CHAPTER SIX

A NEW BEGINNING

One of the ways I knew that the MS was behind me was that the excessive tiredness and typical exhaustion of the disease were gone. In 1971, I opened a third and bought out a fourth store. The third store proved to be a mistake and I closed it and bought a farm to raise vegetables by organic methods, which we could sell in the other three stores. It was at about this time that Dr. Fredricks prevailed upon me to go back to school. I mention this only to dramatize how my energy level had returned to normal.

Normal energy for me has always been high. Back in the Air force, stationed in Othello, Washington, when Mike, my second son was born, the military pay just wasn’t enough to support a family, so I worked nights at a gas station and weekends in a potato packing plant. I managed these jobs while I was communications chief for Othello Air Force Station and supervised the radio receiver site, the radio transmitter site, the telephone center and the Teletype center.

So my new schedule had me running three health food stores, living on a farm forty miles away and taking twelve to fifteen semester hours of university work at a school that was twenty miles from either of my work places.

I think that partly I was doing all this to prove to myself and to everyone else that having MS didn’t need to stop you if you were determined enough. And I’m sure it was partly to keep myself so busy that I had no time to dwell on my wife’s problems. Thank goodness I had good managers in the stores and some dedicated kids who were ‘60s dropouts to take care of the farm.

By 1974, the gasoline shortage and the Recession hit. The newest store, which I had purchased, was only a marginal profit-maker in the best of times and it had to go – we just shut it down. I gave up the school late in 1974, also partly as an economy move, but mostly because I despaired of ever being able to do the MS research I truly wanted to do.

I settled down to just two stores and the farm – really enough to do I guess, but as usual, I wasn’t satisfied. In 1975 I bought a building and moved the big store into it. Then I bought a warehouse to allow me more selling space in the stores.

Another thing I learned during this time was that most MS patients need some time and a place totally to themselves. I found my “hiding place” on a lake just a few miles away from the farm, north of Tampa. I bought a trailer, set it up and still maintain one there to this day. It is a place, I have convinced myself, where nothing can harm me, nor even bother me. Life’s problems stay somewhere outside the fences that surround the property. The people I see when I go there have no idea who I am, or that I have a problem. I am just me, accepted for myself as I am. A place where “best foot forward” is not needed.

Whenever things seem to begin to get too much for me, it is a haven. No telephone, no one who cares one way or another about me. It’s a place where I can dream impossible dreams or just drop a fishing line in the water. Nobody notices or cares. But I can get renewed there in my solitude if I’m there for a few hours or a few days. Time is unimportant when I’m there. I heartily recommend such a private “hiding place” to every MS patient. It doesn’t have to be fancy. A special deserted spot on the beach or a private glen in the woods will do fine, just so it’s “your “ place where you can be alone and commune with yourself without outside influences intruding upon you.

Other people with multiple sclerosis continuously came by the stores to talk to me about their hopes, plans, diets and other possible therapies. A number used acupuncture. Their initial reports were always exciting. They could walk again, or talk clearly again! But a few months later, they would report that their symptoms were back as the treatments became less effective. I don’t know of anyone who stayed with the treatments much more than a year before giving them up. The same seemed to be true of those who tried Hyper Baric Oxygen treatments.

Then there was a doctor in Miami who was giving injections of snake venom to relieve MS symptoms. I heard a lot of second-hand miracle recovery reports, but none of the eight or nine patients I personally knew who tried the therapy ever got any benefit from it. There was another doctor, also in Miami, who was surgically implanting an electro-nerve stimulator in patients. I met two of his patients, neither of whom were satisfied with the results.

For me, my diet and supplement therapy seemed to be doing a better job for me than any of the exotic, quick fix therapies that anyone else reported to me was doing for them. So I just stayed with it. My way might not be quick and easy, but it seemed to be sure and a lot less expensive, both in money and disappointment.

Because of my divorce in 1976, I had to sell my original store, the one I had bought from my uncle in order to make settlement payments. Barbara, who had been managing it for me, prevailed upon me to help her open a store of her own on the other side of St. Petersburg. Because she had been a good and loyal employee for seven years, I did. Working with her so closely while putting together her store, I began to see her in a whole new light. She became a real person to me, a beautiful warm woman, and not just another employee or business acquaintance. In 1977, Barbara and I were married. She has a son by her previous marriage and Christopher became my stepson, although he has been much more like a natural third some to me.

I had a chance to sell my large store at a nice profit that would allow me to finish my obligation to my ex-wife and leave enough money to open an even bigger store with a natural food restaurant in Largo, a town about twelve miles away, so I jumped at it. I soon found that I had jumped wrong. Before we could get the volume high enough for it to really be profitable, the gas crisis of 1979 hit us. Then the inflation that followed got us some more and it was a real struggle. We made it for several years before we realized that it was going to break us if we continued, so we got out of the lease.

I was really surprised at myself. Even with this major business failure, I did not have any MS attacks. To me, that proved that I was out of danger as far as multiple sclerosis was concerned so long as I stayed with my program. I had gone through three major emotional periods, a divorce, a new marriage with its inevitable adjustments and a business failure, all without a relapse!

For the past few years, we’ve only had the one store that Barbara started and which we ran with just some part-time help. However, the rest of my life has been much better than the business end of it. My new marriage is a very good one. Barbara is a good helpmate and has kept her shoulder to the wheel through it all. Her strength of mind and will has helped keep me going.

And she has made sure that we did things such as take tennis lessons. Yes, tennis lessons for an MS patient! When we first started trying to play, I lost my balance a lot, but as time has passed, my confidence as well as my balance continues to improve. Now it is my military leg that limits my tennis game, no the MS. Not that I will ever be a tournament-caliber player. Hell, I didn’t play good tennis before I got MS, so what can you expect? But just being able to get on the court and volley is a lot more than I had hoped for a few years ago.

We have also taken the time to travel since we have been married and I find that I don’t have to run all the time to prove I’m as capable as people who don’t have the disease. In short, with Barbara’s help, I have finally learned to relax and enjoy the life that the good Lord has allowed me to have.