Yes, Sue - we are all behind you! You can be thankful you know where he is and that he is supervised. That is a great comfort when you think of the alternatives. Hopefully he can get the help he needs there.

Sometimes life sucks, and you sure have had more than your share of those times.
We're here for you Sue, whatever you need.

We can't avoid the ups and downs but we do have somewhere to share them, which means a lot.

My high is after nearly 8 years with the same car, after a friend wanted the same car after wrecking his own I have just collected a very nice Hyundai Atoz as a replacement which is great fun to drive. The Proton has served me very well and is going to a good home tomorrow. I always like driving (except in jams) so appreciate a good car.

Sue, it's good for your son to recognize that he needs help. So many don't or refuse to admit when they do. I know how difficult it is to love someone who suffers with this, hope all goes well for him and for you.

I am not sure that he did recognise it even though I told him that I thought he needed help. I wrote a letter to his hospital and faxed it to them, asked them to pass it to the appropriate person. Presumably someone had some sense and acted on my letter, I find it hard to believe that he would have sought help voluntarily, he had told me that he was feeling 'normal' as he was now taking less medication.

This seems, a bit pathetic compared to all your highs and lows, but my high came at 4:30 today. My cat has been acting a bit strange recently and he's just been taken to the vets and been given a clean bill of health! He's old, and gets very stressed at the vets, but this time the vet managed to come out of it with all his limbs! He even took Gizzy's temperature (ouch) and gave him a injection and tablet! So yay hes OK! I guess my high point of the day was Gizzy's low point of the year!

Sue, I've been wanted to show my support but wasn't sure what to say. I am coming from the other side of this...I'm dealing with my own mental health problems right now. I know it's tough whether you're the person with the problem or the parent who is trying to help.

Whether he is getting help because he recognized his needing help doesn't matter. What matters is the now and in the now he is getting help. My heart goes out to both of you.

Nemesis, I'm glad your cat has a clean bill of health. Every little thing adds up. And really, your pet is a big consideration in your life!

My low today is feeling lost, not sure how to best get myself together.

My high was getting flash player to load on my computer to see the slide show of my graduation (from my school's web page) I'm not in the pictures and none of my friends, never the less, it was great to see them.

If you want to see them and have flash player on your computer click here for the slide show. Click on the pictures below the main one to see all of them.

Highlight of my last few days is embroidering! I always like to keep busy...been embroidering for a good many years. Me and Mum are hoping to put all the embroideries I have done in past years - which have been in frames, but not many displayed - onto a big cover, and make it a bedthrow. Here is my latest...and a close up to one of the objects
Picture 1
Close up

That is beautiful, Jane! Your work can be something to be handed down to other generations in your family!

Very nice. You should look at tellywellies website Jane, his wife has produced some really beautiful work.

Jane! I loved looking at your work! You must have patience galore. I couldn't even fathom doing all of that stitching. I'd likely throw the whole lot of it out the window .

I'm having my high point of the day right now, for some reason. It almost makes me crazy to feel this way sometimes (and I thought about putting this on my FT blog but I think I've been out-of-sync enough over there already *sigh*). Anyway, let me just get this off my chest: I had a pretty rough weekend. I don't know why that happened - I never do, really. It just creeps up, plays with my muscles, my pride, everything that I am or should be. But here it is Wednesday in the wee hours. I feel a lot better. It all lands safely one more time. And, sappy as it sounds, I feel like the luckiest guy on Earth. Everything is right on spot. I'm listening to music that makes me feel so much stuff. Sure, not the way it used to, but that doesn't matter. It still makes me feel. I almost finished a poem today - an awfully good one too, if I do say so myself. I even got to watch the "American Idol" finals tonight and was not even partly jealous but entirely buoyed by the talent those young people just get right up there and share with the world. Somebody told me today that everything that is happening to me, or at least was at the time, was "not fair". I disagree. First of all, not much is ever fair. Second, what's fair for one is not always fair for the other. My entire life was a rehearsal for this time, this thing that makes life a big wonderful mess. I learned, and I made sure I did, what is really out there to be appreciated. A bum leg or two? It happens. A good song or a well written line or the passion that comes with the mere act of seeing a color and knowing it matters ~ those things need grabbed, evaluated and measured dearly. I'll shut up now but I had to say all that. And I remember, and remember well, how to love, too. Lou Gehrig, if you ask me, stole my line before I ever got to say it: "I'm the luckiest man on Earth."

You made me cry again!!


Quote:
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"I'm the luckiest man on Earth."


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I can't get over the amazingness of you. Why aren't you hating everyone and kicking and screaming? I would be a complete puddle on the floor with all that pain and discomfort. I am lost in admiration for you and your amazing attitude. I know you are here for a purpose, I reckon it is to shut up miserable old moaners like me.

Remember when you asked me once why I thought you were still here? Back then, all I could think to do was offer emotional support and a shoulder to cry on...but now, it seems a little easier to understand, and I will venture a timid observation or two.

I have seen you grow emotionally so much in the last six or eight months, Dave. I sense at least a measure of tranquility that wasn't there last year, a new ability to fine tune your 'new normal' and seek out the good in it, wherever it can be found. That's high spiritual ground, and not something we are generally born with - and the cultivation of it isn't for the faint hearted. Most of us endure seasons of grief, short times of physical or emotional pain. But to first merely endure and then eventually learn to somehow raise yourself up above that level of everyday despair is an amazing thing, and I humbly watch from the sidelines. Somehow, with your lion's heart, you are learning to grab hold of what happiness is available to you, even if it's no more than a shaft of sunlight across your face after days of rain, or smelling newly mown grass.
Thank you so much for allowing me to watch and learn along with you, Dave. I can never forget the things you have unknowingly taught me, and because of you, I am changed also.

If only I could have put it so eloquently, you have said what I feel. Thank you.

No real talent on my part, Sue. Those are just the things love says when the heart is full.

I traveled to a near-by city just as a storm came up. The sky turned an odd yellow gray color. I say odd, but it really looked interesting. I've never seen the color before. Then the sky darkened to a darker gray color. As I was driving I saw a rainbow, so, I stopped my car to look at it. It wasn't very bright but I could see it for a good three minutes before it faded.

I looked behind me and saw a small section of the sky, just beyond the dark clouds, that was still light and clear of any of the storm. It was bright and looked like the place I'd rather be driving in! But I smiled as I realized something.

As the rainbow faded, I could see an outline. The color spectrum was still there but the natural colors of the storm were covering it. So often we want things to be smooth sailing, clear skies ahead. But it's only when the storm comes that we're able to see the rainbow. Maybe it's when life is stormy that we see what is really special and important to us.

We're all here for you Gats

I have a very High today.

Hubby went for his after surgery check up and it was what they call a low grade cancer but the good news is that it didn't spread to the walls of the bladder.

He will have to go in every three months for the day so they can test him again. He wasn't happy about that but better a little pain than having no bladder at all.I am glad he won't have to have treatments as I don't think he could take that.

My other high today was I won 25 free Air miles on a game from our local grocery chain. They will go toward a trip home hopefully in the summer.

My low is that my bronchitis has returned and I guess it means a trip to the docs.I was so hoping it would go away on its own but it seems to have become my buddy.LOL LOL

Well that's the latest update.
Thank you all once more for your kind words and prayers and good thoughts.
They definitly helped.
PF & Mr.PF

What wonderful news, PF! Just what we've been waiting for!

Great news Bonnie.

Excellent news!

Very good news, very pleased for you and Mr PF

Super news, PF. I bet everything is on the upswing, now.

There must be Someone or Something out there that listens to good thoughts and prayers.

They work.

Blessings,

Rich