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I am 63 years old and have been married for 42 years. We have one son who is 31 and has been married for six years. We do not have any grandchildren yet.

We have two adorable cats, Prissy and Tom. They own and run our household. Of course both cats are spoiled rotten.

My husband is an ex-Marine. He was in the reserves and never saw any active duty. My husband is in management with a major corporation with offices all over the world. He has worked for the same company for 37 years. He would retire but his company determines retirement income based on your age not years with the company. He will be 62 next May and may possibly retire then. I hope so. I would like some time with him before I croak! He and I have a lot of common interests and I would love having him around more.

Following is a rough summary of my work history. For fifteen years I was an executive secretary in the sales and marketing department of two major corporations. Two of those years I was a legal secretary. Meanwhile I was going to school taking various computer courses. Suddenly computers were not intimidating any more, they were actually fun and challenging.

A good friend of mine worked for an independent board of The City of Birmingham. They were not on computer and I was offered the job of getting them set up on computer. I served as systems administrator until 1994. What a great job that was. I loved it! Our board was dissolved and made a part of The City of Birmingham. I continued to work for the City in the capacity as a Operations Data Specialist. I operated as computer systems support for all the field offices of the water works until I retired September 30, 2002.

I retired due to health reasons. I have had back problems since my late teens. I had surgical disk repair in 1994 and again in 1998. While recovering from the back surgery in 1998 I was diagnosed with diabetes. A few months after that they discovered that I had asthma and the early stages of emphysema. Then in April of 2000 they discovered that I had suffered a heart attack. They did an arteriogram the next morning and found that I had four serious blockages. The next day they did four bypasses on my heart.

In January of 2002 I fell at work and broke my shoulder. I returned a month later and on my first day back I fell again and hurt my left knee. Well, after all that I decided it was time to go home so I retired in September of that year. I had worked forty years so I deserved a rest!

Retirement was wonderful. I was doing all sorts of things that I've always loved but never had the time to do. I grew a fantastic container vegetable and herb garden on our patio. We had a huge patio! Oh, that was so much fun. I produced some awesome veggies.

In early 2003 we decided to move after having lived in the home we built in 1971. Who would have believed that you could collect that much stuff in 32 years!!! We moved into our new home in July of 2003 and in the process I re-injured my back by too much heavy lifting. This time it was not a quick disk repair, they wanted to put some sort of rod in my back and I was just not ready for that.

We spent the next months getting our old house ready to put on the market and getting settled into the new home. Then on June 5 of 2003 more trouble. My husband was in the attic checking on two new thermostatically controlled exhaust fans we had just had installed. He was moving some insulation around with his foot when he slipped and fell through the ceiling. He fell near the top of the stairway that comes from the second floor to the first. His left foot apparently hit the step first, taking the full force of the fall, and split open breaking all the bones, severing one artery and his Achilles tendon. His talus bone was completely out of his foot and laying in the foyer. There was nothing holding his foot on his body except skin. He was in emergency surgery for five hours. Somehow they got it all put back together. He now has about an eight inch plate up the side of his leg and two four inch steel pins over his arch holding everything in place. He was on his back with the foot elevated for the next 3-1/2 months.

At this point I had another heart attack - probably from stress. After the heart attack I broke out in shingles on the left side of my head. Shingles are absolutely caused by stress. I never had any of those ugly sores on my face, my shingles did what they called going in. For the next five or six weeks I had violent pains strike me in the head; as many as 26 attacks in one day at the peak. No pain killers helped the pain. The pains would strike, last two to five minutes and then subside. It felt like I had been hit in the head with an axe! One day those horrible pains suddenly stopped but my face and head still hurt. They say that this nerve pain may never go away! When the pain stays with you longer than a month or six weeks it is called post-herpetic neuralgia (PHN). I still have a lot of nerve pain which stretches from my hair line to my upper lip. I take 450 mg./day of a drug called Lyrica which takes away a lot of the pain.

All through this ordeal I kept getting weaker and weaker. I could not walk from our bedroom to the kitchen without stopping in the den to rest. Then I started having trouble breathing. I was making an awful wheezing/gasping sound. It was so bad the first Wednesday in December that I was carried to the emergency room because I couldn't breathe. Nothing they did helped my breathing. After an hour or so the results of my blood tests came back and they discovered that my blood was so low that I didn't have enough blood to power my lungs. They transfused me with two pints of blood and by the next morning I felt like a new person. The source of the trouble was discovered the next morning. I had a huge bleeding ulcer. They took me off Plavix and aspirin and started me on Protonix for my stomach. During all this I lost a lot of my hair and most of it has never come back.

I am sorry this is so long. I know you are bored to death by now. We are nearing the end.

During the three months I was so sick and was hardly using my back muscles, all the muscles in my back lost nearly all their strength. What I am left with now is that I cannot stand for more than ten minutes, if that long. I can walk between fifty to one hundred feet and then I have to find a place to sit down or I will drop to the floor. If my husband needs me to be with him while shopping he has to carry my wheelchair because I can't stay on my feet that long. Bummer!!!

My diabetes has gotten much worse during all this and I am now totally insulin-dependent and my sugar is still not under control. To make matters worse, the first of last year my doctor put me on two different diabetes drugs and the end result was that it did help my sugar BUT in the course of about five or six weeks the drugs put 60 pounds on me. Unbelievable isn't it. He finally took me off the drugs but I am still left with forty of those pounds and they just won't go away. All this extra weight is playing havoc with my sugar. Plus, none of my clothes fit any more.

Now I am having a problem with my feet and legs swelling. Most of that is confined to the left side. Sitting at the computer really aggravates the problem and I am not on here as much as I would like to be.

"To a happy person, the formula for happiness is quite simple: Regardless of what happened early this morning, last week, or last year - or what may happen later this evening, tomorrow, or three years from now - NOW is where happiness lies."

~Richard Carlson

This has made the rounds once before but is worth another look.


TAXES

This is too true to be funny.

The next time you hear a politician use the word 'billion' in a casual manner, think about whether you want the 'politicians' spending YOUR tax money.

A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, but one advertising agency did a good job of putting that figure into some perspective in one of its releases.


A. A billion seconds ago it was 1959.

B. A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.

C. A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.

D. A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet.

E. A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate our government is spending it.

While this thought is still fresh in our brain, let's take a look at New Orleans . It's amazing what you can learn with some simple division.

Louisiana Senator, Mary Landrieu (D), aasked the Congress for $250 BILLION to rebuild New Orleans . Interesting number, what does it mean?

A. Well, if you are one of 484,674 residents of New Orleans (every man, woman, child), you each get $516,528.

B. Or, if you have one of the 188,251 homes in New Orleans, your home gets $1,329,787.

C. Or, if you are a family of four, your family gets $2,066,012.

Washington, D.C. HELLO!!! ... Are all your calculators broken??

Tax his land,
Tax his wage,
Tax his bed in which he lays.
Tax his tractor,
Tax his mule,
Teach him taxes is the rule.
Tax his cow,
Tax his goat,
Tax his pants,
Tax his coat.

Tax his ties,
Tax his shirts,
Tax his work,
Tax his dirt.

Tax his tobacco,
Tax his drink,
Tax him if he tries to think.

Tax his booze,
Tax his beers,
If he cries,
Tax his tears.

Tax his bills,
Tax his gas,
Tax his notes,
Tax his cash.

Tax him good and let him know
That after taxes, he has no dough.

If he hollers,
Tax him more,
Tax him until he's good and sore.

Tax his coffin,
Tax his grave,
Tax the sod in which he lays.
Put these words upon his tomb,
'Taxes drove me to my doom!'

And when he's gone,
We won't relax,
We'll still be after the inheritance TAX!!
Accounts Receivable Tax
Building Permit Tax
CDL License Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Dog License Tax
Federal Income Tax
Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax
Fuel Permit Tax
Gasoline Tax
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax
Inventory Tax
IRS Interest Charges (tax on top of tax),
IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax),
Liquor Tax,
Luxury Tax,
Marriage License Tax,
Medicare Tax,
Property Tax,
Real Estate Tax,
Service charge taxes,
Social Security Tax,
Road Usage Tax (Truckers),
Sales Taxes,
Recreational Vehicle Tax,
School Tax,
State Income Tax,
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA),
Telephone Federal Excise Tax,
Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax,
Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Tax,
Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax,
Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax,
Telephone State and Local Tax,
Telephone Usage Charge Tax,
Utility Tax,
Vehicle License Registration Tax,
Vehicle Sales Tax,
Watercraft Registration Tax,
Well Permit Tax,
Workers Compensation Tax.

STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY?
Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago, and our nation was the most prosperous in the world. We had absolutely no national debt, had the largest middle class in the world, and Mom stayed home to raise the kids.

What happened? Can you spell 'politicians!'

And I still have to 'press 1' for English.

What happened????

Alzheimer's may be third type of diabetes

EVANSTON, Ill., Sept. 26 (UPI) --

Findings by U.S. researchers support the idea that Alzheimer's memory loss is linked to a novel, third type of diabetes.

The study, published in the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology Journal, showed a toxic protein found in Alzheimer's patients -- amyloid-beta derived diffusible ligand, or ADDL -- removes insulin receptors from nerve cells making them insulin resistant and stopping brain insulin signaling crucial for memory.

"We found the binding of ADDLs to synapses somehow prevents insulin receptors from accumulating at the synapses where they are needed," research team leader William L. Klein, of Northwestern University, in Evanston, Ill., said in a statement.

"Instead, they are piling up where they are made, in the cell body, near the nucleus. Insulin cannot reach receptors there. This finding is the first molecular evidence of why nerve cells should become insulin resistant in Alzheimer's disease."

Klein said he believes the findings are a major factor in the memory deficiencies caused by ADDLs in Alzheimer’s brains and reveals a fundamental new connection between two fields -- diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease, which offers hope for therapeutics.

"We want to find ways to make those insulin receptors themselves resistant to the impact of ADDLs," Smith said. "And that might not be so difficult."




© Copyright United Press International. All Rights Reserved.

Stuart Brown describes Norbert Rosing's striking images of a wild polar bear playing with sled dogs in the wilds of Canada 's Hudson Bay.



The photographer was sure that he was going to see the end of his huskies when the polar bear
materialized out of the blue, as it were:



Obviously it was a well-fed Bear...

The Polar Bear returned every night that week to play with the dogs...

My thought is, what if they had shot the bear? He meant no harm. Many times we assume others mean us harm or dislike us and it's no more true than it was of the bears intent. A friendship that doesn't happen because we are afraid of what the other is thinking or intending. Sad, isn't it! Could be true of other countries as well...

This sounds like a really great idea for the people in control to learn about, every politician should take part!! Now how do we get the politcians and Polar bears to together?

When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 Hours in a day is not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar and 2 cups of coffee.

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with an unanimous "yes."

The professor then produced two cups of coffee From under the table And poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.

"Now," said the professor, as the laughter subsided, "I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things - God, family, children, health, friends, and favorite passions -- things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, house, and car.

The sand is everything else --the small stuff.

"If you put the sand into the jar first," he continued, "there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, You will never have room for the things that are important to you. So... pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play With your children. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your partner out to dinner. Play another 18. There will always be time to clean the house and fix the disposal. Take care of the golf balls first - the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand."

One of the students raised her hand and inquired What the coffee represented. The professor smiled. "I'm glad you asked". It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of cups of coffee with a friend."