Blue Collar Scientist

Well, it has taken almost three weeks, but I finally have some definitive news to post about Jeff, aka the Blue Collar Scientist. When we last checked in on things, it was thought that Jeff had caught some kind of nasty, persistent infection. This hypothesis has since been disproven, and now we know for sure what is going on.

The bad news is that Jeff has liver cancer. He’s got two tumors in the liver; one is small, one is quite large, almost 10cm in size.

The good news is that Jeff has no risk factors for cancer or liver disease; he’s never been a drinker, he’s hepatitis-free, doesn’t have HIV, etc. (In fact, the etiology of his condition remains unknown.) He’s healthy in every other way, with no cardiac, metabolic, or other diseases to complicate treatment. He’s very physically fit, although he’s gradually lost much of his stamina over the last several weeks. He’s had a full-body MRI and thoracic and abdominal CTs that establish he has no tumors outside the liver. All of this is good news for someone who has a disease that normally kills 90% of the people who are diagnosed with it within six months.

Another piece of good news - he’s being seen mid next week by the University of Washington Liver Center, one of the best liver clinics in the world, to receive treatment recommendations and come up with a plan.

Jeff’s still working on several projects - he’s got some political activism going on in Alaska, he’s still working on some curriculum materials for astronomy and physics education for some of his area school districts, and he’s still working on adapting a couple of his lectures into study guides. He’s been polishing his talk about how anyone can help make the science education crisis better.

What isn’t clear is whether he’s going to have the energy to blog very often - he certainly hasn’t during the last couple weeks of daily tests and doctors appointments. What are your thoughts on this - should we try to keep the blog going? Should we bring on a staff of regular contributors to keep fresh content between his occasional posts? Should this turn into an all-hepatic-cancer, all-the-time blog? Should it just be retired? Your feedback is needed.

BTW, you can feel free to e-mail or Skype Jeff (see the “BCS Esewhere” sidebar on the home page), and he’ll see your comments to the blog as well.