AN UPDATE

Another day on planet Earth. Another day of observing snow and ice out my window. It is the first full day of Spring, but up here it takes eight weeks of more Winter after the groundhog sees his shadow. Well I remember times when I was using the hose to water the animals by this time. A couple years ago we were eating out on the deck. We had several seventy degree days and a few days in the eighties that year. However the normal high for the day is only 44. We are actually just a little below average, it is just that there has been little break in the persistence of this weather, especially after the last snowfall.

Besides waiting for Spring meteorologically and in the geo-political world, Jamie and I are longing to see some improvement in her health. Jamie has given me permission to write about her health issues. I have mentioned it before but it is time for an update. About five years ago a situation arose where Jamie would experience dark moods. She had a brain scan done which showed there was some damage to the hippocampus similar to Alzheimers but not clear enough to make that diagnoses. She was told that it could be caused by sleep apnea which she has been dealing with. She will be having another brain scan done in a month or so to see if there are changes that can make a diagnoses possible.

Her condition is accompanied by low dopamine which causes her to peer through a dark cloud. She struggles every day to see things differently. It is especially painful because she has always been a very creative person, one could say a 'high dopamine' person.

She is by nature a scientist and she has not given up her search for a cure or at least some improvement. The traditional medical doctors, we have seen, have only drugs to offer which don't solve the problem. She has visited a natural path and chiropractor who is into non-traditional healing. These visits were valuable and gave information but no solution. They were better at saying what the problem wasn't than what the problem was. We had a visit at the Mayo Clinic which confirmed that the problem was some neurological damage.

Jamie is determined to get better and she has done extensive research through the internet. She has pursued every promise of raising her dopamine level. She has tried many vitamins etc. Sometimes there is a little improvement, but the crash comes. She maintains her optimism, but she has to fight to do it. This problem feeds into other spheres of our life. Jamie loves and needs a social life but she isn't able to pursue it right now. Interactions with people brighten her up. In a social situation a person may never guess this person is tormented by dark moods. One paradox is that social relationships are extremely helpful yet she has difficulty initiating them. The problem has created isolation which makes the low dopamine level worse.

The low dopamine doesn't limit her physical activity. In fact she attempts to use physical activity as a solution. When she isn't doing research via the computer she is busily cleaning out corners stored with forty years of living or cooking up future meals for the freezer.

For the most part I am able to stay optimistic and Jamie will not give up. Her research promises the neurological damage is reversible. We can only hope and pray and keep seeking.

We would appreciate any information that is out there.

Love and Peace, Gregg