Well I do not know LD, as I am very new to the forums here, but let me tell you a couple of stories for those of you who are concerned about "privacy policies". First off I had talked to a guy on a regular basis in a diabetes community.......Now yeah diabetes is and can be a pretty serious thing. Well I had been talking to hin in the chat room and all of a sudden he stopped talking.....which was very unlike him. Well everyone else was getting worried about him along with myself. Now granted I did have his first and last name. Well after quite a long time, I decided to call his home......no answer. That really was unlike him. So I decided to call the hospitals to see if he was there, and if I didn't get ahold of him there, then I was then going to call the police......as there is such a thing as a well being check. Well sure enough he was in a hospital........and do you know this man in his late 50's started to cry and tell me he was sure glad there was someone out there that cared about him and his health and life.

Another situation.......this is REAL LIFE!!!!! My mother had all kinds of health problems, she had asthma, diabetes, and congestive heart failure. She had called me back in July I believe and asked me if I could take her to the doctor. Well it was a Saturday and there were no dr's open on Sat. so I took her to the hospital. She had been biten by a cat on her foot and she had some serious infection going on. So they admitted her, well when she got out of the hospital, they sent her home with oxygen as her O2 level was on the low side. Shortly after she got out of the hospital, my mother in law had to have a triple bypass. Well once things got a bit calmed down from that, we were all still trying to watch money as the little dinky town we live in doesn't have much in it. The closest hospital is 20 miles away and that is 40 miles round tirp a day. My mother inlaw had to go to the bigger hospital which is 50 miles away which is a 100 mile round trip a day.  Anyhow, my mother was getting along so much better with being on the oxygen. I had talked to her around the fist of September and knowing we were all trying to watch money, we hadn't talked for awhile. I tried to call her on the 7th of September and got no answer.....okay maybe she had went to town to get some groceries.........well after trying to call for 9 hours, yes I said 9 hours.........I was really getting worried..........Well by that time the convience store we have in town closed.......yes they really do roll up the town at sundown. Anyhow, we didn't have enough gas to make it over there to her house which was about 10 miles away. So I called the sherriff to do a well being check on her, and I got that very dreadful phone call at around midnight telling me that my mother had passed away. They had also speculated that she had been gone for about a week. She had animals in the house that were close to starving to death which I went over the next day and got them.

This just goes to prove, no matter how well you think a person is doing.........that health problems can interact and either leave you where you can't tell someone either online or on the phone what is going on. Yes I know there is such things as privacy acts and such, but at the same time with someone like LD from what I have read, there are enough calls to warrant a check on someone. I am not saying okay an admin comes along and says okay LD's real name is John Doe and he lives such and such place and his phone number is 555-555-5555. They could simply do a well being call, to check and make sure everything is okay and let him know the community is worried about him.

Think about it............would you rather have someone atleast check up on him and get a leave me alone, or would you rather sit here and stew over wheither he is okay and still with us here on this earth. And those that say well there is a privacy act........how would you all feel when you would happen to get the message that something had/has happened? (God forbid I hope not as I would love to meet LD) I know I for one would be pretty upset if I was screaming about the privacy act and then were to find out that something pretty serious had happened!!!!!!

Just my 2 cents worth.......