When Doctor Alan Buchwald, the first person to diagnosis Irene with nephrotic syndrome, learned of Irene’s recent increase in Amyloid value his response was simply that perhaps the reading is an ANOMALY.
According to the dictionary, ANOMALY is defined as:
- An irregularity or mis-proportion
- Something that is strange or unusual
A conversation over the weekend with Ken Churchill morphed into Dr. Buchwald’s comment, that then led to a conversation about the “trending” of Irene’s amyloid values since July of 2007. That, in turn, followed with a conversation about the application of the “bell curve”.
The normal distribution, also called the Gaussian distribution, is an important family of continuous probability distributions, applicable in many fields. Each member of the family may be defined by two parameters, location and scale: the mean (“average”, μ) and variance (standard deviation squared) σ2, respectively. The standard normal distribution is the normal distribution with a mean of zero and a variance of one. Carl Friedrich Gauss became associated with this set of distributions when he analyzed astronomical data using them, and defined the equation of its probability density function. It is often called the BELL CURVE because the graph of its probability density resembles a bell.
Irene woke up extremely fatigued this morning yet still drove herself back and forth to dialysis treatment. The last 24 hours they also tested Irene’s kidney function which we hope to learn more about later this week. After coming home her nausea was intense and she was still very fatigued so she rested and napped for the balance of the day. Most dialysis days really wring her out ….
As we follow the next amyloid test value scheduled for late April we are acutely monitoring the bell curve and hope that the recent test was an ANOMALY and that the amyloid values trend downward.
Caminando con Fé
Dave
