I don't have much to add this time. Pam's latest post said most of what I'd have wanted to say, and probably better than I could have said it.
Briefly, for those interested, I'll say that I am planning to participate in the awards. As has been pointed out, I've nothing to lose by doing so, and if the awards in general are successful, then the fandom will have gained something new. At the worst, I'll have gotten some detailed feedback from careful readers.
Mostly, though, I wanted to extend my sympathies to Laura. As you may know, I've had a long history of medical issues myself. Since early childhood, my immune system has been coming up with ever newer and more creative ways to injure me. I suppose you could say, though, that I've been fortunate.
If not for medications devoloped a mere 50 years or so ago, I'd have been dead before I ever saw my teens. If not for refinements to the treatment regimen governing the use of those medications which were made possible by equipment developed about 25 years later, I'd be well on my way to blindness, major organ failure, and other serious complications.
When I later developed a new disease, it was only a few years before doctors had a name for it (and enough information to diagnose it), and from that point, thanks to modern medical science, new treatments were developed amazingly fast.
Several years later, I developed something new (the particulars of which, unfortunately, still baffle specialists across the country and overseas). I was probably months away from slipping into a coma when a stab in the dark (a medication developed that very year for an only tangentially related disease) miraculously managed to improve my condition. A few months later, I was lucky enough to find a doctor who had heard about a more effective version of the same drug which had been developed overseas. He managed to get me on it months before the FDA gave its final approval. It wasn't enough to let me return to school, but it kept me going. Now, as I slowly become resistent to it, we're trying ever riskier measures. Just yesterday, a doctor told me about a somewhat experimental but very promising possibility based on a serendipitous discovery made within my lifetime which we still don't fully understand. Once again, medical science, advancing ever more rapidly, has developed something in what is, for me, the nick of time.
So, I've been lucky, but it still hasn't been easy. Laura, I sympathize with your plight. I'm not sure how serious your personal condition is right now (from what I've seen
here , there seem to be several stages), but I know how difficult it can be to face situations like this. Truly, you have my best wishes in your search for not just a treatment, but a cure.
Paul
