Baba, you have become much more resigned or a lot less panicked than you used to be. Perhaps your inner strength has increased. Anyway your story has changed over the last 400 posts also. I don't think the trip is over, I don't think it will ever be over. I have stopped all pain meds and all sleeping pills now and keep a (stash) of Tylenol w/codeine for road trips and such. I was lying across the bed last night and felt an old familiar vibration that spanned from left to right in the pelvic area and I thought to myself that the sensation was familiar but not recent at all. Perhaps over a year since I had felt that. I still have much difficulty lifting my leg into my truck.(an early benchmark that is little changed) Cold weather is not going to be a friend as I feel the constrictions of added pain and lessening range of motion. So in conclusion I feel that symptoms will change as we evolve with the condition and the total perception may be seen as improvement but I'm not ready to categorize any of it. The pain that has left me had no resurgence before lessening. It was like watching Houston in the rear view mirror, a long time going. Is it too early to wish you happy holidays? Ken in Texas.