That's me in a nutshell. No matter how bad it gets there always good possibilities to be discovered. In a way you're luckier than me, you still are able to go outside and really enjoy the outdoors. For me, I have a water weight problem that will cause extra liquid to gather in my lower legs and ankles if I don't keep them propped up at least as much as I've had them down, sometimes the time needed up is nearly double. So going out hiking in the wodds is something I can't do anymore. Even walking up a slight hill is difficult. I've had people tell me "just work at it and keep increasing the effort" and I've tried to do that...but...I have to do it in baby steps because if I try to accelerate past that (I have done that) I have a relapse (I have an old ankle injury that was misdiagnosed and therefore mis-treated for about 5 years and it went chronic) and end up with my whole lower leg in a medicine wrap and I'm off my feet for about 6 weeks. My muscles then atrophy and I have to start the process all over again. So this time, I'm not going to try to accelerate in any way, just take it slow and easy and get as far as I can.

Sounds like you and I have more in common than just an interest in FTV and Ms Danielle. Back in 2000, I was getting out of bed, felt weird, and then about an hour later I started getting out of bed, again, feeling terrible. I had a seizure, as it turned out, but stupid me (thoroughly freaked out), I decided not to call 911 and to "walk it off". I'm sure you know how well that works, so by the time I did go to the the doctor a couple days later, I was still feeling terrible. Turned out my bp was somewhere around 205/180. Chances are, I guess, that my bp had been higher a few days before, and chances were that I'd had a stroke. I was 29. I agreed to take a couple weeks off from work, right as I was finally getting decent offers to work for Sonoma County and LA Community College District was finally offering me the opportunity to teach more than 1 class a semester, which almost would have made it possible to survive down there. A couple weeks turned into a month, one month into two, two into six, six into a year. At the end of the year, my doctor broke the news to me: I was done. You spend your whole life building up to something--swim and compete, make Eagle, take AP & college prep courses in high school, graduate, get into decent schools, then, even after some things fall apart, you pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start again (a la what Kipling wrote in "If"; I'll post the text below for you and anyone else who might be interested). I bought what SSA said when they rejected my first claim(s), partially because what they said made sense: I didn;t fit the cookbook definition of disabled. Ultimately, however, and after I had seen my PCP Internist, a nephrologist, cardiologist & neurologist, after SSA had sent me to 2 of their doctors, and after the judge had his own doctor take a look at my file, and all were in agreement, I was classified the same as you, the same year you had your heart trouble, 2003. So I've been cooling my heels since, building up my brain again (genealogy helped a little--its like a big jigsaw puzzle in a way), and then after I moved to Reno, I started taking care of my elder niece again (she and her parents moved up here a bit over a year before), then after #2 came, I started taking care of her, too. That meant getting out more, going on nature walks and so on. To be honest, I often use the little one's stroller as a walker nowadays. Last year I was put on gabapentin for nerve pain, then this past Jan my dose was tripled. I also use a CPAP to help breathe at night, which is actually nice and it helps take some of the strain off my heart, which I really like. So, amigo, in a way its nice to know I'm not the only one out there with a story to tell. In a way that closeness to the end has had a benefit--it makes me, and maybe you, too--more aware of just how beautiful life can be. That's one reason why in almost every post I try to say something positive to Rob or Danielle or about one of the other gentlewomen out there--without that little contact with their beauty, life would be a whole lot blander, wouldn't it?

If
by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

When I first decided to attend college (in 2002) I was thinking that I would study something that I already knew a lot about (namely computers) but had never had any formal education in. I was tired of working hourly jobs that weren't computer jobs but did give me access to the computer. I was also self-taught in BASIC programming language. I could recognise what a computer program was doing without being able to read the programming code and I knew a lot of programmers terminology. I was living in San Diego, CA, at the time and I had an online friend who lived here in Missouri that was going to college here. She helped me with getting into the college here and with getting financial aid. So I moved to Missouri, got a job as a security guard, and worked at night then went to school part time during the day. In July 2003 I had heart trouble and had to be admitted to the hospital. I had open heart surgery (the very first surgery of my life). Two of my heart valves had failed, one completely and the other was badly damaged. The one that was gone was replaced with a metal valve and the other was rebuilt. Plus a pacemaker was installed. I was 50 years old at that time. I got on Soc. Sec. Disability (after a year of waiting) and there have been further complications that have come to light since then. I'm still on disability and now have oxygen 24/7. I've been going to college locally for the past 5 years part time (I also have some learning disabilities that prevent me from going full time) and had made it to Senior status at the local college but this past fall I had a great deal of difficulty getting to my classes (I believe it had something to do with my body not having enough oxygen in my blood, I was always tired and slept past my class time on too many occasions) and ended up flunking out (I was also on financial aid probation due to flunking a class in a previous semester). But I had kept a 3.0 GPA average during all that time. So I decided that I would look into a totally online course program. I need to not be going out to a classroom because of my health problems and also because of my learning disabilities. I found that DeVry University offers complete degree programs that are all taught online. So I contacted them and got approved then enrolled. Even though I began going to college to get a better job, it's worked out to be getting a job that I am able to do in my current physical condition. I am unable to work at any physical labor type of job but that's the type of jobs I've done for most of my life. So I needed to be re-trained in a completely different career field.

Hi ya, WhyYou,

About going back to school, I think that's absolutely fantastic, really. I went to college, I dropped out; I went back, I dropped out; I went back and finally pushed through and took my BA & MA one year apart. If I could I'd go back now and take photography courses like I wanted to all those years ago, but weren't part of what became a pragmatic hard slog through lectures, seminars and thesis writing towards one goal--get out and move on in as short a time as possible. Part of what drove me, ultimately, was the fact that Calif. raised the school fees by 40% in the middle of 1 semester (which lead to one of my drop-outs--couldn't afford it), followed by increasing reliance on loans as grants, &c., were swallowed up or evaporated coupled with the threat of yet more fee increases (I think there was one more the semester after I got my MA--I think I dodged that bullet). Sum total, some of the things I wanted to do, I had to set aside. Since leaving school, though, I've picked up my camera again, after it sat idling for the better part of a decade, and have been taking photos, chiefly landscape at sunset of Mt. Rose, the Sierra Nevada, Donner Pass & Lake Tahoe (there's a couple sweet spots along the NV side, beginning with Sand Harbor, then this little hidden cove perfect for some outdoor nudes--there is a warning sigh to alert folks not keen on that sort of thing that people do go down there to work--on the road from SH towards Stateline, NV). I've coupled some of that fun with nature walks with one or the other of my nieces, or going out with my brother (he uses a digital P&S, I use a 35mm SLR). What I'm trying to say is that regardless of age, its just good to go out and learn something new, or to pick up on something you left off of, isn't it?

Cheers--geo