Hello, all,
I hope that this post finds the folks that visit this blog are doing well.
It has been a very long time since I have posted anything here. Some has been due to a lack of time, but the main reason, especially in the past eight months or so is due to a rare disease that I have become afflicted with. Symptoms of the disease started subtly about eight months ago. It started with tingling in my feet and lower legs, and some loss of sensation and numbness. It slowly got worse and so I got ahold of my doctor and made an appointment to go in. Doc verified that there was definitely some loss of sensation, and referred me to a neurologist. Thus began a long, and sometimes painful process of diagnostics to try to figure out what was going on. I had neck and spinal MRI, brain MRI, nerve conduction tests, spinal taps (A.K.A Lumbar Puncture, very painful), tons of blood draws for tests, electromyography (they stick a needle into muscle and measure its electrical signals),and what seemed like constant blood draws for all kinds of varios tests.
The result of it all was finally a diagnosis in late July. I have MADSAM. MADSAM is an acronym for Multifocal Acquired Demyelinating Motor and Sensory Polyneuropathy. What this mouthful describes is an autoimmune disease where the immune system attacks the fatty myelin insulation that surrounds and protects peripheral nerves. This insulation isolates the nerve electrically and physically from other tissues, helping the nerve to transmit its signals cleanly and with minimal signal loss. When the myelin is damaged, the nerve signals get somewhat mangled as they traverse the nerves, resulting in poor quality signals that don’t accurately convey what is either being sensed or controlled. This results in vague sensation (numbness, constant tingling sensation, and false pain), as well as loss of accurate muscle control, as well as trembling, twitching in the muscles, weakness, muscle pain, and fatigue. There isn’t any understood trigger or cause for MADSAM, nor is there any cure.
Symptomatically, MADSAM is similar to ALS (also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease), but ALS destroys the Schwann cells the regenerate the myelin, while MADSAM does not. So, if the immune system can be slowed down such that the damage to the myelin doesn’t happen as fast, the Schwann cells can rebuild the myelin, which can result in the nerves getting better. The issue is slowing down the immune system so that the nerves can heal. There are a number of treatments that can suppress the immune system, none of which are much fun. The most common is the use of high dose steroids (in this case, Prednisone) that slows the immune system down, but with some not-so-fun side effects, which include irritability, higher stress levels, weight gain and body fat redistribution (belly and face), thinning of the skin, easy bruising, increased appetite, and if used for long periods of time, increased risk of heart disease and some forms of cancer. The other treatments are more harsh or difficult, which is why Prednisone is used most frequently, as it has the least effect on the patient. The others involve use of some cancer chemotherapy drugs that have a similar immunosuppressant effect, but are much more harsh. Plasmapheresis, which involves filtering the blood to remove immune system cells, is extremely expensive, and takes about six hours a day hooked up to a filtering machine. These other treatments would have a serious impact on my ability to continue to work, so, the Prednisone is it, though it has not been much fun.
It takes quite some time for the Prednisone to suppress the immune system to the point where the attack on the nerve myelin slows down enough that the Schwann cells can begin regenerating it faster than the immune cells damage it. Then, the myelin regeneration process is also very slow. My neurologist says that it can take two to three months before symptoms can start to diminish. I’ve been on the Prednisone about a month now. In the meantime my symptoms continue to increase. My legs are now mostly numb from just below the knees all the way down to the tips of my toes. My legs are weak, and while I can still walk, my gait is clumsy, and I can’t walk on uneven surfaces, and running is dangerous. Stairs are very difficult. I have had a number of nasty tumbles, but so far, no serious injury. My hands and lower arms are also being affected, which has slowed down my typing speed and increased the error rate significantly, and also made it more difficult to do fine, precision work with my hands, which certainly has an impact on my ability to work on some of the intracacies of old calculators.
With all that said, I am determined not to let this situation get me down. Once the diagnosis was given, it was actually a bit of a relief, because along the way there were talks of cancer, ALS, MMN (which is a similar disease to MADSAM, but is significantly worse), and Multiple Sclerosis. I’m thankful that of all of these really bad diseases that MADSAM is probably the least of the bunch in terms of impact on living (or life itself). I have had some times where I have been down and frustrated by this situation, but I have come to accept it, and am adapting as best as I can, and my outlook continues to improve over time. Hopefully the treatment will eventually lead to some reduction in symptoms. In some cases, the Prednisone treatment actually can cause a “reset” of the immune system, which can lead to long-term remission from the disease. In other cases, it is only a temporary fix, and symptoms may return. The Prednisone can only be taken at high dosages for limited periods of time, so if I do get some relief, and later the symptoms come back, the treatment can resume, but only after a period of time for my body to “rest” from the side effects of the Prednisone. I am hoping for the best, and working hard to keep the negative thoughts out of my mind.
On the calculator front, quite a lot has gone on over the past year or so..a quick overview
On the new calculator front, New Acquisitions:
- Monroe 820A(non-working), thanks to a generous donor, to go along with the Monroe 820 that the museum already has (also non-working). I am hoping that between the two of them I can get one working. This is the only CRT-display-based machine that Monroe made, and it is quite uncommon.
- A Monroe EPIC 3000 (in very nice shape, and mostly working), and a Monroe EPIC 2000 with some mechanical and electronic problems. In time I hope to get the EPIC 3000 completely working…it seems like the problem is just a bad connection in the cable that connects the keyboard/printer unit to the electronics package.
- A Sharp Compet 21(CS-21A). This is an extremely rare machine that looks identical to the Sharp Compet 20, but with electronics changes that allow it to perform square root. The machine calculates square roots to five digits behind the decimal. The machine has problems, but I am hopeful that they can be figured out and repaired. It tries to run, but gets very confused when asked to perform operations. The design of the machine is very similar to the Compet 20, with some boards identical between the two, but there are definitely changes to the PP board (Program Package) that contain the sequencing logic for the machine, and addition of three unique boards, one of which appears to be a diode ROM that perhaps provides sequencing logic for the square root function, along with a significantly different keyboard interface board that probably detects the “divide followed by +=” key sequence that triggers the square root operation.
- A Sharp Compet 32 that will shortly be on its way to the museum.
- An additional Sharp Compet 20 that is a bit earlier than the one currently in the museum, which will be arriving soon.
Because of all that has been going on, updates to the Old Calculator Museum website have slowed to a trickle. I have a large backlog of exhibits to create, and quite a number to update. I also have more materials to add to the advertising archive, and some technical information to add. The biggest enemy I have right now is time.
My job is keeping me very busy (and still thankful to have it, though there are days when it is difficult because of the neurological condition and symptoms of the Prednisone treatment). The University started fall session classes last week, and things are really hopping with over 3500 students now making demands of the computing environment, which we did a huge amount of work on over the summer. Along with work, during the summer months, there are constant projects around the property that demand time, along with my wife’s dog agility competitions that consume time on weekends.
I must veer off-topic for a moment. We have a German Shepherd that is competing at the top national levels of competition in dog agility, and this year has been extremely successful. Tory (our German Shepherd) and my wife, Patty, have earned entry into three National Championship competitions this fall and early next year, including the German Shepherd Dog Club of America Nationals, the AKC National, and the USDAA National. We’ll be traveling to Kansas, Kentucy, and Nevada for these competitions, and hopefully, come home with some national championships. German Shepherds are very uncommon to run at the national level in a sport dominated by Border Collies and Australian Shepherds. It is a huge testimony to the athletic abilities and high level of intelligence that Tory has, and Patty’s dedication to excellence in training (both for herself, and Tory) over Tory’s 5 years of life. You can see YouTube videos of Patty and Tory in action by checking out the channel “pattybffds”. Just search for it on YouTube.
Once the fall and winter settle in, there will be more time to devote to my calculator passion, and I expect that there’ll be a more updates both to this blog, as well as to the museum website.
Lastly, before I close out, I am honored to be invited to a gathering of ex-Friden employees (known as Fridenites) in San Leandro, California (the original headquarters of Friden Calculating Machine Co.) on September 15th. This luncheon gathering will have many luminaries from the heyday of Friden, including Robert Ragen (the chief designer of the Friden EC-130), Dick Ahrens (a senior engineer involved in the design of the EC-130), George Comstock (another senior engineer, who left Friden to form Diablo Systems, a company famous for the development of daisywheel printer technology), and many other former Friden employees. This should be a fun and fascinating time. I will try to write up a blog entry about the event soon after I return.
With all that said, I will call this entry complete. There’s a lot more that I didn’t write about, but that captures the high points. I’ll try to make brief update posts at least once a month from this time onward, both relating to my condition, as well as any interesting calculator tidbits that I come across.
Wishing you all health (the most important thing), happiness, safety and security!
Advertisement
Like this:
Be the first to like this post.
This entry was posted on September 6, 2011 at 12:13 PM and is filed under Calculator, Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
06-Sep-2011: A long overdue update
Hello, all,
I hope that this post finds the folks that visit this blog are doing well.
It has been a very long time since I have posted anything here. Some has been due to a lack of time, but the main reason, especially in the past eight months or so is due to a rare disease that I have become afflicted with. Symptoms of the disease started subtly about eight months ago. It started with tingling in my feet and lower legs, and some loss of sensation and numbness. It slowly got worse and so I got ahold of my doctor and made an appointment to go in. Doc verified that there was definitely some loss of sensation, and referred me to a neurologist. Thus began a long, and sometimes painful process of diagnostics to try to figure out what was going on. I had neck and spinal MRI, brain MRI, nerve conduction tests, spinal taps (A.K.A Lumbar Puncture, very painful), tons of blood draws for tests, electromyography (they stick a needle into muscle and measure its electrical signals),and what seemed like constant blood draws for all kinds of varios tests.
The result of it all was finally a diagnosis in late July. I have MADSAM. MADSAM is an acronym for Multifocal Acquired Demyelinating Motor and Sensory Polyneuropathy. What this mouthful describes is an autoimmune disease where the immune system attacks the fatty myelin insulation that surrounds and protects peripheral nerves. This insulation isolates the nerve electrically and physically from other tissues, helping the nerve to transmit its signals cleanly and with minimal signal loss. When the myelin is damaged, the nerve signals get somewhat mangled as they traverse the nerves, resulting in poor quality signals that don’t accurately convey what is either being sensed or controlled. This results in vague sensation (numbness, constant tingling sensation, and false pain), as well as loss of accurate muscle control, as well as trembling, twitching in the muscles, weakness, muscle pain, and fatigue. There isn’t any understood trigger or cause for MADSAM, nor is there any cure.
Symptomatically, MADSAM is similar to ALS (also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease), but ALS destroys the Schwann cells the regenerate the myelin, while MADSAM does not. So, if the immune system can be slowed down such that the damage to the myelin doesn’t happen as fast, the Schwann cells can rebuild the myelin, which can result in the nerves getting better. The issue is slowing down the immune system so that the nerves can heal. There are a number of treatments that can suppress the immune system, none of which are much fun. The most common is the use of high dose steroids (in this case, Prednisone) that slows the immune system down, but with some not-so-fun side effects, which include irritability, higher stress levels, weight gain and body fat redistribution (belly and face), thinning of the skin, easy bruising, increased appetite, and if used for long periods of time, increased risk of heart disease and some forms of cancer. The other treatments are more harsh or difficult, which is why Prednisone is used most frequently, as it has the least effect on the patient. The others involve use of some cancer chemotherapy drugs that have a similar immunosuppressant effect, but are much more harsh. Plasmapheresis, which involves filtering the blood to remove immune system cells, is extremely expensive, and takes about six hours a day hooked up to a filtering machine. These other treatments would have a serious impact on my ability to continue to work, so, the Prednisone is it, though it has not been much fun.
It takes quite some time for the Prednisone to suppress the immune system to the point where the attack on the nerve myelin slows down enough that the Schwann cells can begin regenerating it faster than the immune cells damage it. Then, the myelin regeneration process is also very slow. My neurologist says that it can take two to three months before symptoms can start to diminish. I’ve been on the Prednisone about a month now. In the meantime my symptoms continue to increase. My legs are now mostly numb from just below the knees all the way down to the tips of my toes. My legs are weak, and while I can still walk, my gait is clumsy, and I can’t walk on uneven surfaces, and running is dangerous. Stairs are very difficult. I have had a number of nasty tumbles, but so far, no serious injury. My hands and lower arms are also being affected, which has slowed down my typing speed and increased the error rate significantly, and also made it more difficult to do fine, precision work with my hands, which certainly has an impact on my ability to work on some of the intracacies of old calculators.
With all that said, I am determined not to let this situation get me down. Once the diagnosis was given, it was actually a bit of a relief, because along the way there were talks of cancer, ALS, MMN (which is a similar disease to MADSAM, but is significantly worse), and Multiple Sclerosis. I’m thankful that of all of these really bad diseases that MADSAM is probably the least of the bunch in terms of impact on living (or life itself). I have had some times where I have been down and frustrated by this situation, but I have come to accept it, and am adapting as best as I can, and my outlook continues to improve over time. Hopefully the treatment will eventually lead to some reduction in symptoms. In some cases, the Prednisone treatment actually can cause a “reset” of the immune system, which can lead to long-term remission from the disease. In other cases, it is only a temporary fix, and symptoms may return. The Prednisone can only be taken at high dosages for limited periods of time, so if I do get some relief, and later the symptoms come back, the treatment can resume, but only after a period of time for my body to “rest” from the side effects of the Prednisone. I am hoping for the best, and working hard to keep the negative thoughts out of my mind.
On the calculator front, quite a lot has gone on over the past year or so..a quick overview
On the new calculator front, New Acquisitions:
Because of all that has been going on, updates to the Old Calculator Museum website have slowed to a trickle. I have a large backlog of exhibits to create, and quite a number to update. I also have more materials to add to the advertising archive, and some technical information to add. The biggest enemy I have right now is time.
My job is keeping me very busy (and still thankful to have it, though there are days when it is difficult because of the neurological condition and symptoms of the Prednisone treatment). The University started fall session classes last week, and things are really hopping with over 3500 students now making demands of the computing environment, which we did a huge amount of work on over the summer. Along with work, during the summer months, there are constant projects around the property that demand time, along with my wife’s dog agility competitions that consume time on weekends.
I must veer off-topic for a moment. We have a German Shepherd that is competing at the top national levels of competition in dog agility, and this year has been extremely successful. Tory (our German Shepherd) and my wife, Patty, have earned entry into three National Championship competitions this fall and early next year, including the German Shepherd Dog Club of America Nationals, the AKC National, and the USDAA National. We’ll be traveling to Kansas, Kentucy, and Nevada for these competitions, and hopefully, come home with some national championships. German Shepherds are very uncommon to run at the national level in a sport dominated by Border Collies and Australian Shepherds. It is a huge testimony to the athletic abilities and high level of intelligence that Tory has, and Patty’s dedication to excellence in training (both for herself, and Tory) over Tory’s 5 years of life. You can see YouTube videos of Patty and Tory in action by checking out the channel “pattybffds”. Just search for it on YouTube.
Once the fall and winter settle in, there will be more time to devote to my calculator passion, and I expect that there’ll be a more updates both to this blog, as well as to the museum website.
Lastly, before I close out, I am honored to be invited to a gathering of ex-Friden employees (known as Fridenites) in San Leandro, California (the original headquarters of Friden Calculating Machine Co.) on September 15th. This luncheon gathering will have many luminaries from the heyday of Friden, including Robert Ragen (the chief designer of the Friden EC-130), Dick Ahrens (a senior engineer involved in the design of the EC-130), George Comstock (another senior engineer, who left Friden to form Diablo Systems, a company famous for the development of daisywheel printer technology), and many other former Friden employees. This should be a fun and fascinating time. I will try to write up a blog entry about the event soon after I return.
With all that said, I will call this entry complete. There’s a lot more that I didn’t write about, but that captures the high points. I’ll try to make brief update posts at least once a month from this time onward, both relating to my condition, as well as any interesting calculator tidbits that I come across.
Wishing you all health (the most important thing), happiness, safety and security!
Like this:
This entry was posted on September 6, 2011 at 12:13 PM and is filed under Calculator, Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.