When you had it all and then lost it all!

Okay, so my life is pretty much the usual average story.  I was born and like all children I enjoyed playing and singing and dancing and I could sing before I could walk.  I was singing with a family group when I was just a baby, sitting beside my Mother on the piano stool, carrying out my part of the song without waver, in tune and delivered it like a grown-up.

My Mother sang in a trio called the Harmonetts.  She sang at some of the big Gospel concerts around the south.  Then she got married and had me.

I was your average girl, I grew up went to school made the honor roll in High School and then onto College.  I enjoyed fashion and modeling and taking photos.

So, in 1990 I went back to Fashion design school and graduated with honors.  And got engaged and married in 1993.  Life was great!  New husband, new home and a job in the fashion world.

In September of 1996, I had been working long hours, from one store to another, where ever they needed a manager, few off days.  As I continued with my work life and my career, things got really really wild.

I would go to work and within 30 minutes of being there get a weird rash, or bad headache, and other symptoms.  When I would get home, I would spend at least two hours in the shower trying to get the sunburned feeling off of me.  That is how it began, and the symptoms grew worse and worse, and after months one day, I was walking through the property and talking to another person.  Then, for me the lights dimmed and went out.  I don't remember what happened in the physical realm of things, I only know that I began to feel lighter and lighter as if gravity no longer was working.  And, for the first time in weeks, months I was free of pain.

It was a beautiful and serene place a beauty that I cannot describe and have not found a place on Earth that even comes close to the description of what I saw, there technically are no words to describe it.

I can truthfully tell anyone who might ask, if I wanted to stay?  Yes, who wouldn't want to be in a place of such beauty and grace and be pain free and feel great who wouldn't want to remain there?

Well, I began to come to in the Emergency Room, and I was in extreme pain, paralysis on the right side, people wondered if I'd a stroke at such a young age?  Well, that would be a long medical journey of tests and discovery.  My life was changed, I was so weak and frail and looked like warmed over death.

My Husband later on told me that he had gotten to the place I worked and he thought I was dead.  I was so cold and pale.  I told him about the dream I'd had all the beautiful things.

What I could not come to grips with then was the fact that I had walked through the valley of death and I had lived.  I just to come to terms with all that had happened to me in a handful of months.

Life at times can hit you like a train, you don't even see it coming.  Life is so precious yet many forget just what a gift it is.

Well, along this journey of mine, I have had rough and rougher times, and I have disability, yes.  But we have to continue to see the flowers the beauty and the joy of living.  And, that is where I knew that illness and Multi chemical sensitivities, RSD, FMS, CFS, had chosen the wrong woman to try and defeat.

I lost a lot, but I am still here, and I am still me.  And I am satisfied in this truth, that no illness that we survive can take us away, if we do not allow it to steal our joy and steal who we are.

We are not a illness, we are not the disability, we are still the same person our Mother welcomed into the world, we are still the wonderful gift of life given to us for the journey and, I am thankful that I am me.

I am thankful that what does not kill us, makes us strong in character and in the simple joys of knowing that no matter what life holds, we are unique and we matter.

Life is joy!

R