Okay, I offered to be a "host" in this group, whatever that means. It was mostly just
testing it out to see what it's all about.
I guess I qualify as a "host" in this group. I was diagnosed with MS in 1986.....I think my early symptoms showed 2+ years before that. I was an incredibly healthy New Yorker -- I walked almost everywhere I went, lived in a 5th floor walkup and thought nothing of running up and down those steps a few times a day, had been a vegetarian for a long time, worked for a dance company (in administration) and took the dancers' strengthen & stretch class 2 or 3 times a week.....so I went into my GP and asked him why the hell I was so tired all the time. (Hell, look at my schedule -- I'm exhausted just thinking about it!) 
But I had previously had energy to burn after all of that....no longer. All of my tests came back perfect. My doc was good but old-fashioned. He told me humans were made to be carnivores and I should start eating meat!
Me: But you just told me all of my tests were perfect -- I'm not anemic, which would be the only justification for your argument (and all that would mean would be I needed to attend more to getting protein through soy, etc). So WTF?
He had no answer for me.
It was 2 years later that my left side went numb -- I thought I was having a stroke. I'd just moved to CT and gone back to school. I ended up going back to NYC. The same doc saw me then referred me to a neurologist, telling my mother but not me (which thoroughly pissed me off since I was an adult patient.....but they were old family friends) that it was likely either a brain tumor or MS. I got one of the first MRIs done at Columbia Pres! As a matter of fact, it broke the first time I was in it -- I was in it for almost 2 hours. They kept talking to me to soothe me. I finally told them to shut up -- I'd almost been asleep a few times and they woke me up! They finally gave up after almost 2 hours and I had to go back the next day after they'd repaired it.
So I've been dealing with the ramifications of MS for about 26 years and yeah, I'm old pro-ish at this crap!
= new reply since forum marked as read
over chronic pain. I'm lucky -- I have very little pain. When I do get pain, it's from spasms and I have very effective means of dealing with that pain -- I don't have to live with it. My heart goes out to you -- I suck at pain! I can do the physical and cognitive challenges I have. Pain, not so much. 
One of my close friends here has diabetes and I keep telling her I have it WAY easier -- she doesn't agree. I'd struggle with the constant glucose ups and downs she's been putting up with since she was 12 (type 1) and all of the ramifications of diabetes. She deals with it admirably! Mom got lots of relief for neuropathy caused by chemo from neurontin. Doc put me on it once for terrible tremors I was having -- it turned me into a zombie! No easy answers for pain, and it totally sucks.
I'm totally comfortable with rotating it through everyone here who wants to do it -- there are few enough that each could take a shift. I also know there are "co-hosts" but I wonder if that's really needed in this small group. I'm cool with any of the above! It'd make total sense to rotate the hosting around this group.
Diabetes would definitely be a hard process to get used to. As I explained earlier, a close friend has type 1 diabetes and watching her go through the constant glucose ups and downs is awe-inspiring. She's considered a "fragile" diabetic, and medically I can see why. But damn, you'd never know it from the way she attacks life! She lets little stop her. She cleans for me once a week, since I can no longer do most of it myself. I've literally told her I'd fire her a couple of times when she clearly was in bad shape and wouldn't stop to do what she needs to do to take care of herself! When she's stubborn like that, I just ask if I have to fire her again to get her to stop! I've learned to keep a supply of OJ and candy for her -- I can tell when her glucose is crashing, sometimes before she does.
And she's been dealing with it since she was 12, so give yourself a break -- you're dealing with the pain of colitis & so many GI/systemic issues -- there are going to be ups and downs. And sometimes our bodies do have minds of their own -- I watch her and, even when she's done everything right, her body goes kaflooey. Mine does too. I think it's a matter of getting comfortable with unpredictability, not always an easy process!
Additionally, no, co-hosts are not absolutely needed. The one thing having co-hosts do is to allow the main host to go on vacation. Of course, with a small group, as you said, there is only a very slim chance that anything would happen while you are on vacation. 
"I think it's a matter of getting comfortable with unpredictability, not always an easy process! " You are NOT kidding, especially not for a control freak like me. Learning that I can't actually plan everything was a huge blow for me. But... after all this time, I am getting used to it.
you need to post a request on this thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1013434
and provide a link to Skinner back to this one. There's not a whole lot of consensus on this thread, but no one has said "hell no" either
