A Bit About Me, II

Related post: A Bit About Me, I

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Following are some tidbits about me.

Just stuff bits

• Most of the time, my favorite colors are purple and green....or the rainbow.
• I like salty foods more than sweets. I do not smoke. I seldom drink alcohol. 
• I am lazy when it comes to written communication; I prefer the phone or face-to-face.
• I have hand-written twenty journals since 1998 and continue to add to the count. I know Gregg shorthand which I use when I journal with a pen.
• I dabble with poetry and have been published in five(?) different anthologies.
• I love spending time with nature. She has brought me solace and delight and awe and gratitude and lessons and comfort and many-an-answered prayer. 
• I ride my bicycle often on Greenways and rail trails. I took up cycling on a regular basis after I was no longer able to long-distance hike. I dare say, cycling saved me life. At least it was a huge factor.
• I abhor paperwork and keeping records and filling out forms and medical charts.
• I don't enjoy shopping. 
• I like maps.
• I think our society would be well-served endeavoring to make-do with what is at hand, as long as feasibly possible, before adding more stuff to the planet.

Childhood and teenage bits

• I have lived most of my life in North Carolina, USA.
• I have also lived in Florida, Kansas, Indiana, Ohio, and Wisconsin.
• I have two siblings; I am the youngest.
• I grew up with horses from around age 4 through age 12.
• As I youngster, I dreamed of being a dancer, or a teacher, or a nurse, or a nun, and other ors.
• I took ballet lessons for three (?) years.
• As a child and teen I played the recorder, the violin, the piano, the guitar, and the kazoo. I only got proficient with the kazoo.
• While growing up, I often star gazed; I wanted to see a UFO and meet aliens.
• Between the ages of 17 and into my early 20s, I hitchhiked over 5000 miles around the USA. Most of those miles were logged while I was in The Way Corps.
• One of my big dreams since high school has been to thru-hike the 2180-mile Appalachian Trail, from Georgia to Maine. As of 2012, that dream was indefinitely suspended due to health issues. 
• For more on my teen years, see "Seeking the spiritual bits" below. 

Marriage and family bits

• I have been married to my husband since 1984. We have two wonderful children who are now young adults.
• We home-eclectic schooled our children from birth until college. We went on many hiking and mountain trips. We still do when we can.
• As of 2017, there are not yet grandchildren. We do have a grand-dog. 
• I and my husband helped care for my father for over eleven years after Dad survived a head-on collision which left him to live his remaining twelve-plus years as a quadriplegic.
• As of 2009, both my parents and all their siblings are deceased.

Jobs and career bits

• I am a 'generalist;' my interests vary, sometimes widely. My chosen "career" was a stay-at-home mom.
• I held my first real job when I was 14 years old; I worked as a hospital dietitian aid.
• My other jobs include or have included nurse's aid in a nursing home, hospital laundry worker, taxi-cab driver, neighborhood ice cream carter, waitress, food services, various secretarial jobs, various sales positions, potter's assistant, childcare, science center educational presenter and on-site camp-in director, preschool music teacher, miniature-art studio manager, and professional pet care.
• In 2011 I established a pet sitting business. As of 2014, I spend more time face-to-face with animals than with people.

Seeking the spiritual bits

• From age 15 into age 16, I experimented heavily with psychedelic drugs...including Jimson weed, datura stramonium.
• I was involved with Transcendental Mediation for over a year beginning while I was age 16. I took the Science of Creative Intelligence class. I hung Maharishi TM poster advertisements at high school and volunteered at the local TM Center helping with initiations.
• After TM I became involved, at different times, with a Free Will(?) Baptist Church, the Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ, Ram Daas, and the Charismatic movement.
• Upon graduating high school, I was interested in either the Peace Corps or VISTA. But that summer I ended up in the Charismatic movement and then attended college with the aim of becoming a Christian counselor. While in my first semester of college, I hooked up with The Way International and dropped out of college after one semester to study and serve with The Way.
• I spent 28 years, from ages 18 through 46 (1977-2005), as a loyal follower of The Way International running lay fellowships for over fifteen of those years. I believed the Bible "as originally given" was the inerrant Word of God and that The Way was the "true household of God." I served as a WOW Ambassador for approximately fourteen months. I was a member of The Way Corps for over four years (including two Apprenticeship years) but never graduated.
• Since leaving The Way in 2005, I have slowly left my biblical belief system and gravitated toward agnosticism.
• Click here to read details of my journey, especially regarding my years in The Way.

Chronic illness bits

• At age 22, during my fourth year of involvement with The Way, my health took a dive and I developed (what turned into) over two decades of chronic illness. From 1981 through 2005, I suffered through (among other ailments) asthma, allergic rhinitis, hives, multiple bouts of pneumonia, multiple allergies and an over-responsive immune system, mercury toxicity, hormone dysfunction, depression and anxiety, a herniated disc, multiple hospitalizations, and four sinus surgeries (polypectomies).
• In 1999, at the age of 40, my health took a different direction and over the subsequent four years I was able to recover from the allergies, asthma, and other extreme autoimmune responses that my body had developed during the past decades. I enjoyed a few years of freedom.
• In August, 2008, I had lateral hip replacement surgery due to bone loss, a side effect of over two decades of regular steroid use to keep me breathing.
• For a couple years after hip replacement surgery in 2008, I was able to take up my teenage dream of backpacking.
• In May, 2011, I developed debilitating symptoms simultaneously in all my limbs and extremities while taking a medication (oral terbinafine) for toenail fungus for six weeks. My first diagnosis was idiopathic edema. That was changed in July, 2011, to a 'serum sickness like response to oral terbinafine.' I was prescribed low-dose prednisone (which I have continued). In February, 2013, I had carpal tunnel surgery.
• In June, 2013, as my symptoms continued to spread and worsen, my diagnosis was changed again to polyradiculitis, which means multiple nerve roots are swollen at the spinal cord. For me that includes roots at my lumbar and neck regions. Symptoms have spread to all my limbs and extremities, my back, my neck, and my jaws. Along with daily low dose prednisone, I receive steroid lumber epidurals every twelve weeks and steroid cervical neck shots every six. Polyradiculitis is a rare type of peripheral neuropathy typically associated with chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP) and Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS). To read some snippets regarding my continuing struggle with polyradiculitis, click here.
• In June, 2016, we discovered that my recalled hip implant from 2008 had slowly been leaching cobalt and chromium into my body. Among other things, heavy metals can sometimes be a factor in nerve damage. On August 30, 2016, I had revision lateral hip replacement surgery replacing the 2008 defective, recalled implant. It typically takes one to two years after removal of a leaching implant for metal levels to come down. We'll then have a better idea as to how much of a role the metals might play in the nerve damage.
• As of 2017, my biggest life challenge is living with nerve damage and its ramifications. Most of my time and energy go into self care.
• Click here to read my health story:  Healing the Soul, Healing the Body

(Last updated July, 2017)

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One of my life-theme songs is Tapestry by Carole King.
I especially like this compilation on Youtube...



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If any readers are so inclined, I'd love to read any tidbits about you. You can share them in the comments section below this blog entry.
Thank you for visiting toss & ripple!