Old Barn in Rodenbach Germany

Writer: I have been writing since I was ten years old when I won a contest for my story,  but I didn't get published until the late 1990s. My poetry and short stories have been published in several small journals including Bibliophilos. I am currently working on novels (a much different style of writing).

Poet: I write lyrical poetry. Here is one of my offerings.

 A Chance of Snow 

Leaves land at my feet,

rustled by the north wind

Disillusioned—- free-- the words
are dead in my throat.

Where are you, my withered spring?

I am left with stripped limbs,

dead stems, a chance of snow.

Adventuress: I have this urge to travel and see new places. I think the urge is genetic, but it could have been sparked by my parents endless moving when I was a child. I have lived in South Africa, Japan, Panama, and Germany. I am now settled in the US.

How I looked after a year of treatment for Wegener's Granulomatosis

Can we talk on a serious subject?

In 2003 I became ill with a rare disease called Wegener's Granulomatosis. This disease inflames the blood vessels and if not treated is usually fatal. At this time the researchers do not know what causes the disease. They suspect genetics and a trigger. The patients in our support group suspect that the trigger is probably industrial waste. The disease was unknown before industrialization.

If you have a cold that does not go away after a week or two or constant lung problems, then you should get yourself checked out for an auto-immune disease. Wegener's Granulomatosis (and other diseases) can hide in a body for years, causing all sorts of problems. Many patients with this disease were told in the beginning that their problems were "in their heads." If you talk to anyone with this disease (and many who have other auto-immne diseases), they are first told that they need to see a psychiatrist.

Don't take this for an answer. If you have fatigue, runny nose, pain, etc, get yourself checked out. Keep getting checked until you have an answer. In my case about a month after I started trying to find out what was causing my problems, I was in the hospital for end-stage kidney failure.

Hope this cautionary tale helps someone else.