Mike,
If it is any consolation, I did the very same thing. Upon finding this site and the excellent information within, I elected to purchase a single one month subscription... just to determine if being subscribed had enough additional value to warrant continuing. And, like you, I was surprised to find that PayPal was treating it as a recurring subscription... even though I was fairly certain I had not asked it to be such. A bit perturbed (though I'm not sure which I was most disappointed with... the seemingly sneaky way that I was being billed on a monthly basis... or the fact that I didn't recognize that this was what I was signing up for), I cancelled my subscription. By the time that second month was nearing its end, I had come to find value here well beyond the amount of its subscription cost. And so I immediately recreated a new subscription and selected an annual payment mode.
I like the fact that one does not have to have a paid subscription to participate here. We all know there are so many costs involved with ALS that it will make your head spin. But in those first two months, I found numerous ways to make my PALS more comfortable and to greatly improve her quality of life. Because of the many folks who so openly participate here... and because of the outstanding people who moderate these forums so exceptionally well... we were able to gain an education that could not be bought anywhere else. Perhaps we'd have found these things eventually on our own... but my wife's quality of life would have suffered as we maneuvered through a path that would have been riddled with "try, fail, try again". Because we were so quickly able to learn right ways of doing things, we both were sleeping through each night... and no longer waking every hour or two to turn. We found a second PWC, at no cost, through the forum. And we've met some of the most awesome folks... that no amount of money could have bought.
And whether you ultimately subscribe or don't subscribe, I hope you will continue to participate here. You have the opportunity to learn things that will make this ride something you can retake control of. And, perhaps, you will one day have someone learn something from one of your posts that makes all of this just a little bit better for them, too.
My best to you...
Jim
