Your picture looks like you are my age or younger. I am 47, soon to be 48 the end of March.

I'm very much at peace with my disease. I think I have it very well under control and managing it the way that fits me. I think you're managing it the way it fits you.

I have a comfortable home (3400 sq. ft. on 3/4 acre) that is paid for. I have a great retirement program with my work that will cover disability at a much higher rate than the government if the time ever comes that I need to use it. I have raised four great men that are either graduated from college, or attending at this time, who gave up 2 years of their life to serve others both here and abroad. I have a wonderful life, and give thanks every day to my Heavenly Father for the blessings I've been given, including MS.

I don't think I need to have 15 years to understand you better. You seem to use numbers to justify your decisions and to react to others. Your last post is to prove once again that you could not be possibly wrong in your opinion.

I understand your bias now, and that is how I'll read anything you ever post. You can do the same with me. My bias is faith based, yours is number based. And maybe biased because of health care in Canada. It is certainly different than America. I hope you never regret your decisions, just as I hope I never regret my own. We're just two people dealing with a disease.

And as far as the one plus one equals two, the problem with that is that four plus negative two also equals two, along with six plus 10 minus fourteen equals two, and an infinite other examples.

You can do whatever calculations you want to get the answer you desire, thus the problem with statistics.

(Don't tell anyone that I use data all the time to prove that teachers aren't doing what they're supposed to be doing with regards to software when their principals ask for the info - just a small bit of hypocracy on my part! )

YIKES, you are old (like me!). I am older then you, but not by much . . . guess I just look younger than I am (in pictures anyway ).

Yes, we are both managing the disease the way that suits us as individuals. It really doesn’t matter to me if you think you couldn’t face your family having made the same choices, or can’t understand (or disagree with) approaching things the way that I have.

I haven’t closed the door to any options, including Tysabri. What you choose to do (now or later) is of NO consequence to me, and I have not (and do not) make judgment about other’s choices . . . to each their own.

No, you don’t have to have MS for 15 yrs to understand me better, and that is not what I meant. What I meant was that in 15 yrs, maybe I will have lived long enough to see the errors of my ways . . . but after about 45 yrs with the disease (at that point), I honestly don’t think I will have any regrets.

My bias is based on experience, research AND faith. Our healthcare systems may play into it our points of view to some degree as well . . . although if I believed that there was any point in bucking the system, I could and would.

Not everyone thinks the same as you in the USA (or me in Canada) but we are all entitled to voice our opinions. BTW, we are both in America (north).

I didn’t say "other" numbers can’t add up to two, just that one plus one always equals two. When the variables are simple, the math isn’t complicated either.

I don’t “want” any specific numbers, I have presented what is documented in both Chris and my links. As I said, I sincerely hope the PML stats reduce over time, but they are what they are for now.

Have you even reviewed those links, 4bm, and do you have any specific objection to what I've presented? It’s easy to sit back and say “you are wrong” or “you don’t know” . . . but please show me where I have misinterpreted, if you think I have.

Cherie