How do I get Websphere MQ connection status and how do I reset the connection:

1.) From a .net client, how do I test if the client is connected to the server (i.e. can send and receive) Yes, I could send a message inside a try block and catch the ensuing exception but I'm hoping for a more elegant solution.

2) How do I open, close, and re-open connections? In my attempts to resolve question 1 above I discovered that if I open a connection then call connection.Close() I am not able to obtain another connection from the connection factory (see code fragment below). I receive error message XMSCC0008

I am using a very standard vanilla MQ configuration . Here is how my client connects:

ISession session = MQAccess.GetSession(MQAccess.Connection);
IDestination destination = session.CreateTopic(SubTopicName);
Consumer = MQAccess.GetConsumer(session, destination);
Consumer.MessageListener = new MessageListener(HandleMQSubEvent);
MQAccess.Connection.Start();

where MQAccess is a small utility class.

Edited the question to add MQAccess code:

public static class MQAccess
{
    public static readonly MQConfigurationSectionHandler ConfigSettings;
    public static readonly IConnectionFactory ConnectionFactory;

    private static readonly IConnection connection;
    public static IConnection Connection
    {
        get { return connection; }
    }

    static MQAccess()
    {
        ConfigSettings = (MQConfigurationSectionHandler)
            ConfigurationManager.GetSection("mq-configuration");

        XMSFactoryFactory factory = XMSFactoryFactory.GetInstance(XMSC.CT_WMQ);
        ConnectionFactory = factory.CreateConnectionFactory();
        ConnectionFactory.SetStringProperty(XMSC.WMQ_HOST_NAME, ConfigSettings.Hostname);
        ConnectionFactory.SetIntProperty(XMSC.WMQ_PORT, ConfigSettings.Port);
        ConnectionFactory.SetStringProperty(XMSC.WMQ_CHANNEL, ConfigSettings.Channel);

        if (ConfigSettings.QueueManager == string.Empty)
        {
            Connection