Yeah, this is Gina, the happy go lucky, goddess, and I don't much care for holidays. Haven't seen my son in 5 years. We found out he had Aspergers disorder after he left home. Imagine raising a child for 20 years, sending him to college on a full scholargship and he graduates with a degree in web design and then he crashes and burns.

Now he lives 3000miles away, is on all kinds of meds and is happy as a clam just staying on his computer and going into Second Life. He has no motivation, no ambition and if you spoke to him, the sad part about this is HE SOUNDS JUST FINE. No inflection in his voice, no down in the dumps attitude. He just wants to live the way he does.

Very very hard on me and Alan and holidays are not fun. Even if we had the bucks to go and visit, Alan doesn't drive, and even if we did, my son would give us maybe one or two hours of his time. The rest is as he puts it "his tv time, his computer time, and we would be on our own".

So I'm not going to take every last penny out of the bank, fly across the nation and be stuck in a motel room for a week.

Not fair, is it but that's whats happened. My family never asks about him. Seems they don't like to hear about mental health issues. Nothing I can do. I visit him in Second Life and we go flying together through the worlds. Not something I envisioned but believe me, it's what I have to do to maintain an ongoing communication with my son. Aspergers is very tough on a mother.

Sorry to be so maudlin, but sometimes I have to vent!!!

Anyway, some interesting conversation with the guy across the street who has neuropathy. He is a diabetic and he was diagnosed with neuropathy at the same time he was diagnosed as a diabetic.

He used to go to another state for light treatments on his hands. But they stopped working. He is on no meds. His diabetes has always been under control since he got diagnosed.

So just now I walk over to him and I said "Nick, guess what, I've got neuropathy in my toes, they buzzed a little three days ago" I had been diagnosed with this about 6 months ago but the tips were just numb. All of a sudden three days ago when the weather went nuts outside, they were buzzing (ever so slightly), nothing to make me nuts.

so Nick says: "Oh guess where I have neuropathy now?, in my lower back!"

I said "how do you get neuropathy in your lower back and how do they know that it's neuropathy"? He said "Remember all those months ago when I had trouble walking (he's 76). ??? I said "yeah, they sent you for a stress test and you passed". And he goes, right!!! So he still had problems with his lower back and walking so he went back to his doctor who ordered an open MRI of his lower back. They found nerve damage in his lower spine. The doctor told him "I'm sending you for physical therapy and that might control the pain". I asked Nick :"are you on neurontin or lyrica, because you do have treatment options" he said "no, I'm not on anything right now and my back is killing me (He was raking leaves in front of his house).

He said "If it's not one thing, it's another thing".

Oh well.


Oh this morning, Alan got up fast and got a little dizzy. I took his pressure with the wrist cuff thing and it was 120/70. I do not trust the wrist cuff thing.
the doctor had told him that if this happened don't take the altace that morning, so he didn't. He felt fine after breakfast, had his lunch and a protein shake, and now he is at the gym doing his Rocky thing. He knows to rehydrate.

So this neuropathy does present itself in various ways, doesn't it???

mel