Navigating This blog

A Little History

This blog is a love story...with a sad ending. The blog began in June of 2009 when its namesake, Bettie Aitkins, suffered a severe stroke. It effectively ended in January of 2010 with her death from lymphoma. For the following two months, a few posts were added, recounting lessons learned and a little about the beginnings of "moving on" by the author, Bettie's husband Dick.

By March of 2010, the blog had served its purpose and regular posting of articles came to an end, though the blog has remained live. A year later, Dick began a new blog about coping with life alone, grieving, seeking a new identity and a new companion. That blog (Dick's Challenge) was active from March of 2011 to May of 2014, but its usefulness has run its course and it has been closed. Dick remarried three years after Bettie's passing.

Chronological Order
Blogs are typically being added to by their authors with some regularity. Thus, it is most convenient for the readership to have the most recent posting on top (up front if you prefer). Since new content is no longer being added to this blog, it is necessary to navigate backward in time to see the blog posts in chronological order, as the story unfolded. There are two ways to do this:

1. At the top of the column to the right you see a link titled: "Betties Challenge Book". Click on the link just under that title: "Download & Read all Blog posts in chronological order (pdf)" to open a pdf document containing all 110 posts, arranged in chronological order and with a dynamic table of contents, making it easy to find any post. You can print any or all of that document using the Acrobat Reader print functions. If you save the pdf file locally, you can access it without relying on Internet availability. 
2. The second entry in the column to the right is the "Blog Archive". Under that title, click the triangular arrows to open the year (The blog began in June, 2009) and then the month. With the month open, you will see the posts arranged in chronological order and you can click on the individual posts to read them.

Medical Links of Interest

Further down the column to the right you'll find a heading: "Medical Links of Interest". Here I've included sources of additional information you may find helpful in your own challenge, should you suddenly find yourself overwhelmed, as I was. Some of these I came upon as I searched for help and others were offered to me by their authors, as they saw a potential for helping people in need. Of course all content of other sites is the responsibility of those authors/sponsors. Links here are intended to be helpful and don't constitute endorsement.

Comments

You may post a public comment on the blog by clicking the "Comments" link at the bottom of this (or any) page. If you would like to communicate directly with the author, use this address: raitkins@gmail.com