Tikanis, I love that story! BJ, I am very happy for you about the job. Your employer has an eye for a good thing and wants to keep it (you!). I hope that everything will work out the way you want it. Suzanne, the job sounds great. I am happy that it worked out. It is so nice to work close to home. My job is about 10 minutes from me, 15 really because I have to stop at Dunkin Donuts along the way, for coffee only! Do you start this week? Patti, be well. I hope Dave does not catch it. I am on my 2 round of antibiotics right now for a throat thing. It is not sore, just scratchy, but it has been this way since Thanksgiving. :-( Marci, Donna, Milkdud, congratulations on your weight. Milkdud sorry the way it came off, but a loss is a loss right? Donna, are you doing points or Core? I am doing points, but today I am really going to study the Core program and switch over for a week or two and see how it goes. I think I need a new program to shake things up a bit. Dee, thinking of you and hope you are having a great time. And Raeanne, you are off again next week. I am so envious of all you world travelers!!!! I think I need to beef up my "Helpful people and travel" corner! I had a nice night last night. DS and fiance came over and DS #2 was home (rarity) so we cooked dinner and then watched the Transporter 2 and Wedding Crashers. Transporter was so far fetched, but the main character was a pretty cool dude and the Wedding Crashers was a major disapointment. I had heard nothing but great reviews on it and we all thought it did not live up to it. It was still a nice evening. I have to start thinking about a dress for my sons wedding in September. People keep telling me I should be looking now and I am not ready to make a commitment to any one dress right now. I am still losing weight and whatever I chose now, may not be the dress I would choose if I was lighter, even if it had to be altered. Do you think I still have time to wait? I was thinking around June I would get serious about it. Opinions please! Have a great day. It got cold here again. Yesterday it was 60 degrees, today it is about 30. Ahhhh, New England! Love, Besh

*chuckle* You just gotta take the research in tiny bites - probably the same way you do research for your kitties. Do you get the FM Network newsletter/E-News? That's my starting point for a LOT of things, that and the CFIDS Chronicle. Both boil down the current research into something the average brainfogged FMer can gnaw at, winnow out the junk, and I go from from there. I also HAVE had this crap since 1994, and that's a lot of time to pick up stuff. Unfortunately, having no specialists where I can get to them, it's kind of my responsibility to find this information and bring it to the professionals if I want to get anything done. Right now the deal is that I'm 3/4 of the way through a slow tapering-off of a mega-strong pain medication I've been taking for about 6 years that hasn't been working as well in recent months. Pain level through the roof and coping with that really takes it out of you as you know, fighting for every minute of sleep and the physical upheaval set off the cascade of everything else in the "package" flaring up. Big snowball effect. Whine whine whine. :-) I'll be around some (if only out of sheer boredom heehee), but writing is taking me a long time since I'm taking a lot of breaks and the fog means a lot of rewriting to (hopefully) say what I want to say without being TOO much of a b*tch! :-) I'm looking into what else can be done, prying all my old records out of the doctors I've seen to clarify my (bad) memory of what's already been done, what side effects I had, etc. I do think of you every time I chuck down a few Flexeril, though. :-D Thank you for the happy thoughts. A kitty is probably going to come along late next summer. We wanted to get one this winter, once we were mostly unpacked, but we're having problems with free-roaming cats taking up residence under our porch and using the area as a toilet. It reeks to high heavens, and sometimes the smell comes into one part of the house, and I don't want Puss to get confused about where she's supposed to go. We had that problem with Random in our condo; the neighborhood wanderers urinated on the balcony by the door and on the front stairs, so she would pee near there inside, and of course both locations were not places we could put a litterbox! It's going to be a helluva mess to clean that out and repair the porch. I've considered getting some of the Havahart traps but there's nowhere to take them where they won't be killed, and all the feral-cat programs have to offer is trap-neuter-release which is a really lovely idea but does nothing to mitigate further destruction. Sigh. Letting one's cats roam free is almost standard practice here, unfortunately.

As I'm sitting here this a.m., I'm noticing how poorly my head feels. This is definitely something that I shouldn't be having, esp as it's not improving like the rest of my body is. I'm going to have to keep exploring and experimenting and hopefully find a solution. Esp given how excellent...truly excellent... like better than I had in years and years...I was feeling right up until surgery. I want to go back there and don't want to compromise or be dismissed. It was only last week that I was feeling so super, so it's not an aging thing or an unattainable thing. It was real, and I'm going to do my best to get it back.

Always best to get the doctor to check it out. I had my gallbladder out many years ago because I had huge stones and had tried passing a couple. Horrible pain. After removal I immediately began having terrible pain, cramps and diarrhea. I unfortunately had Bile Dumping syndrome. I don't wish it on my worst enemy. Truly dreadful condition. I could not eat with out being very near a bathroom because it would hit so hard and fast that I might not make it there. This for quite some time caused me to be home bound. I learned where every bathroom was in every store, restaurant, believe me. I learned to always have a bag packed with me just in case. I was put on Questran powder which helped a little. In my case it didn't matter at all what I ate, everything caused it. I still have bouts of it today, it's never ending. I still always make sure I don't eat with out having facilities near by. My husband knows if I say find a bathroom now it means right this second not a few miles down the road. I have medicine that helps control the horrible spasms and rolling cramps. Occasionally it triggers vomiting too. Oh joy! I try to warn friends and family that are about to under go gallbladder surgery to be aware of this possibility so they aren't blindsided by it like I was. I thought I was dying the first time it hit me. And in several cases they have also developed Bile dumping syndrome. They were all thankful that I had warned them because they too thought they were dying. They were able to get the proper care because they were familiar with my situation. My nephew was one of them and unfortunately he has it about as bad as I do. I don't know if mine will ever completely go away, I doubt it will. I am not sure I would have had the surgery at the time if I knew I would have this condition from it. I think I would have waited until it was absolutely essential. By the way the dumping refers to the sudden dumping of Bile into the system , not the other kind of dumping lol.