Hi, Daryl!  Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:

AH>  Any kind of adversity is on topic....  :-)

DS>  Got to keep the moderators happy. :)


           Ah, well... it's not always easy to be sure what is appropriate
when one is posting in an echo for the first time.  But I've seen some
messages from you in other echoes, and AFAIK you haven't disgraced yourself
yet... [chuckle].



AH>  You learn to live with your limitations....  :-)

DS>  There are several blind ham radio operators in central Arkansas,
DS>  and one night...one of them did a "blind joke net" on one of the
DS>  repeaters. Everyone was laughing their faces off!! :>


           Uh-huh.  We just attended an adapted kaying session where there
were two people with only 2 1/2 legs between them & a dog with only
three legs.  The humans found this so amusing they asked us to photograph
them together....  :-)



DS>  Both the wife and I have Sleep Apnea, and we have
DS>  CPAP machines.


           Glad to hear it... about the CPAP machines, that is!  Some
people we know say they have sleep apnea but can't be bothered to *do*
anything about it, or give up on these machines after a few days because
they say it's too hard to get used to them.  I was concerned that you might
be putting off getting one in view of your present financial situation.... 
:-)



DS>  While we were one building over and 2 doors down, it has
DS>  been a nightmare.  It may be sometime in August before
DS>  we get everything organized. It took 2 weeks to find out
DS>  diabetes testing items (the wife is diabetic, and tests
DS>  4 times a day...I test once a week, as I'm over 45)...
DS>  and I am not sure where all our CPAP stuff is.


           Blechh!  I hate moving.  I'm still trying to find two pairs of
socks which went missing after a holiday last July.  Oh, and when we moved
in here we moved on New Year's Eve.  That's one way to find out who your
real friends are. Just for a giggle Dallas asked one of our neighbours... a
gal I'd grown up with
... if she would help, to which her response was "Are you
kidding??"  (I wasn't going to ask because I knew she'd spend the day
fussing over makeup & whatnot.) While we were settling down to an
informal dinner with the folks who had helped us she phoned to ask if she
could borrow a few slices of bread.  Dallas replied "Sure... come and
get it!  BTW, do you know where we are?"  She didn't remember we'd
moved three miles away.  And before we could eat I had to find the cutlery
another neighbour packed for us.  She'd emptied the kitchen drawers into a
box, starting with the top drawer... i.e. where the cutlery was... then
labelled the box "light bulbs, matches, miscellaneous dribs &
drabs" because that's what she had found in the bottom drawer.  We
figured it out eventually, though....  :-))



DS>  Excuse the ignorance, but what is PTSD??


           Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (or Syndrome).  It's not uncommon
for war vets to experience flashbacks just as you did.  The same thing also
happens to folks who have been sexually abused during childhood... as I
discovered when several of them mistook this echo for another with a
similar name, then decided to stick around anyway.  I experienced something
like it, although perhaps to a lesser degree, some time after our daughter
had been diagnosed with leukemia... and I know of at least one other parent
of a kid with leukemia who did too.  It seems to me that people do whatever
needs to be done in an emergency, and while they may put their feelings on
hold temporarily the emotional impact must still be dealt with.  From what
I've since learned about such situations I understand that it's normal
(& probably healthy in the long run) to be hypersensitive when one is
in danger or is "processing" a life-threatening experience of
some sort. I don't see it as an illness, but as nature's way of restoring
balance....  :-)



DS>  Thanks for the feedback...I'll keep everyone posted.


           You're most welcome!  Hope to hear from you again....  :-)




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+