Inspiration for You

#FeelGoodFriday 🎶
The Israel MS Society created this song 'Just the way I am'
for #peoplelivingwithms. 

Breakthrough in MS research at FAHC - WCAX.COM Local Vermont News, Weather and Sports-

Breakthrough in MS research at FAHC - WCAX.COM Local Vermont News, Weather and Sports-


notes: Dr. Applebee is my trusted doctor who I mention, and revere in my ms story "Wheelchair Repellant". She was a fellow at the time, hand picked by the master, Dr. Hillel Panitch. He is known in part for his pioneering research on interferons.
He believed people with ms could be helped, and if you don't know neurologists like I do (having worked many years as a nurse and now patient), you do not know how rare that is. I wrote a story about him, "For my doctor".
When i moved to vt in 1981, I went to work on the neurology-male urology hospital unit.
Interesting mix. I was 23.
I did not appreciate at the time how many great neurologists came to UVM-at that time called medical center hospital of vermont. Keeping fingers crossed for our docs and research participants...
meg

Keeping up with misinformation...#MultipleSclerosis and Nutrition

Struggling to keep up with misinformation,
realizing that is part of the communications problems in the world.
Been hyper focusing on fracking,
I see the doublespeak, lawyer shenaniganzas, public officials opening some doors, closing others,
biased editors accepting ad money, shills for Canadian land robbers, the Lake-6th Great lake gets no voice. A sick movie, futility of the Good Fight.
A lot like MS, Multiple Sclerosis.
And no matter the outcome,
Fight we Must!

So I listen to the radio, and over and over the nutritional supplements are pushed.
Forget the pipeline a minute.
Back to the home battle front.
I couldn't stand the ads....over and over...I got furious but I am supposed to keep calm and not get stressed out.
I wrote the Loser nutrition supplement company balance of nature
No response
 (suspiciously similar to the un-natural gaz)

*****my notes in italics...
They aired claims by Lauren...who sounds a little demented
she said she took nutritional supplements for ms and became
"stable'
meg: I have never been called stable or unstable...I have RRMS and take immunomodulation drugs-shots, not vitamins. This is according to present standards of neurological clinical practice.

She mentions
growing spots or did she say
glowing
active?

meg: Spots do not necessarily correlate to clinical presentation or disease progression. Glowing spots with Gad dye show a breach in the blood-brain barrier. Current treatment would suggest pulse high dose steroids, for an exacerbation not vitamin pills. Exacerbations are assessed using comprehensive neuro exam, testing, evaluation of medications. Never been asked if I am taking my vitamins. 

meeting the doctor a year later, Lauren read the mri
meg: Reading the Mri is something I leave for my neurologist
I have so many spots and have to ignore them. Your brain has at least 90% more capacity than you use. Lauren is not helping anyone with her 10%.

mri nothing growing dark spots shrinking healing in remission my reality

meg: Lauren, I feel sorry for you. If you see this, ditch the vegetable pills, the snake oil, the crystals.
Go to a board certified MS specialist.

My Article about treatments for MS....Wheelchair Repellant. I don't take vitamins

When I did a search for Clinical trials for "balance of nature" claims that dietary supplements help ms....I found this article...meg

Autoimmune Diseases
Volume 2010 (2010), Article ID 249842, 12 pages
http://dx.doi.org/10.4061/2010/249842

Review Article

May Diet and Dietary Supplements Improve the Wellness of Multiple Sclerosis Patients? A Molecular Approach

Paolo Riccio,^1,2 Rocco Rossano,¹ and Grazia Maria Liuzzi³

¹Dipartimento di Biologia D.B.A.F., Università degli Studi della Basilicata, 85100 Potenza, Italy
²Istituto Nazionale di Biostrutture e Biosistemi (INBB), 00100 Roma, Italy
³Dipartimento di Biochimica e Biologia Molecolare “Ernesto Quagliariello”, 70126, Bari, Italy

Received 4 November 2010; Accepted 27 December 2010

Academic Editor: Corrado Betterle

Copyright © 2010 Paolo Riccio et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

How to Cite this Article

Paolo Riccio, Rocco Rossano, and Grazia Maria Liuzzi, “May Diet and Dietary Supplements Improve the Wellness of Multiple Sclerosis Patients? A Molecular Approach,” Autoimmune Diseases, vol. 2010, Article ID 249842, 12 pages, 2010. doi:10.4061/2010/249842

• Download citation as EndNote

Multiple Sclerosis Research: MS is preventable: can we ignore the evidence?

Browsing Twitter,
I love Shift MS....
The UK has a lot of people with MS,
Socialized medicine system,
Committed Doctors, staff, researchers.
Thought for Sunday I would post some updates, info
On my other hobby,
Living with the MonSter...


First am posting some art
That comes with rest.
Total brain rest.

What role is my
Temporal Lobe
Playing?

Mom makes
Me think,
Was her art
A need to
Record
History?
After her mother,
 Fanny,
 passed on
Did she see the urgency

 As the veil

Drew near?

MS, the ankle biter.

My dream

Dad
Halfway home,
We both have had our atmospheric damages.
  insults to our bodies
Think of the neurological system as one big solar system.
What if the moon went away?


Now for science du jour

Multiple Sclerosis Research: MS is preventable: can we ignore the evidence?: Can vitamin D supplements prevent MS? I wish I knew the answer. #MSBlog #MSResearch "Mouse Doctor posted on the observation that...

…my notes: Yes, sunscreen overused in the north country. One year I broke my arm in the month of  March. A doctor I worked with said not to use sunscreen in winter in Vermont.
Or if a burn might happen, get at least 10-20 minutes skin exposure to sun per day before putting screen on...meg

Last and not least,
A link from the UK to explain Multiple Sclerosis to kids.
I found it very informative and understandable...
Thanks!

http://digestingscience.co.uk/#

Brass and Ivory: Life with MS & RA: Poetry and Quotes

Blogging forward...Lisa's Poem & Challenge

by Lisa Emrich, MS/RA expert Blogger advocate musician extraordinaire

Brass and Ivory: Life with MS & RA: Poetry and Quotes: Today's prompt for the Health Activist Writer's Month Challenge is - "Choose a quote that inspires you – positively or negatively – and gets...

Lisa Goes to Washington

Lisa is my go to girl for info about MS.
When first diagnosed, I searched the web for info.
I found Lisa and her carnival of MS Bloggers.
She even posted some of my stories....
Then her research,
and her love of music, hearing about her music lessons,
piano and brass.
And most of all my friends, some suffer,
all survive, all support each other.
(links to Herrad in particular helped me make a dear friend & also connect with the world.)
Lisa is also an expert on Rheumatoid Arthritis.
Her widgets always in my margin.
Now Lisa is live blogging from the center of political actions, Wash DC.
Lisa is looking out for those with MS. Follow her trail talk as she
navigates the political Arena.
Don't let the lions get you Lisa.
brassandivory.blogspot.com

oh yes, 4 inches of new snow, winter arrived in VT last night,
don't worry, it will be gone tomorrow.
mary

Placebo

Placebo
Will cut to the chase.
I was taking a placebo and Copaxone after all.
The power of imagination, suggestion, hope?
Makes the placebo effect.
I was totally shocked and the clinic staff were comforting to me,
happens to the best of us!
Also relieved that Copaxone has been very effective for me.
I have undergone 4 years serial MRI's, exams, etc.
My stability is a welcome thing and not having to fund 2 meds,
also welcome.
my day:
All morning I wondered, while engaged in work which helped distract my thoughts.
Then the trip up the valley to the clinic.
I brought the camera and wanted to snap one at the Overlook on Spear St. It is a nice little park with the only remaining public lake view.
Been wanting to get a panoramic on a nice day.
It was, alas, overcast but still beautiful. Some trees have grown up, cutting the view up.
Too bad.

Then I took one by the fountain where my Dad & Mom took pictures

Then one more southerly,

Adirondacks in the distance across lake Champlain

Then I got the news at the clinic and have a weird relief

and surprise.

So thought I would google Placebo when I got home.

I know the clinical thing. We used to actually adminster

placebos, years ago, and they were sometimes more effective

than the real thing.

This band Placebo was more interesting,

although the video link may not be

appropriate for some audiences,

watch at your own risk.

I found it telling of some of the times and

have heard this song before but never with this intensity.

Have a great day

mary

Final last clinic visit

I have one more final last visit paid for by research.
It was like having another job, being free from copays, etc.
Being able to say to the registration people that I did not
have to conform. I am a studied patient. Doing shots and journals,
tests, blood draws, MRI's, etc.
It was all for killing the dragon, an image that I found in a condensed book about King Arthur
by Howard Pyle. The image of the dragon was so much more real than
cartoon images of immune processes using colored blobs with complex initials arrows
and explanations.
So I want to urge everyone to keep the image of slaying the dragon
MonSter
known as Multiple Sclerosis as a simpler way to think about a cure.
So I wrote a poem for my MS clinic staff pasted below
and will schedule to post tomorrow,
when I finally find out what I have been on and plan for the next steps.
I still miss Dr. Hillel Panitch too and thank him wherever he may be present.

If MS was a dragon,


And I was King Arthur,


That sucker would be dead









Thanks sincerely to the entire MS clinic for making a stab at killing the beast.

Best wishes to you all!


Mary Gerdt

Study's end

Everything felt a little off today.
First my clinic appointment was today, on a Monday, not the usual Tues. or Wed.
Next, it is my last study appointment.
And I was wondering how I ever could control that and I cannot and never would be able to.
Next, my appointment is at noon, when everybody is going to lunch, but here they are, squeezing us all in
because we are all done w/ the study.
My MRI was not until 6 PM causing me to commute twice to the city.
(pardon, it may not be a city to you :>
Thankfully Fred took me to the MRI.

All morning me thinking they may have some breakthrough info re: the study.
After all the usual blood drawing, vital signs, physicals, tests, I said,
"Is that all there is?" I thought they would know more, help me decide
the concrete path, the format for success.
They would know a little more soon, the meds shouldn't cost me more than $35 a month with my insurance
(I think, give up what for that???) She said the meds are worth Thousands, (thousands??) 
and I know she is right. My acceptance of all this shaky as is normal.
My Dr. offered to write letters to help me get the meds covered.
I want to call insurance today,
but i am waiting to see what the best regimen for me is.

I talked with one of my study nurses and describe how a good shot causes skin reactions.
I liked my meds fresh. She gave me that look...
Then I realized again the phenomenon I told some MS friends about.
I am on a different wavelength than these other people. (see * below)
She did say Dr. P (I miss him so) said the skin reaction was a good sign, the med was active.
Somehow, I knew his name was going to come up today. He was the doctor who recruited me for the study 4 years ago. Now he is gone and now the study is almost done. My last official visit today.
Still having a hard time accepting it all.

Then the elevator to the MRI place. I run into an ICU nurse I worked with.
"I am going to get magnetized", for lack of anything better to say.
In the hallway to MRI, giant murals of happy caring staff and short quotes of wisdom.
I stopped in front of Dr. P's. He is gone but here is his photo, his eyes true
his quote, deep. Fred tries to take a pic of it but it is too big of a picture to capture.
Just as well.

Just wanted to jot this down while fresh.
It was such a weird day and more questions remain.
How being off our game can mess with your whole being,
and how knowing and understanding can be different.
How an expectation, an anticipation, of something miraculous,
rarely ever bears fruit.

And I have made it through the study,
stay tuned for updates of the study results as they become available
to me, the mouse.
mary 11.28.2011


* explanation: Hey, I worked neuro for years too,
considering myself an expert nurse.
Only now,
I can hear the wavelength transmission of the MonSter,
and it is ugly.
And those who do not know the MonSter,
cannot see it,
and therein lies a major problem.

The 499

The 499th Post.

I never thought I would get to this one.
It is with the inspiration of fellow bloggers
like Herrad (accessdeniedlivingwithMS)
or Judy (Peacebewithyou)
or Sherry (demyelinationofme)
or Marc (Wheelchair kamikaze),
or Robert (DailyAthens)
or Lisa (carnival of MS bloggers/brassandivory)
plus "down under" Che (feeling stressed about not posting their links here. Just look in my margin for who I follow regularly)
and many many more.......
These bloggers led me to others and to other cultures, street photos, videos, music.
They also showed me how regular posting of random thoughts, photos,
experiences,
can lead to a kind of personal freedom.
It feels like I travel now,
something I never really had but also felt was lost.

Sharing ideas, images, feelings is a goal.
I also wanted to brighten someone's day.
An old man in an apartment told me,
"I never see the sunset anymore",
when I asked him what he missed about being down on the farm.
It really hit home.
I cannot change his reality.
I can post a photo and hope someone can find a pleasant moment there.
This post was going to be about my life 30 years ago before we lost
Katie and Suzie.
Those days, no internet, no cell phones, not many photos.
Our memory banks are limited in our little fragile brains.
Some memories are best left wherever they were made.
My 500th post will be about Katie and Suzie, my support group of 30 years ago.
Today, my post is about my worldwide circle of friends,
I thank them I got to my
499th.
Thanks to the stars of my blogosphere universe.

Wheelchair Repellant

Wheelchair Repellant is a story I wrote that someone named
Caren from NYC posted on her creation: Our MS Stories.com
This link does not seem to work anymore.
I hope Caren is OK. I wrote her a couple years ago and she did not write back.
It got me started blogging.
Here is my story.

Wheelchair Repellant


By Mary Gerdt
all rights reserved


This is my story and I don’t know if it will knock you off your feet or just make you say to yourself, “Ho Hum, what a boring article. I think I’ll turn on the 24 hour cable news or Golf Channel.”



This thought came to me sometime in this first year after I was diagnosed with MS at age 49.



How and Why am I able to take these shots every day?

It was weird.



I am a nurse who always explained the rationale for a medication, explained how to administer, and worried about “compliance” now AKA “adherence” to a medical prescription. We can tell people what is prescribed and why but I do know “Blah Blah Blah” might be all they can hear after they hear “You have MS” or “You have cancer”.



We also know people sometimes take twice as much or half as much as ordered or put it in the wrong orifice or drop it or lose it or they have a reaction and there it sits, gathering dust and you thought you did such a good job explaining what they need and why. Or they can’t afford it and use half or less or listen to the neighbor and give up on the whole mess and buy something off the internet or from the health food aisle at the grocery store.



I am on study medications which makes it even weirder since I may be shooting in salt water and yet still hoping what I am doing helps the people coming after me and keeps those being diagnosed from having to experiment on themselves.



It is really a different feeling being told (rather than telling someone) you need to do such and such to prevent something from happening or getting worse. I have to get that out early on since that is a major distinction. Before this year, I felt the “luxury” of not having to stick myself but telling someone else to stick their self. I also learned to dread needing a needle, daily meds, a regimen of medications. I dreaded it so much, that was all I could think about after diagnosis.



Can I really do a self injection?

Will I remember the shots?

Will they hurt and I will just give up on them?

Will they really help or give me some other dreaded disease?

What will I do to remember the shots? My routine?

How will I afford them?

What if I don’t have insurance?

Money?

A backup plan for my shots?



This loop of questions kept playing over and over for the month I had to wait to decide on treatment. Plenty of time to dread the meds, grateful for the month off so to speak, wondering how life would change after the shots. How would I vacation? How would I deal with dirty needles? Can I do my own shots? I hate shots. Then, again, how will I remember?



Neurology was one of my specialties. I couldn’t get enough of it. Between working on the neuro floor then ICU and now long term care, I have seen my share of neurology “cases”. Now I was a case. About 20 years ago,

I saw a woman come in newly diagnosed (they used to be admitted to the hospital for 5 days and start IV steroids-what an awful place to curl up in bed and cry hysterically from the steroids and choke back the tears.) I saw the same woman like chapters in a book. There she was the next year. Now can’t walk. Then next year, she is falling and face fat from steroids. We teach her to in and out self catheterize to drain her bladder. Next year she is bloated in a power wheelchair and manages a half smile, head tilted. Did I show her how pitiful she looked in my face? I tried not to. Hoping I was one person who could straight talk to her, listen to her dreams which would never come true, praying for a miracle I knew was futile but could I live with myself if I didn’t try? Next year she choked a lot. Next year nursing home, more out of it. Sometime she died and I never thought about how. A staph infection? Pneumoia? An infected skin ulcer? Some freaky cancer? I don’t even remember. One day she was gone.



Another woman, a pen pal. Was older when diagnosed, maybe someone like me. Somehow she and I and her husband connected. She came in periodically like they all did. Admitted for 5-6 days and got the steroids and got poked by the new medical students. Large groups of young childish looking boys and girls coming at you with their tools to test your reflexes, look deep into your eyeball and ask you questions about urinating and sex. How did the patients keep a straight face? Sometimes they would joke around and that made it all lighter. All I know is every time she came in she lost a little function, a little light to her eyes. As if she was being worn down, eroded, dimmed. Her husband would joke a little more, seeing the look on my face when I saw she had lost ground.

“I’m OK” she would say to reassure me. Why did she need to reassure me? Now I see it in the faces I tell, “I’m OK.”



There have been many. Too many to count. Too many to explain to you that I really do know a lot about MS by all these people I have encountered in my nursing experience. Just trust me. I will not presume to know how any of them felt, mind you. But I can tell you how I felt seeing them, come back year after year. Chipping away at my hope they could improve or stand still where they were. Hoping only that I could improve what life they had left. Hoping I could distract them from the misery they felt smother them. The dependency that grated their sense of self. The cognitive changes I fear the most. Loss of control. Loss of sense. Loss of mind. Loss of self. So many losses.



One woman’s husband found refuge in another woman’s arms while his wife who had MS was finally forced to be in a nursing home for complete care. This caused a stir of course. The self righteous and simple minded felt it was cheating, adultery, even abusive. The people like myself saw how it could happen. And I believe it happened somewhere between when the Sufferer of MS was with it …

and when she wasn’t.



I wondered if our resident (as nursing home clients are called) even knew her husband was stepping out. And if she did, her anger was diluted by spasms, far away looks, incontinence of bowel and bladder and occasional moments of angry looks. Kind of like how toddlers look when mad. They have a hard time holding that thought, any thought. She could scrunch up her face and you could do kind of a dance or wave her stuffed animal and she would stop, even smile. No mood lasted. Her cogs were chipped as I like to say.



To me Cognition is how our gears turn in our nervous system. One thing leads to another (sequencing). We learn sequences by trial and error and from watching others. Some instinct I want to think. Some reflexes.

To me, cogs mesh with other cogs to keep the machine moving in the proper sequence.

When the cogs are chipped or broken, the machine doesn’t work the way it should. It skips, or stops altogether. Or goes backward. Or spins wildly out of control.



The neurological system is made of billions and trillions of cogs.

And likely just as many ways to break down.



So when I was offered wheelchair repellant as I am calling it now, it really was in the spirit of keeping the cogs turning. Keeping away from going down the road of all those people I knew who had no such opportunity.

I said to myself, “What would Mrs X do?” X stood for all the people with MS I had encountered and would encounter. It was a way of grouping everyone into one category without explaining each individual scenario. They all had MS in common. Some mild. Some way bad. Some young. Some old. Some men. Some women. Straight, gay, tall, short.

They all carried what I now know I carry.



They mostly all would have taken the chance.



“We have a new way to treat the monster disease that has robbed you of normalcy. Are you interested?”



How many could have said no?



“It involves taking 8 shots a week.”



OK I lost a few.



Some are placebo or maybe not.



Lost a few more.



Now what if you don’t really think it’s going to get bad or worse or you don’t know or don’t care or can’t read or your husband just left or you just had a baby or are pregnant, or your best friend says try the herbal crap at the drugstore.



Now they are leaving in droves.



Stop…Stop I say.



Don’t you know you are going to get worse? Or bad?

You are handing them a chance at the normalcy they left long ago.



Why don’t they want it?



Which is why I started to write this anyway.



To tell others that the alternative (no meds) was bad. Way bad. That if all those who suffered before you took these meds available now, that they would be happier (not happy), and less disabled (not Not disabled), and less afraid.

Going down the road and feeling more in control (but not in control).

To tell others that the shots are NOT something to dread and awfulize.

They are NOT awful.

To tell others that when I get the flu symptoms and have to lay down that when I wake up I think I am still buying strength, delaying the moment when I stare from a bed and have that strange half smile and a wet bed. Maybe even make an unintelligible sound like infants do. Maybe look at my loved ones and react or not. The connections, the cogs, failing to meet and finally failing all over until a kindly death.



Reasons.



There is a reason I stay on course.

Why when I forget my husband remembers and working together I stay on the medications.

Why I gave up the self injector and just go free style with my shots and now it is not a bother at all.

Ok, I get pains and some hurt more than others. Sometimes they bleed more, sting more. Once early on I dropped a needle and it landed “clean”. I picked it up and made Fred shoot me with it. Never before would I have thought I could have picked up a needle off the floor and shot it in myself or anyone. No spare needles at home like there was at work. I got some spares now and haven’t dropped a needle since.

I sometimes marvel that if I found needles as easy to shoot with as they are now, I might have been addicted to heroin. Scary thought.

Fred does my IM shots in my arms and Gluteus Maximus. He is more bothered but it really doesn’t bother me. I am still training him and picky about shots like my old nursing instructor.

Nothing personal, mind you, I am just trying to help him do it right.

Major complaint: A paucity of decent information of how to do it right.

Remedy: Working on writing things like this paper.

Major complaint: Propaganda BS from the drug companies that cite these studies and then someone says, “which drug do you prefer?”

Reality: One makes you sting like a bee sting everyday, one makes you sick with the flu once a week, one is like the flu every other day but not so bad? One taken off the market when somebody died or got sick or….

So many choices. It makes you want to say, “What if I don’t do anything?”



That’s what I meant about writing this article.



Your best bet is to do something.



I saw myself what happens when you do nothing.



At least the studies on the poor people at first verified



You Must Do Something.



That is why they stopped the placebo only studies vs. some drug.

The people on placebo did badly.

They did worse, just as I described when you do nothing.



So I want to advise anyone who will listen to do something.



Start with hooking up with a competent neurologist who specializes in MS. I don’t mean dabbles or has seen a few people with or did a rotation in Neuro in med school. Doesn’t count.



I mean a person who runs an MS clinic. Who is an advisor for MS policy and research, who is connected to the with it/ in the know neurologists of the present day.



I mean a person who you can talk with and they care about listening to you and your complaints and questions, ordering the right meds and when you are overwhelmed and things are going too fast, they can put their hand on your shoulder and slow it all down and say, “We will take care of you. Don’t worry.”



And when you come back after hearing the bad news and you are stunned and sitting on tissue paper on the Dr. table and she looks at you face and she decides not to start right in on protocols and the routine exam, but says, “Have you had a good cry yet?” And you choke a little and say, “Yes” and you remember when and where and how hard the tears came out and you don’t even know, so early on that that was just the beginning of letting it all out.



She gave me permission to have an even bigger cry later that week. She said it was good for me.



It was.



Stevie Ray Vaughn said in his song,

“Every tear that I cried, only washed away the fears inside.”



They did.



My fear of shots faded after starting on them.

The inconvenience of clinic appointments and MRI’s and blood draws and keeping track of my meds and side effects are really pretty minimal.



Is that because I know the alternatives so well?

How can I relay this to others?

That is why I wanted to write this accounting of my perspective because so few people will have this viewpoint. Few people will have more

than 25 years experience like I do with MS patients/clients/residents/People and

Doctors and Insurance companies, Medicare, Medicaid and shots and personal care.



Today I found a website to post this on and share with whoever will listen.



Best wishes to you and yours. Mary Gerdt diagnosed August 2007.

Spasticity Poem I

Quit pulling my leg,
You rowdy MonSter,
Couldn’t sleep past 4
Again.





Never knew what spasms were
When patients told me,

Hard to see,

Calf goes flat,



The Pain,

A Whimper,


A Grimace,
A bite of the tongue,

A face washed of smiles.

First goes flat, then gnarly, the muscles contract

In a schizophrenic symphony,

Discordant,

All wrong.

Rub my knee, flex my foot,

Jump out of bed, stomp like a weird dance,

Go away you spasms and pain,


Die you MonSter,
Die.

Monster week

The Snow Monster came and gave us the heaviest snow and this delayed back pain thing.
Other people awoke at 4 am this morning, days later than the shoveling with what feels like a bowie knife in the back to the hilt.
Or was it the MonSter? did it do it?
I feel it's claws sometimes as many of us do, to make me remember what I have.
Today blowing off steam to a selectman in town, hoping someday I may help make law that
limits what a town can punish you with for paying prop taxes late: fees, penalties, having to pay the town's legal cost as a percentage of what is due. Unconstitutional, but the selectman had confidence it was all in stone and fair. Still working on that.
Then the rain was like a monster claw on the driveway, now bare that Fred shoveled most of.
So in spite of the pains, trials, and difficulties, it has been a good week.
March is a hopeful month to me, the beginning of the zodiac, appropriately, time for new changes.
I wanted to mention a singer again who was recently married.
Carolynwonderland.com
married A. Whitney Brown and we enjoyed seeing the pictures and hearing CW sing her vows.
Not a dry eye, beautiful photos.
You really need to check out her music which is why I started to write this entry
for
Friday Night Music.
Freitag nacht Musik for our international friends...

(herrad started me doing this...)

Master of MS and letter to editor published

Master of MS.

I found this in my inbox and got excited just beginning to read. They are on twitter and facebook so you will get updates.

http://www.mastersofms.com/


Also link to letter to the editor of The Addison Eagle, the only paper so far to print.

http://www.denpubs.com/Letters-6064.114134_Monkton_government_behaves_li