I totally agree. Yesterday I changed http://www.readytogiveup.com/default.aspx. I put up a short letter saying what you are saying.

Some background on the domain. 4 weeks ago I hurt my back really bad (turns out it was a severe muscle spasm) I was in the emergency room all day and they did MRI's and loaded me up with steroids and pain medicine. They sent me home but I couldn't stand or sit for about 7 days. I laid on my back on the floor and got way behind on work. My usual pace is a 80+ hour work week spread out over 7 days. I usually start sometime around 6:30AM.

I laid on the floor for 7 days, slept horribly (not really at all) and one night I was up at 2:30AM kneeling in front of my PC. I posted a "ready to give up" message at codeproject and really wish I hadn't. But at the time I was exhausted, on percocet, in lots of pain and just not feeling super great. I should never have made that post as I had not even talked with my wife before doing it (first reason to not do something). But I did it. The response at CP was overwhelming and you can see evidence of support at codeproject.com all over in people's personal signatures.

Over the next 4 weeks after making it that post I started to get caught up the pain was going down and I was feeling better. I have debated just taking the site down but on talking with some close friends at CP I was told not to and if I did they were going to be furious. I'm not making that up either. About 3.5 weeks into it a guy blasted me about being a scammer and said I was doing illegal things with the site. I took the site down that Sunday night (got totally reamed by people from CP for doing it) but wanted to make sure I was being legal. I called Barry Peters here in Eagle, Idaho and he confirmed it but said I should also call Steve Nipper which I did. I spoke with one other attorney, a friend and he didn't know of anything. So I put the site back up but I hamstrung it. Then yesterday I spent the day with my family and really thought about it. I didn't like the whole idea but I'd kind of come too far to turn back and was sort of stuck. I've emailed Orpah, KTVB here in Boise and some other places and have kind of taken the approach that if I don't get a response in 30 days I'm taking the site down or at least just leaving a note up like I have it.

I'm not ready to give up. When I slept 4 hours a night for 3 years sitting next to Katie making sure she didn't choke on vomit I didn't give up and I'm sure not giving up now. I actually hate that site but I don't know what to do. If I do take it down right now in the face of that recent credibility attack then I do look like a scammer. I'd love to get bona fide help from a place like Oprah Winfrey's show or my local T.V. stations but have yet to hear back from them. Since I have emailed them I need to leave up the site or I look like a scammer. I even look like a scammer to me and that bothers me.

You have a point though. If I do leave the site up changing the domain is a good idea and might sit better with people in general. It won't sit better with me. I don't think I was in the right state of mind to do this to begin with and now that I'm 4 weeks into recovering I feel better and stronger about life. I'm as confused as I could get about what to do and I feel like a TV station or a TV show might be able to give me some really good advice for how to do this better. It's not like I've ever done this before.

I'd really like to move everything over to pediatricparents.com and not just make it about Katie and us but allow parents from all over the place to share about their own children. I want to create a site where each family can have a blog they can make public or private, their own web site for sharing photos and stories and maybe have a public message board where families can share ideas, support and other information to have a community support environment. The only drawback to all of that is that it takes time. I have real paying customers that want me to work on their stuff right now and it's hard to find the time to get pediatricparents.com up and running. Then I need to figure out how to market it. But that's way over the next horizon.

In a nutshell I completely agree with you. I don't like it either but that's because I'm off pain killers, I'm sleeping a bit better and depression is moving off into the horizon. I feel more myself and I feel more like fighting for what matters.

- Rex