Mail bag

Thanks to all of you who have written in asking how I am doing, and where I have gone.

I am just fine. I went to trial. It was a long process, but as you can imagine , I have been a bit unable to spend the time I usually do writ ting and posting on this blog. I will use this moment as another request for your submissions. I encourage you to write me at the e-mail address attached to this blog, and tell me your story. It will be absolutely confidential, all names, references and all redacted, and the information would be invaluable to those out there going through this same mess. Sometimes it is enough just to know that you are not alone, even if you have given up on a cure. I know it was important for me, to learn that I was only as badly off as some other people. I am not asking for rays of sunshine, or letters of hope. Hope is a denial of your reality. You are where you are. You must embrace that place while you look for a path to a different place. You are not deficient. You are not broken. You are not ill, you are as you are right now. I don't want uplifting, though I will take it. I would like truth. Your frustrations, your anger, your voice. That's all. That's why I started this blog, and I think it is the greatest function it has. Truth. So please, write me, tell me anything. Let people hear your voice.

Ok.

R. recently wrote in a comment:

...Although I haven't read your entire blog I was wondering if you got your DHEA level tested. There are a number of websites that deal with this hormone and it's supplementation including this one http://www.anthropogeny.com/Homocysteine.htm.
Also did you get your neurotransmitters checked? Here is a website for that as well https://www.neurorelief.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=233&Itemid=48. It's not just for diagnosis but can help you put back what you need to feel better. Hope this helps!!..... R.

Good question.

No, I have not had my neurotransmitters checked specifically. from what I understand, DHEA is a tricky hormone to supplement. Oral supplements, taken by the body building community for years, were discovered to turn to estrogen, which is, as we all know, lipogenic and carcinogenic.

But I am not answering your question.

I do not check neurotransmitters. The why is a bit foggy right now. If I can recall, I could find no indicators that the tests did not have such massive variation between testings to be useful predictors. I know Michael Lesser in Berkley uses them though, and I often wondered. I know that the neurotransmitter levels are indirectly indicated by the PTC protocol. I will follow up these links when I have a moment.

And before I move on, a hardly congratulations to C, who is diagnosed h'penic, like me, and who is steadily improving. He got straight A's in college this semester. A feat I have never accomplished with or without an illness happening. He is making progress. We all know we are making progress when we dont want to talk about it anymore.

I still have rough days, and when I do nothing comes to pull me out. I want to be alone, hidden in a wrinkle, with darkness, and warm, and uterial closeness. In those times, only music comes to find me. It is not always uplifting, but it filters down into the the darkness and finds me. On the dark days, I dont want to talk. I dont want to know how to talk. I just want surcease.

Today is fine. I am working hard and have most of my brain working. That would be most of the parts that ever worked.

W.