More on methodology and theory

You'll have to excuse me as I have never 'blogged' before. Thanks, Steph, for sending your e-mail but I think I am right back where I started. So I will ask if you know the cause of Uncle Sam's death - the actual coroner's report. After reading through your pages on-line, it was obvious that everyone knew, including Sam, that he was dying. I know he was thought to have Parkinson's at one time but then they found it to be something different. What was the different diagnosis? I ask this because I know Sam had a very hard time walking and wonder if it was told that his brother, Rhein, also had difficulty with his gait. In fact, Uncle Rhein would go to Mexico and get 'medicine' back in the '70's which seemed to help him for awhile. Now, I have a 30 year old son who has been diagnosed with a very rare form of R/A. As for myself, I have been slowly but surely losing my ability to walk over the past 3 years. Most 50 year old people can still walk. (I would think so, anyway) I was wondering if you could shed any light on this subject as the doctors I have seen are baffled. (I have seen more doctors than I care to count) It seems odd that my 30 year old would be diagnosed with R/A when nobody that we know of in the family (either side) has ever had it. I would ask my Aunt Edith but she wasn't right there with Sam like you were every day and perhaps you noticed little changes every day. I appreciate any little bit of info you can give me.
Thanks again and thanks for being such a good friend to Sam.

Carol

Carol, I don't recall the name of the degenerative disease Sam had but I do know that it is genetic and hereditary. I did track his physical changes (which I wrote about, no more to add) but I was not privy to most of the medical discussions unless Sam chose to talk about them with me. The person who knows the most about the medical science, diagnosis and treatment options is his niece Jennifer. I will email and ask her if she'd feel comfortable responding here or prefer to contact you privately by email or phone.

Good luck to you and your son. If you can deal with traditional prejudices about disability there is no doubt you can lead rich and fulfilling lives even if either of you does have it (or something else). Sam showed us how.

Thanks but I have Jennifer's address so you don't need to go to the trouble of e-mailing her. I must have mised the changes in Sam that you wrote about. I will go further into the archives and see what is there.

Thank you for responding.

Carol, the easiest way to read the archives is to scroll down on the right to where the "categories" are listed. There is one called "Sam." If you click that you'll get all the posts I wrote about Sam. A few of them are mostly about other things but Sam got a mention.

Also, in the very beginning of the blog are posts I didn't categorize because I didn't have that technology then. You could probably most easily check them by using the month archives (also listed along the right side, scroll down!) and skimming.

Larry Achziger, Sam's nephew passed away in Ft. Mohave, NV, on May 5,2007. Larry was Ted Achziger's son. A guest book could be viewed at www.desertalumi.com

Ms. Noonan, Thank you for the news about Sam's nephew. My condolences to the family. I tried to follow the link to the guest book but it "could not locate the server." I found the error, that's a great picture!

http://www.desertalumni.com/in_memoriam.htm