Thanks

Thanks for all your prayers and positive thoughts. My family really appreciates it.

I am so thankful to report that my niece Becky is out of critical care and in a regular room. For those of you who aren't aware, Becky is a kidney transplant recipient who contracted a virulent strain of pneumonia. This has happened before and it's always a dangerous situation. Luckily a pulmonologist read her xrays and set up an aggressive treatment plan. She's feeling 1,000 percent better and is looking forward to being released from the hospital in a day or two.

My mother was in the same ER on the day Becky was admitted. My sister was going back and forth from room to room and I was driving the 1 hour trip to take over responsibility for our mom while she focused on her daughter.

Let's just say that my mom's recent medical journey was a very wild ride. A month ago she was dealing with mild dementia including some short term memory loss. Her neurologist prescribed the drug *Aricept*, which was developed to help memory issues.

My warning is this - if a doctor prescribes this for your loved one, be very, VERY cautious about agreeing to this treatment. There are cases where it works miracles for people but those who cannot tolerate, or have allergic reactions to this drug, go through hell, literally and figuratively.

In a two week period our mom went from having some low level memory issues to being so incapacitated that we were consulting with a social worker to have her moved to the assisted living floor in her building. On this drug she had nightmares so terrifying that she was forcing herself to not fall asleep. She quit eating and called me in a panic, begging for permission to stop taking the pills. After online research I discovered similar experiences of side effects not mentioned on the drug companies website, or mentioned by her doctor.

After she stopped taking the pills the real hell began. Let's just say "major drug detox". She was in the ER three times in 6 days, hallucinating, losing bodily functions and bizarre personality changes. Her primary care physician was so alarmed he ordered an MRI of her brain to be sure she didn't have a brain tumor or bleed that was causing these bizarre symptoms. But no, it was simply the effects of this drug.

I do not care whether a scientist would categorize this experience as "anecdotal". It was not an anecdote to us and certainly not to my mother, who at 82 had to endure this special hell.

I'm going to be busy the next week or so, going back and forth to ensure my mom is recovering well. I'll also be starting my new job! More about that later. I told the Farmer that I'm just going to keep getting jobs until one sticks!!

Have a wonderful Sunday everyone. And again, my entire family thanks you for your healing prayers. I'll be checking in with you to make sure you're behaving yourselves.