Earlier this summer I posted a question (and received) some great advice regarding Parkinson's. My mother-in-law was just diagnosed with it, a few days before she left for 3 months overseas. She returns in a couple of weeks and will have an appt. with her neurologist. Her tremors have become more noticeable in the 3 months she has been gone, according to my brother-in-law. She no longer wants to "eat out" in public due to the shaking, difficulty cutting food, holding a coffee cup, etc. While we don't yet know what kind of medicine she will be placed on to help control tremors, I was wondering -- how long will it take after she starts medication, before her tremors improve? A week? A month? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you,

The women at our church mainly wear skirts. I usually do, UNLESS I'm working in the baby nursery once a month. Then I wear nice dress pants. It's hard to crawl around on the floor and do steep bending and lifting in a skirt! I think it's more modest to be wearing pants in situations like that. Noone bats an eye.

Yep. Glue dots. They come in various sizes. Hobby Lobby, AC Moore, Michael's, etc. sell them.

My laundry area is in a closed in closet in the kitchen. I love it!

When my husband had unexpected heart surgery in March (without health insurance coverage), I re-applied to the SNAP office for help with our family. We are both self-employed, with lots of business deductions every month. Thankfully, we qualified. That extra $275 a month for a family of 4 freed up $275 that I could put toward medical bills. It was humbling for me to recognize we needed help financially, but grateful it is there. Our current financial situation is a temporary situation, not a choice. On the flip side, my mother-in-law, recently diagnosed with Parkinson's, who is also legally blind in one eye, refuses SNAP benefits, even though she would easily qualify for it the rest of her life.

My avatar is safe -- I personally took the picture of Irish Cream cupcakes from my fledgling cupcake business. It better be the only one out there! LOL :lol:

I had a complete hysterectomy at age 38, when my kids were 4 and 6, due to severe endometriosis. Best surgery I ever had. While we would have loved to have more children, the endometriosis was so bad that my GYN said I had less than 10% chance of having another child. I felt so.much.better after the surgery.

The office of disability services gave the names and numbers of two local audiologists to test her for hearing loss as well as auditory processing disorders.

My college age dd takes short-acting Ritalin once or twice a day. It has vastly improved her focus. She is a more careful driver, a better student, and not as "scatterbrained" when it comes to remembering things she's supposed to be doing. It's not a perfect situation, but she is a better person for using this medication. When she is not working or studying, she doesn't use the medication. i.e. when she's home for vacation and just "chilling" at the house or with friends.

My dd is in her second year of college. She has the diagnosis of ADHD and depression, and is treating with Ritalin and Prozac. During her first semester of Spanish in the spring, she started having trouble with the "hearing" portions of class. She is having the same trouble with her second semester of Spanish. Her teacher offered to read to my dd the hearing portions of the tests, but for regular homework purposes, my dd doesn't know what to do. The office of disability services for the school didn't have anything they could offer her without a diagnosis of auditory processing trouble. My dd sits in the front row of the class to block out distractions and pay better attention to the teacher. I don't think she is having trouble with "sounds" I think she is having trouble processing what she hears. Since she was little she often did "xyz" when we instructed her to do "abc." She loves keeping lists, because it reminds her what she needs to do next. I emailed the school and asked if there was a local office my daughter could have testing done. Is there anything else I can do to help her "hear" /understand better?

May I ask, what is the actual cost of having a child in K12? In South Carolina it's advertised on TV as being "tuition-free" with a 94% parent satisfaction rate. I've been curious as to what the true costs are.

It's very sad. I had just seen a snippet of her the night before on E! News. I'm guessing she was unable to be weaned off the ventilator. She was the most "full of life" 81 year old I've ever seen. :crying:

I'm voting for the "unfriending" category. As a previous poster wrote.... "You can't fix crazy." :huh: Don't add unnecessary, unwelcome, unneeded drama to your already full plate of life.

My dd has expressed an interest for over a year in getting a tattoo. The hubster and I had several LONG talks with her about the pros and cons, other people's perceptions of tattoos, etc. She is now 18 1/2. We recently allowed her to get a small one on her wrist that says "you are more". It's from the song by Tenth Avenue North, "You Are More". She used to cut herself, and having a tattoo on her wrist that reminds her that she is worthy and loved, makes her smile now. :laugh: I went with her, took pictures, and was happy she asked me to go along. Not exactly the normal mother-daughter date, but it was awesome that she asked!! I recently mentioned this on another tattoo thread, and received quite a few "likes." The author of that article is just crazy. :huh:

Half of what I buy on Etsy is custom ordering..that's why it's so much fun to shop there! I've ordered a custom food-safe acrylic stamp for cupcakes, a piece of jewelry for my dd with "I love you to the moon and back" with her name on it, pillow covers for my daughter-in-love's bridal shower, etc.

Thank you so much! It's been a long time coming.... she said it was totally worth the 5 minutes of pain :laugh:

I have none, but we recently allowed our 18 yo dd to get a small one on her wrist that says "you are more". It's from the song by Tenth Avenue North, "You Are More". (Can I hear a loud amen?!) She used to cut herself, and having a tattoo on her wrist that reminds her that she is worthy and loved, makes her smile now. :laugh: I went with her, took pictures, and was happy she asked me to go along. Not exactly the normal mother-daughter date, but it was awesome that she asked!!

I'm having empathy pains for you! :grouphug: Last month my dear 76 year old MIL was diagnosed. I posted on this forum and received wonderful advice and virtual hugs from the posters. In her case, she is now having difficulty with handwriting (her beautiful spidery handwriting is getting smaller and smaller) and she has a lot of extra keystrokes when she types on the computer. When I hug her, she feels like she is shaking from cold. But she is shaking from the PD. Her right hand shakes so much that she is sometimes unable to use a knife to cut food. She forgot how to turn over a hamburger in the frying pan, until she stopped and mentally thought through the steps, and then finished the task. The go-to website I've used for the most helpful information has been: www.pdf.org, Parkinsons Disease Foundation. Please keep posting and let us know how your loved one is doing. Thank you for sharing. I hope we can help each other!

I can speak for my dd...she has been on Prozac x 3 years, 20 mg once a day for clinical depression. It took less than 2 weeks before she/we noticed a difference in her mood. (She stopped taking it for several weeks in college this past school year. BIG mistake.) When you find medication that works, that changes your outlook on life, take it!!

Febreezing when rooms are finally clean from top to bottom!! :lol:

:grouphug: I'm so sorry you are going through this. It totally stinks.

We (ok, I) painted our brick fireplace white, and have loved it ever since. The brick was a similar color to yours - it clashed with everything else in the room. Two years ago when we had a 3 day snow/ice storm, and our county was basically immobilzed, I spent a day dabbing on two coats of primer and 3 coats of paint. I love it! Having a color change from dark to light immediately brightened up the rest of the room. We have pictures in black frames and a "rubbed oil bronze" fireplace screen, the walls are painted a deep gold, and the rest of the trim in the room is white, so the fireplace color now makes sense.. Again, agreeing with another poster... it's pretty permanent.

In March my husband had unexpected heart surgery, and unfortunately, had no health insurance. The financial aid counselor at the hospital helped me apply for financial aid to cover part of the bill, and I also applied for food stamps for our family, as we were one of the families already "teetering on the brink of qualifying for SNAP" before his health crisis occurred. I was so relieved and happy when we were given SNAP benefits for 6 months, I cried for joy. And then I sobered up and felt terribly guilty that we were "poor enough" to qualify for food stamps in the first place. I've been as careful with the funds as I could, shopping for groceries at Aldi, Walmart, Dollar Tree, etc. to stretch those dollars. Having SNAP temporarily has freed up some of our money, to apply toward medical bills. I'm so grateful for the financial help. When I discussed the idea of applying for SNAP benefits with my husband, he surprised me by saying, "Sure, go ahead." This was a shock to me, but he told me he was tired of fighting to find additional work to meet our family bills for the last 5 years. (His line of work is directly connected to the housing/building market). I need to be careful that this decision is helping our family, and not becoming an enabler of sorts.

Yep! I'd jump on top of that offer :laugh:

Last year when my dd left for college (my husband drove her...there was no room in our tightly packed vehicle for more than 2 people!), I immediately threw myself into deep cleaning her bedroom. Six hours and a sparkling clean room later, I felt better (I clean when I'm stressed), and had most of my angst burned off. Thinking about future care package ideas for her helped a lot also. I went to a local dollar store and bought several funny cards to send her, as well as some of her favorite snacks. I tried to take the focus off of how I was feeling and turn toward what my dd would need at school. The most traumatic event was needing to have someone show her how to open a combination locker at the school library, since she was homeschooled all her life :lol: