Staying Alive

 I can safely say that I would not be alive without my wife being my medical Advocate or without God or Angels helping me every step of the way.

However, that being said, staying alive past 50 for me was always a challenge. The good part of almost dying for 9 months at age 50 from fall of 1998 to may of 1999 was that I was financially able to retire almost completely. However, I will say that I have noticed people who have a job that they work at about 4 hours a day or more seems to keep people mentally and physically alive longer just because they have something to do (even if it is a volunteer job) like my blogs are helping people or entertaining people in whatever ways you have the skills for in a realistic way.

So, for me, staying alive likely started when I was in terrible shape from my last divorce in 1994 and I met my present wife and we started our relationship in December of 1994 and we married in December of 1995.

So, this getting married to my present wife I had to thank God and Angels for because othewise I would have been dead by 1998 in December.

The first thing my wife insisted was that I have full medical Insurance when we got together. I had had medical insurance off and on and really good medical and dental and Eye insurance when I worked for the State of California for the Department of Forestry around 1985 and 1986, for example. 

But, most of the time I owned businesses including when I worked for the state of California those years (about 6 months a year from about May to October) when the insurance was really great for my kids who were then around 15 or younger years old.

So, marrying my present wife on a real level here on earth was the single most important thing and reason I'm still alive at 76 today. And I have God and Angels to thank for this too.

However, being forced to retire at 50 was good for me in many ways:

First, I had to slow down a lot to survive and I watched many friends die for one reason or another because they didn't get sick and slow down like I did. I was always a physical risk taker so I had to slow down to stay alive. Even at 37 I was still rock climbing and skiing and I continued skiing regularly until around the time of Covid or after and was a good enough skier to ski on many black diamond runs which are the most advanced Ski runs usually and ski parks. However, I felt safe on some black diamond runs and not safe on other ones. So, I usually avoided the ones I just didn't feel safe enough on. I suppose my favorite Black Diamond Run was at Mt. Shasta Ski Park and it was the Douglas Black Diamond run. 

I also liked skiing down from the old Squaw Valley gondola up to the top of the mountain as well in the early 2000s and we used to go there and stay at Granlibakken which is a great place to stay especially if you have kids because they have a bunny slope and I believe a rope tow there too which is good for kids to start learning to play in the snow or ski or things like this.

It also took me about 5 years to get used to being retired and one of the reasons I succeeded at this my blogs which helped me heal myself psychologically from many of the traumas of my life and create a better relationship with God and Angels and my family and friends.

in other words I mellowed a lot in the first 5 years of retirement partly because I had undiagnosed hypthyroid condition so I expected to be dead by 60 because I was getting bronchitis up to 7 times a winter because of my undiagnosed hypothyroid condtion. I'm only alive now because my personal trainer had the same hypothyroid condition and diagnosed me correctly when I mentioned my symptoms. She was trained as a physician's assistant in Germany and her diagnosis saved my life. She used Armour thyroid which isn't covered by medical insurance but it has zero side effects which is what i like about it. All other hypothyroid medications have side effects except Armour Thyroid tablets.

So, these are some of the ways I learned to stay alive from 1998 until 2006 and beyond.

By God's Grace