1, Mikal 1; Sydney redeems itself, if only a little; Google? Sydney?; On the potentially sorry state of second hand science fiction book stores in Sydney

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Syndicated 2012-03-20 19:48:00 from stillhq.com : Mikal, a geek from Canberra living in Silicon Valley (no blather posts)

Small improvements

I've just been told that Robyn has opened her eyes briefly and is responding more concretely to input than she was previously. Specifically she is squeezing people's hands in response to questions and moving her head around. This is more communicative than she's been for the last few days, so it seems small but it is still a move in the right direction.

Tags for this post: health robyn liver sydney
Related posts: A further update on Robyn's health; Robyn's Health; More on Robyn; In Sydney!; In Sydney for the day; Planes at 600 meters!; Sydney next week; Getting ready to leave Sydney; What are we doing with the pets?; Slack talk at SLUG; Don't use Jetbus Sydney if you want to catch your flight; Travel details so far; In Sydney; Sydney 1, Mikal 1; Sydney redeems itself, if only a little; Google? Sydney?; On the potentially sorry state of second hand science fiction book stores in Sydney

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Syndicated 2012-03-19 17:14:00 from stillhq.com : Mikal, a geek from Canberra living in Silicon Valley (no blather posts)

More on Robyn

I have just got off the phone with Robyn's kids at RPA. My understanding is that if Robyn's health doesn't improve they can no longer do a transplant. If she doesn't improve within a couple of days the doctors want to start talking about turning off life support.

Tags for this post: health robyn liver sydney
Related posts: A further update on Robyn's health; Robyn's Health; In Sydney!; In Sydney for the day; Planes at 600 meters!; Sydney next week; Getting ready to leave Sydney; What are we doing with the pets?; Slack talk at SLUG; Don't use Jetbus Sydney if you want to catch your flight; Travel details so far; In Sydney; Sydney 1, Mikal 1; Sydney redeems itself, if only a little; Google? Sydney?; On the potentially sorry state of second hand science fiction book stores in Sydney

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Syndicated 2012-03-18 19:44:00 from stillhq.com : Mikal, a geek from Canberra living in Silicon Valley (no blather posts)

Rage of a Demon King

ISBN: 0006482988 HarperVoyager (1998), Paperback, 656 pages LibraryThing

I've been reading this book for ages, but finished it last night. It feels a bit trivial to be writing this now, but I tend to read more when I am stressed, and I finished this while waiting for the kids to go to bed last night, so I may as well quickly write it up. This book is the Kingdom war promised in Shadow of a Dark Queen and Rise of a Merchant Prince. I was a lot more comfortable with this book, because its mostly not about Roo wanting to shag every woman on the planet. In fact, a lot of people get their comeuppance, which is nice. However, heaps of people who don't deserve it also die. Its almost like a A Hymn Before Battle or Legion of the Damned, which are both books which stick in my mind as being ones where most everyone dies. Overall a good book, which a good ending which I think is a little rare for large scale combat novels. Tags for this post: book raymond_e_feist midkemia combat crime fantasy sword_and_sorcery serpent_war Related posts: Shadow of a Dark Queen; Rise of a Merchant Prince; Daughter of the Empire; The King's Buccaneer; Servant of the Empire; The Riftwar Series; Silverthorn; A Darkness at Sethanon; Mistress of the Empire; Prince of the Blood; Magician: Master; Magician: Apprentice; Raymond E Feist's Empire Trilogy; Polar City Blues; Dawnspell: The Bristling Wood; Caves of Steel; Currency; Tipping point: windscreen washers; You Can Be The Stainless Steel Rat; Belgarath the Sorcerer; The Adventures of the Stainless Steel Rat

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Syndicated 2012-03-18 15:58:00 from stillhq.com : Mikal, a geek from Canberra living in Silicon Valley (no blather posts)

A further update on Robyn's health

Here's a status update on what I know about Robyn's condition. She has been in the ICU at RPA in Sydney since about noon yesterday. All of her children made it up to see her, although she has been heavily sedated in the ICU and cannot respond to conversation with the kids. As part of the ICU process they have surgically implanted a series of devices, including dialysis, breathing assistance, and a feeding tube. My understanding is that the sedation is mostly about reducing panic about these devices.

As best as I am aware the transplant meeting is still going ahead today. The doctors yesterday were saying that the battle isn't over, so that was at least slightly reassuring. Apparently it isn't unexpected for someone awaiting a liver transplant to have sudden flare ups.

I have been getting a lot of requests for information, which is nice in that its obvious that lots of people care deeply about Robyn. Its amazing how many people she has touched in her life. I have therefore created a mailing list I will send these updates to for those who don't want to check here regularly. You can find details for the list here.

Tags for this post: health robyn liver sydney
Related posts: Robyn's Health; In Sydney!; In Sydney for the day; Planes at 600 meters!; Sydney next week; Getting ready to leave Sydney; What are we doing with the pets?; Slack talk at SLUG; Don't use Jetbus Sydney if you want to catch your flight; Travel details so far; In Sydney; Sydney 1, Mikal 1; Sydney redeems itself, if only a little; Google? Sydney?; On the potentially sorry state of second hand science fiction book stores in Sydney

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Syndicated 2012-03-18 13:39:00 from stillhq.com : Mikal, a geek from Canberra living in Silicon Valley (no blather posts)

Robyn's Health

My mother in law, Robyn Boland, has had severe liver problems for a long time, and has been in and out of hospital in Canberra for at least a year. This was one of the major factors in being unable to move to Sydney for Google, and was one of the reasons I was ultimately laid off by them. However, Robyn's condition has been getting worse recently and she was transfered to Sydney about two weeks ago. The transfer was because RPA is the regional specialist hospital in liver problems.

On Friday I got a call from the resident overseeing Robyn's care. I was told that her liver had basically failed, and that it only had months of any form of operation remaining at best. The liver failure has resulted in the kidney's having to do more work than normal, and they are now failing under the additional workload. The doctors wanted to put Robyn on the transplant waiting list, which we of course agreed to.

However, this morning we got a call that Robyn is now much worse, and has been moved into intensive care after requiring a crash cart to resuscitate. Emily and Justin were already at the hospital, but the other kids are now flying to Sydney as rapidly as they can to be there. I am staying home for now to look after the kids. We obviously don't know what the likely outcome is at this stage, but things are looking pretty grim to be honest.

So, I'm pretty distracted at the moment. If you've emailed me about conference stuff or anything else, I apologize and will work through the mail backlog as soon as I can.

Tags for this post: health robyn liver sydney
Related posts: In Sydney!; In Sydney for the day; Planes at 600 meters!; Sydney next week; Getting ready to leave Sydney; What are we doing with the pets?; Slack talk at SLUG; Don't use Jetbus Sydney if you want to catch your flight; Travel details so far; In Sydney; Sydney 1, Mikal 1; Sydney redeems itself, if only a little; Google? Sydney?; On the potentially sorry state of second hand science fiction book stores in Sydney

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Syndicated 2012-03-17 16:24:00 from stillhq.com : Mikal, a geek from Canberra living in Silicon Valley (no blather posts)

It seems stickers are a gas

It seems that stickers are a gas -- they expand to occupy available space. We thought we'd ordered heaps of extra stickers to promote LCA 2013, but now we find ourselves running low. That's not a huge problem, but I do wonder if they are getting used or are just in the bottom of people's sock drawers. So here's the plan -- if you've got a LCA 2013 sticker and have stuck it somewhere, why not tweet a picture of it with the #lca2013 hashtag? If you don't use twitter, blog it or whatever and let us know at contact@lca2013.linux.org.au. The best picture will get a prize. I don't know what yet, because I just totally made this up. Perhaps a t-shirt. Perhaps a pet goat.

Tags for this post: conference lca2013 stickers

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Syndicated 2012-03-15 16:42:00 from stillhq.com : Mikal, a geek from Canberra living in Silicon Valley (no blather posts)

Runner

ISBN: 9780441014095 LibraryThing

I bought this book on impulse, and I am glad I did. The book is very Buddhist in its outlook, and characters believe in reincarnation, which makes it ok for people to die. There sure is a lot of that happening in this book, perhaps more so than in Dietz's combat books. The underlying story is very different from the other Dietz stuff I have read, and very good. The Legion of the Damned books suffer from very one dimensional characterizations of their female characters, whereas this book has a strong female as a leading and fully developed character, which is a nice change. I enjoyed this book. Tags for this post: book william_c_dietz religion combat space_travel decay courier engineered_human genetic_engineering Related posts: The Accidental Time Machine ; Rendezvous With Rama; Friday ; Cyteen: The Vindication; Battlefields Beyond Tomorrow ; East of the Sun, West of the Moon; The White Dragon; The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress; The Last Colony ; Zoe's Tale; The Ship Who Sang ; Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom; Cyteen: The Betrayal; Starbound; Patron saints; Buying Time; Marsbound; Red Mars; Emerald Sea; Snow Crash ; Nerilka's Story

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Syndicated 2012-02-26 01:21:00 from stillhq.com : Mikal, a geek from Canberra living in Silicon Valley (no blather posts)