life sans spleen

[Melissa Hughes]

Yeah, you can live without a spleen, but I'd take mine back anyday, if I
could find it. Just try telling a reliable MD that you want to go to a
tropical country without a spleen....the laughter can be heard for miles.
(Even as far as Pittsburgh from Durham, I'd wager...)
--spleenless

[jennifer accettola]

Three spleens removed? Wild! That beats my piddly two spleens! Actually
I have a blood disease (in remission, not contagious, and I can never
donate blood or organs) called systemic lupus erythematosus and I was about
15 when I started getting treatments (steroids to make the blood clot) because
in my version of this disease (there are so many different manifestations it
is usually mistaken for something else) my spleen was overfiltering my blood
and taking platelets out.... nuff said?

[Andrew B Stellman]

Oh, man. That's really rough. I mean, an overfunctional spleen? Who was
to know the seeming blessing would really be a curse -- a veritable
"Prodigal Spleen".

My spleen goes out to you.

Andy

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
Andrew Stellman | |
r...@cmu.edu | Faisal sez: "Don't be a dork." |
read alt.spleen | |
________________|________________________________|

[Christopher W. Graefe]

The sad thing is that many people out there really work their spleen
to excess to get it to overfunction and perform. Here at college, I've
noticed that many people aren't comfortable with their spleen, size,
shape, etc. I've come to terms with my spleen and am happy with it, but
sometimes I look at others and just think, "God, If I had a spleen like
that!."
It's not just spleen envy, but a deeply rooted spleen pathology
which Freud believed extends from the son's yearning for his mother's
spleen, or the Splenipus Complex, or the daughter yearning for her
father's spleen, or the Splelectra Complex. Due to the son's affections,
he will always resent his father's spleen and the reverence that his
mother holds for it.
Just a sociospleenological theory, but of course it is one of thousands.

_christopher

[Dean C. Gahlon]

I only had two spleens as well. I don't know the start of this thread (the
early parts of it have expired on my system), but I had my two spleens
removed because I had ITP (ideopathic thrombocytopenic purpura). It
resulted in the same behavior: the spleen was taking out the good platelets
as well as the used ones. When they removed my spleens, I had to have injections
at first to *lower* my platelet count.

Of course, this was 25 years ago. I don't know what things are like now when
they remove spleens. I've survived fine without it, although I did have things
like getting chicken pox for 3 weeks a couple years after I had it removed.
Not a lot of fun.

Dean C. Gahlon
de...@ns.network.com