Update...

[Ben Patterson <bpatterson@stanford.edu>]

Hey there guys -

	Well, I guess I should apologize for not making it to the ND 
show, but I think I had a good excuse. About a week ago last friday I 
was picking up a desk at work and felt something pop in my gut. Turns 
out I gave myself a hernia. Actually, as the nurse put it, it turns 
out I gave myself the Mother Of All Hernias. The surgery was this 
last friday and instead of 2 inches of stitches and a 45 minute 
surgery, I ended up with 6 inches of stitches and 2 hours on the 
table. At the moment, I'm drugged out of my mind on Vicodin and Advil 
by the handful so excuse any spelling errors or lack of coherence... 
heh heh.
	Unfortunately, my pre-op chest x-ray showed a large mass in 
my right lung, so they had me come back in the morning of the surgery 
and shoot some more pics and it verified that there is something big 
and bad in the right upper lobe. There's no fluid, so the don't think 
it's pneumonia, and their best hope is that it's just scar tissue, 
although I can't remember having an illness that would have caused 
that kind of buildup of tissue in the last year since my last x-rays. 
Soooo.... I'm heading into a CT scan, an MRI and full body x-rays, 
blood workup, etc tomorrow and Thursday to see if this crap in my 
lung is cancer and if it is, whether it's metastasized to anywhere 
else on my body. My parents are really freaked out because I've had 2 
friends my age or younger (23) that have died of lung cancer in the 
last few years, and the doctors are basically leaning towards that 
diagnoses already although they haven't come out and said it yet 
because they don't have a CT scan yet. Not good....
	Wish me luck, pray for me, and hopefully I'll be around for 
some more Scirocco events in the future, eh? (wry grin).

Mandatory Scirocco Content: While sitting on my butt and popping pain 
pills like M&M's I've been sitting here ordering parts for my 16v 
from the Potterman and contemplating upgrades. Gotta have something 
to do when yer sitting in bed all day!! Maybe some wheels are 
next...... hmmm... Borbet Type C's?....

			Ben Patterson, 86' 16v

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Ben Patterson 			Cell  - 650.274.7525
Networking/Macintosh		LiNCS - 650.725.4630
Systems Engineer			Email: bpatterson@stanford.edu
CRC-LiNCS/ITSS			Stanford University

"Try to remember there is no spoon..."           - The Matrix
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