'cos my real ones don't work, and I have to get by with a mechanical one. (it weighs about 300lbs and steers like a shopping trolley! (bit like me after a few lagers)).
Just in from 18 mile plod - very slow (just under 4 hours) but it was very hot out there. Well that's my last long 'un (until the 13th, that is). Just celebrated by eating half a litre of hagen daaz and a big piece of chorizo (don't ask!).
I've had a number of biopsies - they are (generally) very safe. Do not underestimate the risk of bleeding -I had one bleed a week after the event (after I had been discharged from hospital) 24 housr later I was in intensive care, on a ventilator and with a less than 50/50 chance of survival. Fortuneately adverse effects are fairly rare (1 in about 2000 I'm told) and I would not hesitate to have another. I would say do not run - or do any physical exercise for a couple of weeks after the event. It's one of the few occasions where I would do EXACTLY what the dox say!!!
Currently between £2-3000 for the National Kidney Research Fund. I'm fortunate in that I've not had to do any fundraising - once people find out that I'm (probably) the first haemodialysis patient in the world to run a marathon people throw money at me (seriously! I've come home to find money stuffed through the letterbox on a number of occasions).