Dear Mark -

I can't believe what you've been through. I'm just a year older than you and if my math is right, you have been coping with this since you were 14. By contrast, I made it another 30 years longer, when I was 48. I think back to how much has changed since the late 60s and am just amazed at all you've gone through, how much more compassionate docs are now in prescribing narcotics for chronic pain, the advances that have been made in other drugs, and as you say, the internet. (Hell, we barely had push button phones back then.) More importantly, the fact that you have had the courage to stick with it all these years is about the greatest testament to the human spirit I've heard in a while. (And isn't it nice to have a girlfriend? Indeed!)

Thanks for checking back in.

Mike