THE SARCOID ADVENTURE-Part 1-PENELOPE

Following is a four-part story of a very important new adventure in my life. I've been working on this for several weeks, and I broke it down into parts to make it more manageable. I hope it all makes sense, and that you are able to grasp how important this is…I want to show how all this is impacting my life, BUT perhaps even more important is that it could possibly also greatly impact someone else. Please let me know if it does.

--Kathey

PLEASE NOTE: All four parts are presented here, one after the other. Scroll down after the first one to see the others.

When I sent out e-mails about our granddaughter Elizabeth's birth, in January, one of them went to my friend PENELOPE. (Click on her name to go to her very interesting website. She not only does BodyMind Counseling, but also is writing a book called Cry When You Need To, Stop When You're Done.) She and I have known each other since first grade. We lived 1/2 block apart and were in the same classroom at school. We used to sleep out in each other's back yards and have all kinds of fun. I just re-read a letter from her from several years back reminding me that she and her brother used to come to our house to watch Captain Video on our TV. Her family didn't get a TV until 1956. We got ours at the end of 1952, so it was a great excuse to get together.

We've kept in touch occasionally over the years. After she wrote back to me this time I got to thinking about her. I remembered that she had quite a few lung problems when she was little. I have lung problems now, so I e-mailed her and said that I'd like to talk to her about lungs.

She wrote back that she would be glad to talk to me about lungs. She also said, "I am managing rather well with avoiding grains and dairy for the most part, and with the aid of a brilliant homeopath." She also told me that her mother started her smoking when she was 16. "She was trying to be all cool and libertine I'm sure...but I had so much bronchitis as a kid, this was terrible. I smoked like a fiend for 10 years 2 packs a day except 3 packs on weekends. Terrible."

I knew she had severe breathing problems as a child. If she could say that she was doing well now after all that smoking, I had a hunch she would have something to offer to me that would be helpful. That hunch proved to be right.

First of all I need to say that I have never smoked in my life, but I was raised in second-hand smoke. I don't know how many packs a day my dad smoked, but it seemed like he was smoking all the time, so I know it was a lot. I had many colds and ear infections when I was little, and also had "walking pneumonia" several times as I got older. I started noticing severe breathing difficulties at age 19, and was diagnosed with sarcoid at age 20. That was 45 years ago. I've had it ever since.

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR PART 2…