Mary, you need to look for help something like this from SBC:
http://global.pacbell.net/usenet_update.html

This may be outdated information, but if you go to your service provider's
website you can ask them how to use usenet news server.

Once you figure that out, you subscribe to alt.support.epilepsy.

So let us help you.  Take it one step at a time.  I found sbcglobal, I see
they have a list of news servers, but it doesn't seem very helpful for a
new user.

What do you use to send and receive email?  Outlook, Outlook Express,
Netscape, or something else?

Julie

I can see why google is confusing to you, Mary.  If you can avoid using
google for now, it would help you (instead, an e-mail software program
would be preferred).  Google used to have a better structure, and you
used to be able to see kind of an outline of the posts and responses.
Google doesn't have that anymore, and it takes too long now because you
have to go through more pages to read more posts.

I can get newsgroups through Outlook, Netscape's e-mail package (comes
with their internet browser), and through Thunderbird (which I'm using
to write to you now), but there are other e-mail software brands out
there (most of them are free too). Which e-mail program are you using
and how experienced are you with e-mail?

Barb