But, two years later, even though I didn’t get over it there was a guy in the congregation named Terry Hummel. We didn’t really have a lot in common. He’s my sister’s age which makes him seven years older than I am.

My mother wasn’t too thrilled because he was a pretty avid drinker. Ironically, he worked for a company by the name of Modine, and that’s in Pemberville, but their home office happens to be back in Racine, Wisconsin. So, I mean it was just really ironic.

Well, we went together for a while and I think it was just kind of an accepted thing that we were going to get married and we did. We’ve had some troubles. We had a separation, but we have two sons and we’ve gotten back together.

One son is 30 years old and he’s in Hilton Head. He’s named after his two grandfathers, David Raymond, and our youngest son is Keith and he’s now married to Meagan and they have a baby Kirsten. They bought our home that we had built in Wayne – that’s three years ago now – and we moved here to Findlay thinking that we’d be able to help Mom and Dad out more. We bought a mobile home.

The unfortunate part of that is that I’ve been having some problems with illness that they couldn’t resolve. After we moved here it continued to get worse, and worse, and worse.

Before my son’s wedding, which would be three years ago in June, I ended up in the hospital. My son was pretty upset with me. I wasn’t real happy about their wedding. It was a big bash. Her mother is from Cleveland and I think she bought the wedding dress the day she was born and she had been planning ever since.
She was going to have this huge reception no matter what and I said, “That’s fine but I refuse to partake of this,” because it couldn’t be afforded. We couldn’t afford to do it and they couldn’t either, but her mother insisted and went in debt for this $10,000 reception.

They had to have catered dinner and everything else. I was on all sorts of medication but they had no clue as to what was wrong with me.

When I got – I did the rehearsal dinner and my son came and unloaded the car and said, “What’s this cooler?”

I said, “It’s my medication.” He said, “Mom, I didn’t know. How come you are on 23 medications?” Afterwards I can’t even tell you, I mean, it just got worse and worse and I’d be in the hospital. I’d just pass out cold. By the time an ambulance would get there I’d be fine. I went to Cleveland Clinic. I went to all kinds of specialists.

Finally I ended up at Medical College and I have two heart conditions, one is called POTS, its post orthostatic tachycardia syndrome. The other one that I have has two names, its vaso-vagal syndrome. It’s more modernly known as neurocardiogenic syncope. I hate the name cause it sounds really bad, so I usually stick with vaso-vagal.

I have a condition where I can just pass out any old time, any old place. Last night I passed out four times.

My husband came home and found me on the kitchen floor, woke me up, got me set up, said, “Let’s try and get to your chair.” I was just like a Raggedy Anne doll and I went over the other way and out again and crashed into the dog food dish and freezer and got a few more bumps and bruises than I had yesterday. I might add that I’m awfully sore today.

When you are 53 years old you just aren’t meant to be falling over like that in strange positions. I am probably lucky that I haven’t done a whole lot more damage to myself, but it has taken away my freedom. I can’t drive. I have applied for social security disability. I’m waiting for a hearing for over three years now. I have gone to - memory is also a problem – representatives, written letters, in fact I was in the process of doing that this morning if we hadn’t come, writing another one. You get the same thing, due process. Sorry, we can’t help you. Blah, blah, blah. I don’t know what the solution is. I know that we are living on one income and it’s very difficult.

The medication I am on rotted all my teeth so you might notice that I have new dentures on top and I’m finally getting new ones on Thursday on the bottom. They had a very hard time fitting them. So, I had to have all my teeth pulled. I had no dental insurance. I can’t drive. So, poor Dad, who I was going to help is gone the reverse. So wherever I have to go – and people basically, the only three people who will put up with me, is my son and my husband and dad because they know what to do in case I faint or pass out. People are afraid of me. What do I do? I can’t blame them, and they don’t want the “liability” if I am with them. Like I said, there are days I feel like I could drive, but I wouldn’t’. If I ever hit a kid.

I’m in support groups online where they are still driving. Of course, my doctor has told me that – he’s the number one world renowned doctor for these diseases. He’s sick himself and I am one of his ten – I’m in his 10 worst cases. They’ve given me everything they know. I’ve got a pacemaker, they put a pacemaker in. I can be feeling just perfectly fine and, I mean, yesterday I was fine here. I got warm so I took off my sweater. That’s usually a sign that someone better keep an eye on me cause I could go. Dad knows the signs or I tell him, and I’ve got some medication on me that I can – tablets that I can take – to try and head off. It doesn’t usually work but you can try. I went home yesterday afternoon and I love to cook, I did a bunch of cooking, and was fine. Then last night it was just – I was out of it.

Last week I fell over while I was sewing on my sewing machine. I fell onto the floor and pulled the sewing machine on top of myself. Took the sewing machine table – it was wrapped every which way around me, broke it in pieces, woke up that way. Went to let the dog in the other day and the next thing I know Terry is saying, “Careful Buckley, don’t walk on her she passed out again.” Just dumb things.

So, that’s pretty much my life story. I forgot a couple things. I left out a few goodies, but you always think of things later. And a couple things I am not so sure I want in print. I’d just as soon…