Again, it seems quite odd to spend some time focusing on the negative aspects
of my life because I am a positive thinker. However, it’s those challenges
and the lesson I learned, or have not yet learned, that have made me the
person I am today. It will help you, my readers, to better understand
where my writing comes from. So here is the first of several posts
that will take you into the trauma of the next twenty years of my life:
Illness Strikes
As I continue my story it is several years later now. I’m very, very ill. I’ve contracted some type of lung infection. I simply just cough and cough. I’ve lost weight down from 103 pounds down to 94 pounds. It’s gotten so bad that I can’t keep food down. My hair is falling out. I feel like I’m dying.
The doctors keep trying antibiotic after antibiotic, but nothing is touching the infection. Finally a new doctor decides to X-ray my lungs (duh!) and do additional tests. He discovers that the infection is quite rare and only one antibiotic in the world is effective against it. But he warns me that the antibiotic wouldn’t be enough.
It’s winter in Salt Lake City. We have a major inversion that is keeping the fog and pollution close to the ground and in my lungs. We haven’t seen a blue sky in months. The doctor told me I’d have to get to a warmed climate immediately. It didn’t need to be long term, just long enough for the antibiotics to work and for me to heal somewhat.
So we got in the car that day and headed to my grandparents house in Yuma, Arizona. I spent most of the time there sleeping. But I came back with much improved health.
Still the coughing and vomiting lingered for another twenty-one years. In fact, until three or four months ago I would regularly vomit five times a day. This had gone on at the past 18 years with consistency. Each illness made it worse. And no it wasn’t bulimia. I’d cough too hard and anything I had in my stomach would come up.
Automobile Traumatize
A few years later my finance and I are sitting at a stop light when a car plows into us. I’m injured and had to undergo months of physical therapy and experience pain that never seemed to go away. I’ve lost feeling in some of my fingers, and experience lingering back, shoulder and neck pain.
Posted on April 23rd, 2008 by Leisa
Filed under: My Story | No Comments »
Previously I told you about 
A couple of weeks ago I began telling you about 
Our street was long and dark. We lived at the uphill end of a circle. My friend Shelly lived at the bottom of the street. I would often walk to her house. One side of the street had a grumpy old lady whom the neighborhood kids feared. We got yelled at if we spent to much time in her yard or we accidentally veered off the sidewalk when riding our bikes. The kids speculated she was a witch. Doesn’t every neighborhood have one of those? Someone the neighborhood kids fear.
I was probably twelve at the time when the next traumatic event happened. My parents had gone out for the evening. My friend and I were co-babysitting by younger brothers and sister. We were sitting in the basement, watching the Miss America pageant. We had one set of stairs, and at the top of those stairs was a door that opened to the garage.
I recently told you about 
My life has been a great one in so many ways. It truly has, and for that I am very grateful. However, I’ve had my share of trauma and periodic depression, but I believe it has had a purpose. You’ll learn more in the next few weeks. I figured it was time I shared with you, my blog readers, my story. So here is it part one, of my life’s story.
