Do you remember Mr Peabody from Bullwinkle? With his Way Back Machine? (Bullwinkle is like a religion, you know. Those of us who worshipped at the altar are changed for life.)

Well, there is no Way Back Machine, so I've lost over a year to lousy treatment. (The treatment problems actually led to me gettng a great deal worse, but that's another story.) There's no way to get that year back, and there may be no way for me to return to my previous level of functioning. That's a damned hard adjustment to face up to. It's hard to get my mind around the idea of having to change my goals so profoundly.

And you're absolutely right: you haven't been sitting on the sofa eating bonbons and considering what to wear on Friday night. You've been sick. If your diagnosis had been atypical Type I diabetes, and it had taken this long to get the diagnosis right and get you stabilized, you probably wouldn't be beating yourself up so much about why you hadn't accomplished more during the past year. You'd be saying, "Thank goodness I'm not so sick anymore, so that I can start looking at what I can do to put my life back together." Well, you've been sick, just as much as if you did have a visible physical ailment. This one, though, is not visible in the same way. It's just as real.

Some years back, a close friend of mine was injured at work. She developed a lung disease, which compromised her ability to get around. She looked fine -- but she couldn't walk more than about half a block. When we were out together, she would get rude looks and occassional nasty remarks about her handicapped placard. Well, just because her disability couldn't be seen by the naked eye didn't mean it wasn't real. (And she looked as good as she did in large part because of high doses of steroids, which put weight on her. Otherwise, she'd have been emaciated.) Same for you -- just because a camera can't show the depression, doesn't mean it's not real.

Take the best care of yourself, and feel free to PM me at any time. Anything I can offer to help you through this, is yours.