Like the song from long ago said " Pick your 
self up...dust yourself of and start all over again."
 And that is what I did. It wasn't easy but like an 

alcoholic I learned to live one day at a time.

     
   In 1982 I started to have a lot of pain in my 

abdomen. I always had cramps with my period but it 

would only last for a day. But with each period it 

got worse till it got to the point I was in pain all
 
the time. The worse part was when I had to move my 

bowls ( doesn't this sound lovely lol!)
 I would be in such pain I could hardly walk 
afterwards. One day my 
husband came home 
and I asked him to take me to the 

emergency room at the hospital, I just couldn't take 

it any longer. The doctor there said he could feel a 

large mass in my left side and I needed it taken care 
of right away.He gave me the name of a doctor
 and I 
called to set up an appointment for three days later.

Dr. Falo was his name and he was nice but not the 

type to sugar coat what could be wrong. He said I 

could very well have cancer and if I did he would 

have to take all my reproductive organs out as well 

as any thing else in there if it need be. I was not 

to happy and to tell the truth scare witless. Well a 

week later after many tests, I had my surgery.
It took over five hours and boy I'm glad I slept through it.
  What he found was a large tumor on my left 

overy ( Not Cancerous, Thank God!!! ) the right one 

was totaly destroyed and I had Endametreoses ( have 

no idea how to spell that ) so bad that every thing 

in there was black and it was strangling my 

intestinal track. Oh, and a lot of scar tissue from 

the C-Sections. He took out all he could and 
now I no longer want to howl on the fence at night.
 I'm just a fat cat that sits on the couch now.(-; 
              

   It was not to long after that my husband brought 

home the first of my major loves, a ferret. Love at 

first sight it was and still is even if I can't have 

pets where I live now. Maybe one day I'll have more, 

God I hope so. I love those little babies.


   From eighty three till ninty nothing much 

happened. Just the daily day to day things until my 

husband had an accident at work and got hurt and had 

to go on disability. Well we couldn't live on
 that to well especially in Arlington 
where everything is so 
expensive. 
So little old me had to try and find a 
job. 
Thats not so easy when you have no training for 
the computer age.
 That didn't leave much so I had to 
work retail.
 Got a job with Lerner N.Y. Some times it was fun 
and others it wasn't. It all depended on who 

I was working with.
 Most of the girls were nice but 

there were a few who I could say were real nasty.
 The first three years were spent at the Seven Corners
 
Store until they closed it,
 then I went to the new 
mall in Arlington called Ballston Commons.
 It was a 
nice store but there we went 
through managers like 
water. In the five years there 
I went through eight 
different ones.
 After awhile I was the only one who 

knew where everything was. I was only a full time 

associate but did everything the assistant managers 

did not to mention I trained most of them. They 

wanted me to become one but I worked only week days 

and didn't want to give that up. I wasn't that 

stupid. They closed that store also in ninty eight
 so now I was out of a job.
 I did get pretty good 
benefits like stock,
profit sharing.medical while 
there so I lost a lot when they closed.
 They did give me eight weeks severance pay 
plus my stock money and 
my retirement
 so I wasn't hurting to bad.


   The year 1998 turned out to be a very troubling 

year for me and my family. First off early that year 

my best friend for 28 years went into the hospital 

for a minor surgery to repair a small hernia in her 

abdomen but she never came out alive. I don't know 

what they did to her and will never know
 for sure but it broke my heart.
 She sure didn't deserve that 
and I will always miss her.


      




..Now On To Page Five..