I never expected to be able to retire when I was young. I think because I had had childhood epilepsy, subconsciously I didn't expect to ever even become 15. But I did and then it ended suddenly because as my son now says (who is a BS RN) nurse, "Dad, childhood epilepsy is actually all blunt trauma epilepsy. People with regular non-childhood epilepsy don't outgrow it. And the reason you outgrew it is because your skull grew and the pressure was reduced on your brain so your seizures ended."
However, you want to look at it having childhood epilepsy and before that when I was 2 whooping cough both seriously changed the way I saw things growing up. It made me very serious much more than the kids my age growing up at every point.
By the time I was 20 I knew that life was a fluke and one couldn't really expect ANY plan one made in life to pan out. One could die at any moment. This was my experience. So when the love of my life at that time and I broke up that I had been going steady with for 2 years and had planned the next 20 years of my life around, I felt broken and just sort of gave up ANY long term plans that I had. Because ALL my plans for the next 20 years had been centered around her.
3 marriages and 3 biological kids and two step kids and two God-daughters later I was 50 years old with a 2 1/2 year old daughter and the doctors didn't expect me to live. So I prepared to die. But unlike every other person that had had a heart virus that I knew of or heard of that year, I didn't die. My wife and my doctor forced me to retire early. Luckily, we were financially in a position for me to retire. 7 months later my heart Specialist told me, "We finally diagnosed what was wrong with your heart. You had a heart virus. Most people die before we can diagnose a heart virus. You are one of the lucky ones. You lived even though we or you didn't know what was wrong with your heart." I remember walking away from the doctors office in shock. It was a good shock. I might live to be 80 or 90 now but I was pretty traumatized from what I had been through the previous 7 months. Then 8 years later I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism which basically means my thyroid glands weren't producing enough thyroid to sustain me. Though this likely wouldn't directly kill me it was significantly reducing the quality of my life and likely was one of the major causes of my last divorce before I remarried before I almost died of a heart virus. And this condition also made me more vulnerable to getting a heart virus and multiple cases of bronchitus almost every year between ages 50 and 58. Since my female cousins husband had died of pneumonia at about 60 this really freaked me out each time I got bronchitus each winter. When I was diagnosed with a hypothyroid condition my physical trainer told me about Armour Thyroid. She had been a physician's assistant in Germany before coming to the U.S. and so is very medically qualified even though she can't practice in the U.S. because she didn't go to school here.
So, I starting taking armour thyroid and felt like I had in my 20s and early 30s before my thyroid condition became an ongoing undiagnosed problem until I was 58 years old. So then Armour thyroid stopped being made in the U.S. for some crazy reason so I now get it from Canada as nothing else I have tried works even 25% to 50% as well as armour thyroid tablets on a daily basis.
When I was forced to retire I vowed to God that if I survived I would start one or more websites and publish my experiences with God so that others would experience less suffering in their own lives thereby. I have gained a lot of experience and wisdom living the last 62 years. I have noticed that by even 40 years of age most people have learned really incredible things about life. I wish all people would blog about their wisdom and experiences after 40 years of age. I think the "wisdom pool" of information might be astounding for future generations to experience.
I find it sad that just when you start to really "Get" what is happening here on earth that people either die or become incapacitated and are never able to share what they have found to be important in life. Yes. It's true that everyone must in the end find their own ways. But it helps to know at the very least what didn't work for other people so future generations don't have to make the same mistakes over and over again.
So, here I am 12 years later and have been retired now for 12 years. I'm sort of tired of being retired (even though I'm really good at it by now! ha ha) and I'm trying to figure out what next to do with my life. I'm over being traumatized by my two most recent illnesses and ready to do something else. Traveling is nice all over the world but that really isn't the end all be all I thought it might be. I usually get more out of just hopping on my Kawasaki klr 650 and riding down along the ocean while watching the sunset or something or walking with my dogs in the forest or going to the movies with my wife an daughters and grown kids when they visit at Christmas and other times.
All life is completely unexpected. Many times when people talk to me about their plans it just makes me laugh.
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