Did you get your MRI? It sounds like things are progressing nicely for you. I just had my 2nd hearing on Nov. 3rd & I think it went well. Looking at my denial letter from the April hearing, things that were focused on were 1) I do laundry 2) I food shop 3) I drive my daughter to school. When I went back this time I brought with me a page I made in Word, explaining my laundry area showing I have a "dirty clothes" basket on a chair, so that I do not have to bend. I also highlighted the dryer which is set up on a base so that I do not have to bend. On top of the dryer is the clean clothes basket- clothes get folded & go straight into it. To the right of the dryer are hangers, any shirts coming out of the dryer get hung. If you food shop, be sure to note if your food shopping consists of picking up 2 or 3 bags worth of groceries to get you by till someone can go with you. Also note that if you do food shop, how often you go (me- every 10 to 14 days). If you food shop & get employees to load soda or heavy items in your cart, or if they unload your cart into your car for you. At this hearing I also made sure they knew that it was incorrectly noted that I drive my daughter to school & that I drive her to the bus stop which is around the corner. Your symptoms mimic mine. I've got a computer desk, my monitor is to the left, a wireless keyboard & mouse. If you can picture this, I have 2 chairs in front of the desk, 1 my high back computer chair, the other a fold up chair I keep my feet on. A heating pad is on the computer chair. I get up, turn on the heat, then sit down & put my feet up. My keyboard is on my lap. I'll sit here for close to 2 hours before I'm able to get up & do anything. The heating pad has been a life-saver. Where are your spasms? What are you doing for them? I've found that the heat plus trigger points helped with those. I used to be really bad, so much so that my legs would shake like jello. I keep crutches just in case. We found out by accident after I had a discography (5 needles) that showed no results (Dr did it wrong) I was in worse shape due to him hitting a nerve. My neuro prescribed methylprednisolen dose pak, let me tell you, that was the thing that stopped the bad spasms. It was like this magic pill, after that, going back for trigger points every 4 months or so instead of every month. I'm also taking Zanaflex at night with Skelaxin as needed during the day. If you want to email me from my member page, let me know where your pain is. If it is lower back, down to the toes like me I've got some great photos I found on the web that I put into a word file detailing my treatment, medications (current & tried) as well as a description of my pain along with the photographs which I edited to show exactly where my pain is. I just uploaded 2 of my edited pics- & . I've also got some muscle views, side spine views. If you notice, each pic has different color pain lines- they each mean something different like stabbing, shooting pain, numbness, etc. Took me about a week to find the various pics, it was not easy. Good luck

I've been told by my doc that being truly allergic is different than being "sensitive" to some foods. My brother always got mouth sores from eating oranges but the doctor said he wasn't allergic, he was just "sensitive" to that particular item. I can't stand those bath and body shops or candle places because I'll promptly become congested and get a headache. It's not an allergy, it's a "sensitivity" according to the doctor. They aren't life threatening, just inconvenient and uncomfortable. I have developed a sensitivity to bees sometime in the last ten years, and so I carry an epi-pen. It sucks being a farmer and being "allergic" to my pollinators, LOL, although my reactions have not been extremely severe. Again, the doc says it's not a true allergy, but could develop into more severe reactions, thus the epi-pen (which I've never used). He also conjectured that bees have a more potent venom developed from trying to adapt and survive all the chemicals we feed insects to kill them, but that was a personal theory and studies are still being done on that. As for the breastfeeding link to allergies, I don't know but I'm not impressed. I breast fed my first daughter and she has seasonal allergies but not food allergies. I bottle fed my second one and she's healthy as a horse. I know Maggie and I have discussed this too and her breast fed baby is the one with all the allergies. I was fed Carnation milk and karo syrup and have no food allergies at all. As I stated, if a child in Makayla's school had a life threatening allergy to peanut products, I'm sure those products would be banned. I don't have a problem with that, my issue would be that two kids have allergies which are apparently not life threatening (since one of the kids sits at Makayla's table due to their assigned seating for lunch), and I can't see banning an everyday substance if it's not necessary. That's an over-reaction and unnecessary. Maybe it's just here, but all parents got a message from the school that snacks provided for consumption by the class as their "every day" snack cannot contain peanut products. Everyone has complied without complaint as far as I know because that was a reasonable request. Oh, and children are not allowed to "swap" lunch items, which I also think is reasonable in kindergarten, although I would have an issue with that being a rule for older kids who need to learn to think independently. I don't think keeping an allergic child out of school is a good option either, that's another over-reaction. That child will eventually have to function in the outside world and the isolation won't help them do that at all. That person is going to have to find behaviors and adaptations that are acceptable to most of society and live with them thoughout their life, isolating them from the rest of the world won't help them gain that ability. As for the child at the ball game, there are a couple of places in this part of the country where there WILL be peanuts. One is at baseball games and another is that steakhouse chain that encourages you to throw the peanut shells on the floor. I don't think I'd take a peanut allergic child to either of those if I were a parent and had a kid with a deadly allergy. I don't have a problem with not giving an allergic person specific foods. Amanda had a friend in high school, Becky, who had the weirdest food issue I ever heard of. She was PKU intolerant, and so was her younger sister. It's apparently inherited, and the body lacks the enzyme necessary to break down the animo acids in protein (or is it the other way around?). Anyway, this kid couldn't have protein rich foods. At all. She had a special formula that she got from Michigan State University that she lived on, and she couldn't eat meat, beans, peanut butter, cheese, yogurt, eggs. It was amazing. No artificial sweeteners either, no diet pop, no sugar free gum, but she could have all the full sugar stuff she wanted. I was one of the few overnights she was allowed because most other mothers were too afraid that they'd slip and feed the kid something she wasn't supposed to have, or wasn't willing to remember all the dietary don'ts. I figured in high school she was responsible for not eating something she wasn't supposed to have, but she would regularly "sneak" sugar free gum and make herself sick, I have no idea why. At least I didn't feed it to her! Annie

The father is the next of kin and a likely person to be tagged as caregiver. However, there may be other circumstances involved, one that could eliminate him as a 'good' parent. First off, he's got his head in the sand if he thinks he can avoid the cost of child support. Ya sure, he can stop child support payments if the child lives under his roof, but he has not thought this through. There is a cost to supporting a minor and I'll hazard that cost could equal what he was paying in child support. He'll have to feed, clothe him, provide schooling extra activities, and be a father at other times. The child will need supervision (and companionship) when not in school. This means 'dad' should be home enough hours to keep track of the kid. His personal freedom will be vastly curtailed. I'd certainly have child protective services look into the situation to determine if he qualifies as a parent. "Dad's" life style is a big factor in this case. If Dad travels out of town, he'll need to provide overseerer care while he's gone. This will be needed until the son attains an age where he is mauture enough to be self sufficient. If dad does not, or can not, become enough of a father, this boy is headed toward self destruction. But if dad is highly interested in his son, he could surprise everyone with good results. Next, since you seem to be a very interested party, could you become his guardian? I know there are costs, but look into financial help that you might be elgible for, namely Social Security.

rob, I'm flattered that you remembered something I'd said in passing. In return, I looked at the link you posted to find where The Lorax had been banned. It turns out it was in 1989 in Laytonville, CA, population 1200. There in logging country, it was banned for demonizing the forestry industry. Nowhere else. Nowhere else. It may be instructive to know that the area around Laytonville, in Mendocino County, has long been the most active center for the cultivation of another, higher value agricultural product. The school district may have partaken of a bit too much of the second when enacting this ban. You can pass over this one and forget about it safely, it's indicative of nada. And the other ones on the map aren't much either, pockets of dumb things done in very small places. After going through that, I'd conclude - no significant censorship exists in California schools. That surprises me a bit. But this is something other than political correctness, if I understand. Just like the Scopes Trial (over 90 years ago and still debated in some places), it's a matter of a minority of parents trying to control what's done in schools for all children, when it doesn't line up with their own views. Efforts to stop discussions about racism are focused in the South. That wasn't my information, it was in the article. An irony is that I would guess some percentage of the parents in Biloxi complaining about the book, and the presence of the offensive N word, may very well use that word themselves. And not in a friendly way.