About Me

I am a 39 year woman. My disability is asthma. There are several types of asthma, I am fortunate enough to have what is called brittle asthma and difficult asthma. Ranking me in the 1% of asthmatics who suffer with these combined chronic, life threatening conditions. Also, making my asthma extremely difficult to treat and/or control. As I have gotten older the condition has worsened, the treatments themselves have caused other diseases to develope, like osteoperosis of the spine and hip, Cushings Syndrome, depression, steroid dependency... Each one of these contributes to the difficulty in disease management. As I age my ability to do even simple tasks becomes more restrictive, things I could accomplish a year ago cause me problems now...it tends to wreak havok on the hobbies and activities I am able to accomplish... I used to enjoy gardening, reading, walking my dogs, doing home improvement projects, working on computers....most of which I have had to set aside. I live in a very rural area of VA, I help my family run a sanctuary for neglected and abused domestic companion animals. I rarely go out of my home, I have no friends here in VA. The friends I do have are people I have kept in contact with from when I lived in Arizona. My Mom suffers from pre-replacement osteoarthritis of her hip, and so she is battling her own pain and disease until such time as she can get the surgery. And I am doing my best to help her as her life has now been severely limited from what she was once accustomed to. She was active, she was my gardening buddy, walking buddy, and she played a big role in aiding with all are animals.... She, as well as my father, suffer from depression, and occasional asthma, sinusitis, etc... Since moving here for them 7 years now and me 5 our health has declined at an astounding rate. We have been met with some of the most incompetent of medical care, where we are left with few choices to begin with. If moving were an option, we would have been far from here by now. As of now, it is not feasible to move.