Cherie, I didn't feel bad or angry in any way, nor did I discard your opinions. I merely disagreed with some of them. I know this forum has come to love your expressions and your opinions. They should never be kept quiet, but we both have be ready for disagreement

As to the complexity of it when my articles are usually simple, I can't agree with you more, Cherie. The problem is that I knew last summer this topic needed explaining. I sat down more than a dozen times to distill it. I gave up every time until about a month ago when I realized that it is a complex topic that I do not know how to make simpler except with a lot of words in plain English. This was absolutely the hardest thing I have ever tried to write. I all but sweat blood over it.

Each time I tried to distill it, I lost critical defintions and critical meaning. If it can be simpler, than this is where I am asking for help. There is a chart which should go with it, but many people have told me it makes their heads spin. It still needs to be included, but I haven't made the table yet. I was just going to take the table from the NMSS website Tipsheet.

Okay, so I am using you guys as guinea pigs. I thought Cherie gave me some good points within the scope of the article about focusing the beginning with a statement of purpose.

Where else can it be improved? Afterall, I was never a writer. I did have to give spontnaeous verbal explanations to parents on stuff and I got good at making most things somewhat understandable. But, I tend to be wordy and get off-topic. Maybe we can edit the darn thing. I could repost it here in the middle of the thread, then we could edit it. I would use different colors for the changes and we all could see when it was clearer. If it got good enough maybe you would want to stick post it to the top as a resource.

It strikes me that I am smart and most doctors are smart (though I seem to run across a lot of them who don't access their "big boy brains" very well.) If I had this much trouble explaining it, perhaps many neurologists haven't put out the effort required to do it. I have heard at least a dozen time that some neurologists believe you need "9 brain lesions" to diagnose MS - a brief reading of the Criteria shows this to be false, but they say it to us nonetheless!

Alternatively, would one of you write a plain English explanation of the MC? That would probably be even better.

Quix