Right, the vaccine doesn't protect against all forms of meningitis. I do think it is very important, IN ADDITION to getting the vaccine, to educate your kids on the symptoms of meningitis. If treated right away, the outcomes can be better. So many of the tragedies come from kids assuming it's just a "flu" and trying to sleep it off. Knowing what to look for could help your child save themselves or a friend. Again, I think the vaccine is VERY important, because in some cases even early treatment fails to save a life.

Find someone to give it to before you decide. You might discover as I did that no charity will take an appliance over 7 years old. I ended up having to pay to have mine hauled off when Lowe's would have taken it away free when they delivered the new.

Mine were lipomas: "Lipomas are the most common soft-tissue mass encountered, accounting for 50% of soft-tissue masses and found in 2% of the population." The scare took a couple of years off my life, but the lumps were harmless. I'm hoping your news is good. I feel bad that you have to wait so long for an answer. My suggestion is to go to the movies and binge watch TV until you have answers.

Ugh! Sparkly, have you tried any exercises or stretches? Sometimes something like the bridge pose in yoga can use gravity to settle things right (at least until you can see the doctor.) You don't even have to hold yourself up, like you would for yoga, just put pillows under your hips and relax for a while. My PT was insistent that we should be better treated after childbirth. Her argument was that if we were in an accident with that much injury to a shoulder, we be prescribed PT as soon as safe, but for the pelvic area...nada.

She does sound crazy. I wouldn't think the worst of the little girl. She probably did make some completely normal comment about if dd wasn't there, she would win the whole thing, and then the adult went nuts. I'm not sure it even makes sense to me. It sounds like the child is good and will win the competition for her age group/skill level. Wanting all of the older age group to drop out so she looks like the total champion seems false and odd. She will get older and have her chance, just like everyone else (unless, like Creekland said, this is Make-a-Wish thing, and then they should have led with that.)

Thinking Physics by Lewis Epstein

Be sure the doctor checks thyroid, particularly if there is a family history. My 20yo male cousin ended up with Grave's disease. It's rare in males, so often missed in diagnosis. When I developed it, unexplained panic attacks were a major symptom, which everyone blamed on every situational stressor. It turns out it was an easily handled medical condition.

I would call and ask. Metformin can dangerously lower blood sugar if you are not eating your normal diet. I would be very concerned to have no carbs at all for that period of time. Without any other advice, I'd try to mimic the protein-carb-fat percentages that you are already eating. Just make it all liquid...milk, broth, juice, etc.

I think sometimes, for dealers, the addiction is to the money, not the drugs.

I thought this article from a neuroscientist was interesting with some good references. Particularly the references on obesity alone not being as much of a health risk factor. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/opinion/sunday/why-you-cant-lose-weight-on-a-diet.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region&region=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region (I couldn't find the old thread to add-to even in my personal post history. Why do they seem to disappear sometimes?)

OK, OK, I was trying to be nice. Ds is 18 now, and mostly through that phase. You guys will understand when I say that my biggest worry for him going off to college was that he might walk in front of a car. For those entering it, it really gets better, just because you get used to it. You repeat yourself, text them, write things on giant stickies and paste them to the screen, doorknob, or whatever it takes. Mine is so sweet and tries really hard, but the brain is hard at work elsewhere. Sometimes humor is the best medicine: Me: "DS....DS...Did you hear me?" DH: "DS is not here right now. Please leave a message at the beep."

I think it has more to do with the complete inability to stay awake in the evening and inability to sleep after the wee hours rather than the hours slept. It gets worse with age. My dad is asleep by 6pm no matter where he is or what he is doing, and is up by midnight. Normal people can adjust to a new schedule if necessary, people with sleep phase disorder (either kind) really can't.

It's good to have people with different hours. My parents lived with dh, ds and I for 8 years. It was funny because someone was always awake at our house. My dad takes morning person too far and was usually up around midnight, about the time dh and my mom went to bed. Ds and I sleep the more "normal" hours between 8 and 4.

Same problem here. If ds was asleep at 6:00 am, I'd go ahead and send e-mails to cancel activities, we knew he was sick.

I'm an extreme morning person. Advanced Sleep Phase Disorder runs in my family. Dh and I head up 7:30 or 8:00 to watch a show before bed, and I usually fall asleep halfway in. Dh is usually up 'til 10 or so. I'm up around 4am. I simply can't do nights anymore. If ds had an evening activity, usually dh would take him, or I would drop him off and dh would pick him up, or I'd get a friend to take him. Fortunately for me, ds has the same affliction so evening activities are rare. For me, it's like asking a normal person to be at an activity at 4am. I can do it if I absolutely have to, but I'll feel like crap for a couple of days.

About four or five years and learn to dodge and repeat yourself. :-)

Here are some pictures: http://www.saltwaternewengland.com/2015/03/the-ll-bean-boat-and-tote-bag.html (I had to search for size when I bought a new one as a gift)

We have two large ones that we use like you mention. They are about 15 years old. I absolutely love them and would have a dozen if I could. They stay open when sat down, so they sit by the door and we can throw things in them that need to be mailed, delivered, or carried on our next trip out. They can just be thrown in the wash. I've even bleached mine. I wouldn't want the long handles, because I carry it by my side. If I had a smaller one with less heavy loads, I could see getting the long handles. I'd think about how she usually prefers to carry things: purse, pack, lunchbox. Ds always wants to hand carry. I have sloped shoulders, so unless it's cross-body (which these aren't) or very light, I prefer hand carry, too.

Definitely! Audible.com has samples that you can listen to and often it is the same narrator even if you buy the recording elsewhere (or on CD). They also have a separate rating for the book itself and the narrator, so the ratings are helpful. I sometimes find new books by looking to see what else my favorite narrator recorded.

Wow, thanks for posting that. Dh is a composer and performer and has lots of his own music on his Mac. I don't think he signed up for Apple Music, but I sent him that as a warning to back-up and be careful. iTunes feels like it takes over the computer anyway, so it wouldn't surprise me if it implemented that "feature" someday, too.

Sorry I didn't check out the linked research in detail. I'm not finding much at NIH that seems definitive. The large databases are interesting. It seems that first the different causes of weight gain are going to need to be understood, because I'm betting that the treatment (or weight loss plan) would be different for each cause. (And, of course, as long as many people assume that weight gain is strictly behavioral issue, not much progress is being made.) I agree the bariatric surgery angle is interesting. I've heard speculation that it changes the flora, but as far as I know there is no research that says that. It would be so nice if there was a less drastic option to accomplish the same thing. The bolded is a really interesting idea. Maybe the risk factors pre-date the weight gain, and the same mechanism that puts people at risk also causes them to gain weight. So people with a BMI of 29 are less likely to have health issue than someone with a BMI of 32, BUT if you split that into people who are naturally 29 versus those who lost down to 29, what would the affect be? I wonder if we have longitudinal data like that.

I'm definitely not doing a good job with it. First, my video game skills have never been very good. I'm having a terrible time just learning to steer my boat. Second, I don't have very good spatial skills either and once I've spun my boat a couple of times, I have no idea where I am. But I'm still playing: It helps other people and, who knows, I may get better at it. (Dh came home and did all the levels I had finished in an afternoon in about 10 minutes!)

There's a follow-up Q&A that still doesn't offer much hope: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/05/health/short-answers-to-hard-questions-about-weight-loss.html?mabReward=CTM&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&region=CColumn&module=Recommendation&src=rechp&WT.nav=RecEngine&_r=0

From my research, it is actually a simple solution to take a different supplement (5-MTHF vs Folic Acid) to provide the needed folate: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20608755 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24494987 (There are lots more references, these are just the top two on my list.) All women of child-bearing age should be taking one or the other.

This looks really interesting: http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/04/health/dementia-game-sea-hero-quest/index.html