Jeff Medkeff is an astronomer who blogs at Blue Collar Scientist. I’ve known him a few years and he’s a good guy: astronomer, asteroid hunter, skeptic, and writer. He’s also just friendly and cool.
He’s also very ill. He hasn’t been blogging much lately, and today we all found out why: he has two tumors in his liver.
His prognosis is unclear at the moment. Next week he’ll be going to a liver specialist in Washington, one of the best in the world, so after that we’ll have more information.
He hasn’t been writing lately because he’s lacked the energy, not surprisingly. But I suspect it would cheer him up to get some comments on his blog, so if you read his stuff (and even if you don’t) why not head over there and drop him a line? Don’t pray for him — it’s pretty clear he wouldn’t want that and in fact would actively campaign against it — but knowing others care is a mood lifter, and scientifically speaking that can add strength to the body’s health. So please go send some scientific support to a guy who could really use some right now.
June 6th, 2008 at 10:42 am
I can confirm, if you haven’t met him, he is definitely one of the *good* guys.
It is a pretty devastating diagnosis. He seems to be positioned about as well as could be hoped to mount a defense. Let’s hope he is one of the lucky ones.
-Scott
June 6th, 2008 at 11:02 am
Wow. All there is to say is we all hope he gets through this, really. I don’t check BCS everyday, but he is nonetheless an intelligent and refreshing person.
Left a comment. Wish there was something more to do though.
June 6th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
I agree, Matt, I wish there was more to be done…
I left a comment, that’s all we can do for now.
Rich
June 6th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Mentors are mortal. Their influence is not.
June 6th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
[...] I was actually shocked when I read through the Bad Astronomy Blog that he has been diagnosed with liver [...]
June 7th, 2008 at 1:44 am
Hopefully they are operable…the liver has impressive regenerative capabilities, so perhaps it can withstand pretty intrusive operations.
June 7th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
That is a real bummer.
I’ve never met Mr. Medkeff, but I have corresponded with him occasionally in the past, back in the Usenet era a decade or so ago. He’s a really sharp guy who always had a lot of fascinating things to say about just about any astronomy topic. I hope this ends up being less serious than it sounds.