“Netcraft does not yet confirm it”

Hi again, everyone. I wish I could report that I'm doing great
and will be back to full health soon, but I can't. Possibly due to
the antibiotics I've already taken, the doctors I've seen have been
unable to find signs of infection, and my blood ESR is normal.
Nevertheless, the signs of complications from an infection are quite
clear. I've had a number of pulmonary “pops” that are either burst
lung abscesses or blebs, and things have spread in a bad way. A
thickening of my pleura has been noted, as well as pericarditis.
Most disturbing of all, I have developed mitral valve prolapse and
regurgitation. I've had a fever and soaking night sweats. I can't
stand for too long without getting faint. Lately I've been spending
a lot of my time on the floor. I have no history of heart problems
and when I got the first chest pains (crushing ones) I went to the
ER immediately. This was on 11/10. They found nothing wrong and
sent me away. The next day I saw an internal medicine MD who gave me
a complete exam including carefully listening for heart problems, and
found nothing wrong. The pain continued, and by the time I got to
the Mayo I had heart trouble so obvious that nobody has failed to
recognize it since. However, it's been a problem getting anyone to
consider that this is a new problem. Most of the people I've seen
think that they are the first to notice it and that everyone before
them must have missed it, and that I've certainly had it my whole life.
But having recently had a major infection and fever and developing a
new murmur and chest pains I'd think it would be only prudent to
treat this as complicated infective endocarditis. I've been to
another different ER with more crushing chest pains since then and
have begged for a needle biopsy to check the plural fluid for empyema,
but nobody will do this diagnostic either. I've verified online that
it's not only possible to have a normal ESR and infective endocarditis
but that patients that present that way have a statistically worse
outcome (maybe because nobody will treat it). Anyway, I'm still
hoping to get the treatment that I'm sure I need, but if there's an
insistance on clinical proof first and treatment second, the proof
might be found at autopsy time. Oh, I've also finally flunked an ECG
after several normal ones and at least pericarditis is now proven.
Now, to clear up a few things. In my initial report I mistakenly
reported that I'd taken 60 days of Cipro for a pulmonary infection.
(hey, I was up late freaking out a bit) This might not have been
for as long a period of time, and it was actually to treat a
relapse of prostatitis (and yes, that does require a long course).
As for those who say I should stop trying to diagnose myself: I am
trying to get doctors to diagnose this ongoing problem. Meanwhile,
it is only wise to try to figure out what's going on myself, and to
get input from as many sources as I possibly can. After all,
sometimes the cavalry just isn't coming. Or as the old (I think
Russian) proverb says: “Pray to God, but keep rowing to shore.”

I built a few updates to get my mind on happier things. Maybe I'll
have time to look at the kernel sometime soon, too, but getting my
health back remains the A-number-1 priority here.

• kde/koffice-1.3.5-i486-1.tgz

• kdei/koffice*.tgz
  
  Also, Bruno H Collovini and Piter Punk in Brazil have been helping
  to build security updates for Slackware while I'm (mostly) out of
  commission. They've helped with Slackware for many years and I
  trust and authorize their patches. These can be found here:
  
  http://www.slackware.org.br/~patrick/WORKGUS/
  
  Thanks to everyone who has offered to help, and sent get well soon
  and other kind emails. I really appreciate it. I'm also grateful
  for many of the suggestions on how to boost my immune system with
  natural products (hey, that oregano oil can't hurt and tastes
  pretty good! . I'm going to have to request that the phone
  calls stop unless it's for a really good reason, as I've had more
  calls than I can possibly return at this point.
  
  All the best (and to those in the US, happy Thanksgiving),
  
  Pat
  
  PS My primary development box just mostly locked up on me, so I'll
  probably be unable to do additional updates (or at least sign them
  properly) until I can get back to CA. What I can and will do is to
  run a top-level CHECKSUMS.md5, and then sign that with my GPG key.
  
  PPS Please do not post emails from me without my permission.
  Thanks.