From Spokane

I have an appointment to go over end-of-life paperwork with a lawyer at my sister Carol's work this afternoon. While this is very necessary, I would also like to pursue treatments to prolong my life. While I'm not in any danger of dying real soon, use of my limbs are becoming much more difficult.

To that end, I have started a fund to initiate natural methods to help detox my body. This fund is separate from household finances, and any treatments are not covered by the VA or insurance. If you can help at all, I would appreciate the support. Please see the right pane on this page for ways to give electronically.

Thank you!

Spring Break next week

I'm going to go see my sister Carol in Spokane next week. Lydia will be going with me. I was gifted the ticket from a friend of the family, and we had enough miles for Lydia's ticket as well. I'll be doing some legal paperwork, wills and what not. Carol is very good at keeping me on task to get this done.

Thinking of Heaven

Listening to Jim Brickman's CD on my mp3 player "Grace" that my wife bought me some few months ago when it was apparent I may have ALS.

It is very soothing music. It's been a rough day. This music is helping me to both grieve and praise. The 1st time listening through, I shed some good tears. Grieving for my wife and children mostly, I guess. I will miss them deeply if I should pass in the next few years. I love them all very much.

God gives me visions of gardens during these times as I close my eyes and rest. Gorgeous gardens, with sunshine filtering through. Weeping even now as I listen to "Jesu" from the CD. It's one of those piano pieces that touches the soul deeply.

A new symptom

I've had a cramp come up on my right side of abdomen tonight. It's happened a couple of other times also.

Deb & I were up at UW Med center with Deb's mom in for more heart procedure today. It's been a long day, and I'm hunting & pecking. Left hand is nearly useless @ this point.

I had my first Pulmonary Function test today at American Lk VA. I need to get the results for this test posted to patientslikeme.com

New Look

Fiddling with my blog, I found a template that I agree with more. Do you like it?
I also started a "Favorite Links", which you can find on the right column. I'll post links here that I want to refer to.

Busy week coming up. Church was awesome today. Thank you, faithful supporters :-) I love you all.

B

Social Security Disability Approved

Praise Report!

Social Security called on Thursday, said they had approved my claim for disability. Surprisingly, my left hand is working good (at the moment).

Here's my first audio since fixing my audio links. More to come, now that I have it working.

Thanks for following this blog.

Bless you!

Lots to report

But not a lot of time right now. I've fixed the links to the audio files in the below posts.

Will have some new posts shortly. Thanks for all your thoughts n prayers.

Barry

Tuesdays with Morrie

Debbie and I watched this movie last night. It was referred to me by my cousin Su, whose husband David has ALS:

Tuesdays with Morrie

1999TV-PG89 minutes

When Mitch Albom (Hank Azaria) learns his beloved professor, Morrie Schwartz (Jack Lemmon), is dying with Lou Gehrig's Disease, he reconnects with his mentor and learns from him all over again -- but this time, they're studying life. Mitch might be a successful sports columnist and television host, but that doesn't mean he's aced his priorities. This made-for-television movie is based on the real-life Albom's best-selling book.

Here are some good quotes from the movie.

Working on Audio bugs

I may have a bad audio player on the blog, but also Microsoft is changing the url for where my sound files are hosted. Some sound files may not work in the meantime.

Monday 3-8 - Update, still working on the audio problem. I need to re-host my audio files, will check with comcast when I get time.

Thursday - Filing for Social Security Disability

I started the process of filing for disability. Also had a good talk with Lydia's ballet teacher. Please listen to this audio for details:

this fixed link is now working correctly as of 3-20-2010.

Audio of Wednesday

L hand is tight, please play the audio file (link fixed 3-20-2010).

Meeting with Naturopath on Tuesday

Debbie, Lillian, SarahLynn and myself met with Dr. Gary on Tuesday. Here is an audio of our meeting. (link fixed 3-20-2010)

Dr Gary's philosophy is to treat the cause of disease, which in his opinion is toxicity in the body.

It is very promising to me. The first test he would need would be a stool sample, in order to see what is going on in the gut. There is a good article on msnbc.com on that issue today.

I will need $275 to do the stool test. Deb is skeptical this process will be successful, so doesn't want to use family funds to go down this path yet.

I would like to research German medical studies also, before making decision to do this. Deb n me would need to agree, also, before proceeding.

Meeting with the Social Worker

Debora and I met with James S, social worker yesterday afternoon. We filled out paperwork yesterday. More information here in this audio (fixed link as of 3-20-2010).

I'm having problems this morn with stiff left hand.

Speech Recognition information

I found this on Eric Fox's blog that his wife is keeping up. A company called DynaVox is very much into making devices to assist the speech disabled to communicate better.

http://www.dynavoxtech.com/start/veteran/

Going to bed

Going to bed:

Here is source on setting up audio... I'm becoming a nerd again ;-(