Christine,

I'm just being to grasp how the posting process operates and that you for your patience. After following through with, many of my questions have been addressed. All in all, even being stranded socially as semi-mute, living permanently by g-tube, and coping with other related struggles, my situation could have been much worst an outcome.

I take it your white colored ? marks on a black diamond, refers to a term with uncertain meaning, an error more easily understood in looking back on there use. The unusual constitutional fortitude being a genetic endowment, was my way of explaining a genetic gift inherited from family characteristics, that has provided me in life a seemingly endless supply of positive energy to tackle a vexing problem, than end up feeling in some way I'm better off.

Since that first posting, the cause of 10 emergency hospitalizations, fully coded to the ER, directly into ICU for aspiration phenomena, 2 to 4 days in coma, weeks to recover. Out of 12 such incidences, during the past 3 yrs, 10 had been avoidable. I know now to avoid any for of oral food ingestion, something never made clear before and instead, being instructed to move toward regular eating before the g-tube removal. After doing some study on my own on subglottic mechanisms and the 14 other functions influenced by H&N physiology, any such effort is understood as high right, life threatening behavior on my part.

Since then, my basic health has increased and I was given a grant for acquiring a Dynavox Tobii T-10 speech synthesizer. Though difficult to use effectively, slowly its operation is being learned. When it can be used to talk by pone, this device will make life easier, or so its hoped.

I'm still not sure if being alive is such a good thing and am waiting to see what emerges in my life to see if this standard of living is worth a damn. Being socially isolated with virtually no social connection are challenging circumstances too face off with.

Thanks for your response
John