What’s your dream job?

My dream job is to be retired, and while I’m happy that I got there early, I’m not thrilled with the fact that paralysis was the cause.

What makes a good leader?

Leads their followers where they need to be and not where the leader wants to go, necessarily.

If you could un-invent something, what would it be?

It seems to me that all of the divisiveness started with MySpace, Twitter, and Facebook. When we made it easy to post our opinions online with very little or no context at all , we made disputes happen, perhaps even encouraged them to happen. Then politics did what it always does, actively try to divide us so that they could claim power. By giving the masses a voice that everyone could see, the masses now had some power of their own but had no idea how to weild it, so they simply started fighting each other as opposed to turning their power against the real enemy, the politicians who were watching them fight with glee.  The whole thing reminds me of my favorite quote from Denis Diderot, “Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.” Though perhaps it could be slightly modernized to include the last dictator.

Can you share a positive example of where you’ve felt loved?

My current husband and I were engaged for a couple of months when I collapsed outside of a drugstore with a massive stroke. He saw me at my absolute worst during the next 6 months while I was in hospital. He saw the 10 days of ICU when my doctors were not optimistic about whether I was going to live.  He waited through the 4.5 hour heart surgery. He helped nurses change my diaper with a smile on his face. Even though I gave him every opportunity to get out of it, he married me in my hospital room .He sold his house and bought a first-floor condo because I was a wheelchair user now and couldn’t climb up the slippery staircase in his place. He’s taken care of me nearly every day for 9 and a half years. If that’s not a positive example of being loved, I don’t know what is.

In what ways do you communicate online?

And the occasional Facebook messenger message to friends I actually know.

Think back on your most memorable road trip.

With my car packed full of my life and starting in the San Fernando Valley ,California, and ending in Quebec, Canada,I drove by myself for the better part of a week stopping in Denver Colorado for a lovely visit with my stepdaughter on the way. It was glorious. Besides getting caught in a blizzard and having to spend a couple of nights in a little motel just before the border of Colorado and Nebraska. Who knew that April was a big month for snow there. Once I got out of the motel and onto the I-80,the weather remained lovely for the rest of the trip. It was a comfortable ride in my Mercedes E class with my CD collection blaring and my awful voice singing along with the likes of Janis Joplin, Tom Petty, Billy Joel, Elton John,Abba,Cher and Carly Simon and nobody yelling at me to stop singing for once. I was single again, and I felt free. It was the last time that I was able to drive a car. It was 4 years before my stroke. I really miss that feeling of freedom that only comes with driving… a car and not a wheelchair.

The whole trip was relaxing and just what I needed after leaving southern California and before coming back to my home country . It was a good time to reflect on the previous 18 years living in the USA and plan for my new life in Canada.

What snack would you eat right now?

I could really go for a couple of freshly baked chocolate chips, cookies, and a half glass of milk.

Come up with a crazy business idea.

It would have been good to have known the ins and outs of daily wheelchair use and obstacles, both physical and the public at large. It would have been great if, while still in hospital, I could have learned some self-defense techniques. I think it would have helped my confidence and lessened the worry about going outside alone.

Describe an item you were incredibly attached to as a youth. What became of it?

The one item that stayed with me the longest from childhood was a lovely and adorable bedside ceramic lamp with Raggedy Ann and Andy. I think that it was made by someone my mother knew. I loved the lamp. It was a symbol of my youth and innocence that met an unfortunate end when it fell off of my nightstand and broke when I was in my 20s, I think. It’s so long ago now that I don’t recall how old I was.

What is your mission?

There is only one way to know if you have a tumor growing inside your heart. I talk about the fact that I’m paralyzed from a massive stroke that I had nearly 10 years ago. Sometimes, I forget to mention the cause of the stroke that very nearly took my life. I had a benign atrial myxoma tumor growing in my right atria for approximately 25 years . The tumor itself was 4 cm by 7 cm in dimension inside the smallest atria of my heart. Most people who have the tumor only find out because they suddenly die. Thankfully, it’s a fairly rare condition, but…

If this blog has a mission, it’s to get more people to preventatively get an echocardiogram  at least once in their life because if you are one of the unlucky people, like me, who have a heart tumor, IT WILL SAVE YOUR LIFE. Not to mention, prevent a massive stroke that might kill you, at most, or paralyze you for a decade or more.