I’ve written previously about holding a 6-hour-old infant in my arms in January of 2004. I’d never experienced anything quite like that before. That little one is almost three years old now, and I had an opportunity to spend just a little bit more time around her yesterday. What a delightful person little Gracie is! Especially great were the hug and kiss I got when I departed her grandmother’s house. Wow.

Here are the latest developments regarding my experiment with low-dose naltrexone (LDN).

I’ve taken my medicine every night for 12 nights now; I have a 30-day supply, so I’m nearing the half-way point of this trial period. I was cautioned to not expect any improvement in my CMP symptoms too quickly, and that certainly seems to be wise advice. There has been no “miracle cure” here, for sure.

I believe I am experiencing small, but perceptible changes, however. The most problematic areas for me have been the tingling & numbness in my left foot and the pain my lower back. Although it’s somewhat difficult to tell (due to the “good-day” / “bad-day” nature of the disease), I’ve been starting to think that there is a little improvement. The primary way I have of gauging this is that, at some points during some days recently, I have realized that I’ve not been thinking about the pain. This is pretty incredible, given that most all of the time (in recent days, weeks, months and even years), awareness of the pain is always with me.

I’m hoping that there is some promise in this treatment, but there’s a long way to go. Especially, since I’ve developed additional pain symptoms recently. Given all the time I’ve spent at the computer in the last two to three weeks to address the problems with my former blog, and then getting this version ready to go online, I’ve developed pain in my right forearm and wrist that is consistent with my 1990 tendonitis diagnosis. Amazingly, though, the Trigger Point Therapy Workbook offers me hope that I can treat this with trigger-point massage therapy (and that this may not, after all, be tendonitis but rather part of my CMP condition).

The bottom line of my thinking for today is that there may be some hope for me and my CMP woes as I combine the self-massage and LDN therapies.

On November 7th, Oregon voters face a potential twin-towers of ballot measures. My opinion: NO votes on both Measure 41 and Measure 48 are crucial to the future of the state, as the effects could be more devastating to our education systems (and other state services) than was Ballot Measure 5 in 1990. Click on the links above to read what The Oregonian had to say when they weighed in on these matters. And then head on over the Defend Oregon Coalition website.

This is important! Really.

I know, I know...I said last time that “I’m baaaacck” ...and then I went away again. You just can’t trust anybody anymore, can you? 

The truth is I thought I was back, but it proved to be not true; I continue[d] to be locked out again (after that last entry). This most recent experience with Blogger is pretty much the last straw for me. As you may recall, when I migrated TechnoMonk’s Musings away from its Comcast-server location (to the present URL) during the summer, I spent weeks and weeks devoted to the task. When things went kafloowie, I just had to figure the problems out by: sorting through the only-modestly-helpful Blogger help files, asking questions of the Blogger Help Group (discussion board), using Google to search the internet for solutions that other users had come up with, writing emails to people I thought might be able to assist, figuring it all out by myself, or leaving a task undone. (Not that you, the reader, noticed very much of this at all…I’m mainly talking about behind-the-scenes web-maintenance stuff.) Anyway, it was very time consuming and frustrating. 

I received word a couple of days ago that one of my high school classmates does not have long to live. Several years ago she was diagnosed with breast cancer but was able to survive the experience back then. The most recent memory I have of her is from a class reunion where I observed her smoking a cigarette. I must admit, I had a judgment about this. I thought: A cancer survivor. Yet she’s smoking. Incredible. She must have a death wish.

Linda was someone I shared rides with to school in the morning some days (via a carpool). I can’t say that we were really friends, though. We were acquaintances, mostly; we lived in the same neighborhood of our small, rural northern-Wisconsin town and our parents knew each other. She was at least one notch, probably more, above me on the social scale. She was a good looking teenager (rather hot, actually) and dated the jocks. I was extremely average looking, small, non-athletic, academic — and nerdy with a rather rebellious wild side. I didn’t fit. She did.

Now she’s in hospice care. So, again I’m left thinking: what’s this life all about, anyway?