medical conditions – The Charley Project Blog

Make-a-List Monday: “Unspecified medical condition”

September 21, 2015November 9, 2015Meaghan4 Comments

Sorry about last week. I had written, like, six lists in advance and they were running automatically and I just forgot when they ran out.

Anyway, on to today’s list topic. “Unspecified medical condition” is maddening to me. Are we dealing with someone who’s had an organ transplant and needs to take like 50 drugs a day or they’ll die, or someone with some minor, not life-threatening complaint? Is it a mental illness instead, and if so, what kind? There’s a world of difference between schizophrenia and depression. Inquiring minds wanna know. Here they are, people with some kind of medical problem but I’m not sure what:

A different kind of fugitive

September 3, 2015November 9, 2015Meaghan2 Comments

My policy on people wanted on criminal charges is this: if the criminal charges are thought to be the primary reason they disappeared, I don’t put them up. Those people are considered “wanted” rather than “missing” in my eyes. On the other hand, if a person happens to be wanted for committing a crime but appears to have disappeared for other reasons, I will put them up. The more minor the charge, the more likely I am to post them, on the idea that a person’s not going to run from a few unpaid parking tickets but just might run from murder or armed robbery or suchlike.

Today I encountered a kind of case I’d never seen before: a man who is wanted, not by the police per se, but by the public health authorities. He’s got drug-resistant tuberculosis. It was apparently in remission or something by the time of his disappearance and he wasn’t contagious, but he still had to get regular treatment for it. Then he dropped of sight, I don’t know why, and stopped coming in for treatments. Without the medication his illness has certainly reactivated. It is now contagious and it’s going to kill him if he doesn’t get treatment. There’s a warrant out for his arrest and the county board of public health issued an alert for him.

Since he is listed in the CDOJ database of missing persons, I decided to add him to Charley too. Given the aggressive nature of tuberculosis, I have to wonder if the poor man is even still alive. My guess is if he is, he’s probably somewhere south of the border, which would explain why he hasn’t turned up after over a year.

(I’m actually quite interested in the history of tuberculosis and can recommend Thomas Dormandy’s The White Death as an excellent book on the subject.)

Um, no way. No fracking way.

July 20, 2015November 9, 2015Meaghan7 Comments

It seems very unlikely that this man is three foot nine inches tall. That has got to be a typo. Either that or he’s a Little person. The weight is unusually low for a grown man also.

I called the Oakland PD and they gave me the phone number for the investigating officer in Mr. Adkins’s case, but when I called that number he didn’t answer and I couldn’t leave a message because his mailbox was full. Muttergrumble. I hope the guy I spoke to contacts the investigating officer himself and passes on my inquiry about Darriel Adkins’s height.

[EDIT: Well, I’ll be darned. I called the CDOJ database and they said they’d call me back. They did, like five seconds later, and verified that Mr. Adkins really is 3’9 and 105 pounds. Must be dwarfism, then.]

Make-a-List Monday: Cerebral palsy

July 13, 2015November 9, 2015Meaghan9 Comments

In honor of Hasanni Campbell who will have been missing six years next month, I’m doing a list of MPs with cerebral palsy. Even if there are only two of them.

Make-a-List Monday: Asthmatics

May 18, 2015November 9, 2015Meaghan3 Comments

People with asthma, obviously. My dad has asthma. He had a very bad attack when I was ten and nearly died. He hadn’t been troubled much by the condition since then, though.

Make-a-List Monday: “Disabled” or “dependent adult” persons

March 30, 2015November 9, 2015Meaghan1 Comment

A list of people who are classified as dependent adults or disabled, where the reason for such classification isn’t provided.

Missing person of the week, Timothy Parry

March 24, 2015November 9, 2015Meaghan1 Comment

Timothy Scott Parry is this week’s featured missing person. He was nineteen years old when he disappeared from Cedar City, Utah on July 17, 1989, and he would be 45 today. Timothy had a lot of things wrong with him, physically and mentally. I doubt he lived long after he went missing.

[Whoops. According to my blog, I actually did him as an MP of the week three years ago. Oh, well. He gets featured again.]

Make-a-List Monday: Caution advised

March 23, 2015November 9, 2015Meaghan7 Comments

There are a few MPs where, for whatever reason, “caution is advised” if you encounter them. Unsurprisingly, almost all of these are male.

An interesting website

March 13, 2015March 24, 2016Meaghan42 Comments

Someone emailed me the link to a very thorough website about the missing sisters Brandi Summers and Tiffani Wise. I’ve only just had time to glance around, but there appears to be an abundance of info here. I’ll have to update their cases with the information I presume I’m going to get off of this.

Make-a-List Monday: People in wheelchairs

December 22, 2014November 9, 2015Meaghan10 Comments

A list of MPs who used wheelchairs, either full- or part-time, whether or not they had said wheelchairs with them when they disappeared.