Thanks everyone! I'm sure he will do well with all your prayers. He is still waiting to hear from his doctor on the results of the CAT scan. I'm just hoping we can be moved into our new apartment before he has his surgery so there isn't the stress of handling the move on my own. Although it might be worth it to get away from the elephants living upstairs from me. Since we have lived here, we have had about 4 different tenants upstairs from us. One was a bigger guy and we would hear him walk around every so often. There must be a floor board that is exceptionally squeaky in the bedroom and living room. But the elephants upstairs from us now never sit or sleep! I don't think they work either. They march around in the bedroom until 3:00 a.m. It sure will be nice to get away from them. I really need to start packing...yuck! Thanks again for all the well wishes, you guys are the greatest!

"Also, get out of the habit of eating." I think that's a big key, right there! Since it's become just so inconvenient to eat, I barely care anymore. Although, right now, I'm splurging on gluten/wheat-free pancakes, mixed with shredded coconut, egg whites(from my own chickens and I can actually eat the whites!), almond meal and topped with fresh local honey and raspberries from the garden! :~) So much of my family's life has revolved around the kitchen. The last house that we built was designed with it as the focal point! Now, with everyones diet so restricted, I'm not sure what we'll do about it. We have, literally, hundreds of cookbooks. Everything from professional, ethnic/regional and even ones from my grandma. With the exception of many of the Asian ones, they're sort of useless now. :~( I've been doing massive amounts of harvesting and freezing all sorts of berries and veggies. I'm going to start making preserves out of beet sugar. (I used some in my coffee and it's actually drinkable now.) I've wanted a large cold storage for fruits(apples, pears, etc), potatoes and whatever else, for a long time and just might put one in. Also, the only good pizza place in town, was wiped out. A motorhome drove through it this summer! :~0 I'm now almost down to what I weighed in high school. At least, as a junior! My coach kept wanting me to move up weight classes, for sports. We used to weigh-in and if I didn't make it, I'd have to go eat and try again. Everyone else was starving themselves to make a lower weight. Eating far more than I needed became a very bad habit and hard to stop, even 20+ years later. Wow! I'd look like a corpse at 130lbs!;~) I don't think that my body would take that. I figure that 190'ish(+-) is around my ideal weight! I'd just be far too thin at anything less. Even the clothes that I bought the last shopping trip are getting baggy. Not that I'm complaining!! ;~) I wondered where my cheekbones went to! "As a bonus, I have the most marvelous tan ever, getting comments...." Never been much of the tanning type! Especially, at my age now!;~) God forbid I start getting wrinkles! All of my friends that spent years tanning around pools, in Palm Springs, look twice my age! :~) Laying in the sun w/o protection, lots of booze and cigarettes will do that to you.;~) Being fa..., ahhh larger, I kept to the shade and fully dressed...thank you very much! ;~) I don't mind a few character lines. I just refuse to look like an old crone, just yet! ;~) Especially, now that I've lost weight!! Scott

Thanks for sharing your story Lorraine. I'm sorry to hear that you have had to cut back. Yes, gratifying is a good word. The one I usually use is therapeutic. It seems that gardening is one thing that I can do and succeed no matter what, that and mothering. I will keep you in my prayers if you are a religious person. I know it must be very difficult to be so limited at such a young age. You make me very thankful that mine is just temporary. Sometimes things just need to be put into perspective to make one appreciate the good things she has. Thanks for that. I hope you can still find some things that you love that you are capable of caring for. If I lived closer to you, I would certainly come help you. My mom is becoming more and more incapable of caring for her stuff. She tells me that she is losing her zest for gardening. That worries me about her. I have been getting a bunch of plants from her. Good luck with everything. Hugs, Joy

A student of mine died this way about 17 years ago. Not long after, similar deaths occurred with 2 other kids, but no one ever really confirmed what happened in the latter 2 cases. Unfortunately, it's one of those things that will persist in spite of our warnings, but at least we can talk to our kids about it. The truth is, most of them already know it's dangerous which is probably part of the allure. I'm very sorry this happened - senseless, preventable deaths are so awful. It would be great if no child ever sniffed from a whipped cream can, drove too fast, drank alcohol, tried drugs, took chances with strangers etc but the reality is that young people are particularly vulnerable to such things and will continue to make bad choices from time to time as part of their maturation process. The best thing we can do is keep the lines of communication open and stress the importance of making good choices by modeling that, and hope that the bad choices they DO make will not bring them harm. I shudder to think what could have happened to me from some of the things I did when I was young, and I wasn't anything close to a rebel. I was just one of the lucky kids that didn't wind up a negative statistic. My warmest thoughts to you at this time.