Thanks Giving

Six years ago today, I was sharing a wonderful Thanksgiving with friends and significant other in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where I had lived for a handfull of years, and telling them I had been arm-twisted by a previous employer there to help out with a staffing shortage in Grand Junction, Colorado for three weeks.  How did three weeks turn into six years?  Well, if you are lucky enough to have ever been, it's a lovely little city -- the banana belt of Colorado (except we grow apples, peaches, and grapes (so hence winemaking), not bananas!).  I just felt I was supposed to be here, so asked to be moved and placed in a permanent job.  It was a situation which provided me with a lot of experience and as ALL adverse experiences, shaped the direction of my career.  As 'luck' would have it, my now best friend here wanted to stop by Old Chicagos for dinner after taking me to the car dealership where my car was being looked at to find 'the problem that 'they' can't recreate' and it needed more fuel... why they wouldn't fuel my car when I was about to spent THAT much money getting a head gasket fixed, I'll never understand except it wasn't good customer service and I learned from THAT as well.  Again, all the situations in our lives offer points of reference for us in the future.  (And I hope our customer service is MUCH more sensible).  Well, as 'luck would have it', my friend's dentist was there with his family, and his wife is a PT who knows the whole town and all that is going on, and told me one of the top-knotch PT clinics in town was looking for an OT as they had expanded and moved into a new building (the "Primary Care Partners building" -- there's a link to them in the August blog about Obama coming here and why Grand Junction's health care is one of the top in the United States). 

There, in a beautiful garden level of an amazing building, I not only was invited to join a wonderful entity and get my business foundation under me locally, I was invited by the psychologist whose Behavioral Health and Wellness clinic was on the top floor.  Invited to what?  Due to non compete clause, I couldn't see patients there directly, but he figured he'd just send patients to me in the lower level, but despite the high techedness of the building, there was no linked way of communicating, so I'd take the time to walk up the stairs and meet with him regularly and 'collaborate' about the care of our patients.  They did well, because I also collaborated and talked with the PT and MT and hand therapist and anyone involved with a patient AND because the patients 'bought into getting better' because they KNEW how important they were!  Dr Young and I created an educational forum for people with fibromyalgia and it was very successful because everyone knew they were contributing.  We brought in the top people in town that those with fibromyalgia were saying were helping them.  Turns out, they were forming an Integrative Medicine Center of Western Colorado.  And two years ago I was in the process of seeing that I could take the process 'we' had created in Grand Junction to the internet and be able to help those same people in a different way (from their homes!) and ALSO extend and expand that to anyone 'out there'.  I'm a Colorado native and have always lived here and due to my family and friends here, rarely leave the state.  So initially I just thought 'United States' but a year ago the brillian web designer in Texas said to me 'when I turn on the website, what countries will it go to?'  I remember sitting and looking at the email which arrived since the last Thanksgiving, and truly 'realizing' that by today my world was going to 'open up'. 

And it has!  Through our facebook outreach, we've interacted with such wonderful people and some of them are major contributors to the Forum area of Lumigrate.com.  How can we ALL not be Thank Full for that?  The providers here or anywhere can go into that area as well and write and read and learn -- and for having been 'live' only 8 months and 3 days today, we're getting an amazing quality and quantity of content!  I have truly been astounded, touched, and unbelievably pleased at what has evolved in that area of Lumigrate.com.  THANK YOU ALL who have read, written, laughed, cried, and mostly found solutions and told others.  Together we are "Lighting the Path to Health and Well-Being".  We maybe created the light and are aiming it, but do YOU all see what fuel/energy you're creating for the light?  Look at our logo -- see the light burst coming from the middle?  That's all of us!

I am thank full for everything that I have been given from this point in time to the beginning, including times in the history, as it is a source of learning today.  My mother taught me that, as well as being a wonderful example of how she learned in the 1960s to balance family, home, career, self.  Her cousin and his family gathered together with us for every holiday for my formative years and I have fantastic memories, and am grateful today that we can talk about teasing Uncle Harmon about his very long blessings while the turkey got cold.  I'm grateful to be sharing this holiday again just as I did last year (photo on the home page of me in the coat was last Thanksgiving) with my father who is continuing to teach me about strength, courage, kindness, and perseverence, and my sister who likes to cook!  (Our years past of recipes and cookbooks might have been what made me think to include a recipes section on Lumigrate's Forum area (in Nutrition currently).  

I'm thankful for every person and animal and plant I've interacted with, for the land and community I grew up on, as it provided the experiences -- 'good and bad' --- which were built upon in the years since.  Schools, teachers, internship mentors, coworkers, friends, neighbors and communities and businesses since, as with anyone, have shoved and ushered and guided me to where I live and work now.  I hope that everyone reflects about where they are at as they read this -- and give thanks.  Just as I hopefully convey about any issue: get the facts, determine your opinion, act upon it as you believe you should, tell others -- and when you DO, be sure to convey what is fact and opinion, as that is where stories and issues go awry.  

In the last week, I have found out that one of my very important medical providers of the past, my very first internship mentor, AND the very talented (and four time Emmy winner) gentle-man who ran the recording end of the conference in Berkeley I was asked to present at, are dealing with serious medical conditions which are in the same 'flavor category'.   Fortunately, there has been an amazing leader for that particular condition (the 'C' word, 'cancer') "happen along" to help Lumigrate (and me!) to learn more about her area of expertise so that we can excel faster.  It has been wonderful to be able to say 'please know Lumigrate is 'on it' and we'll develop things related to what we can learn from these present experiences of others, just as I have from mine. 

I'm thankful for the internet, which has allowed SO MUCH for Lumigrate and for everyone on the internet to learn about health care, and mostly for the 'team' that you see on Lumigrate's videos and the others surrounding that are with us, you just haven't gotten to see their products as they are in production or we're still working on what we're going to do in 2010 and beyond. 

I'm thankful to live in such a beautiful place, which literally awes me every day and which has been part of my return to acceptable and functional health.  It has been a tremendous source of energy, inspiration, growth, knowledge and I look forward to NEXT Thanksgiving and seeing what all has transpired since I wrote this post today.  I have a feeling it's going to have a lot to do with .....

FOOD

Remember -- the Forum area (just go to the Forum tab from the home page), Nutrition (currently in green letters at the bottom), RECIPES!  Add recipes you liked this Thanksgiving -- ones you're looking at for the upcoming Holidays ... What to do with leftovers!  Keep looking at the blog for what's new that we know and offer, and as always, take some time to watch the videos -- many are free, they are all low cost, and they are all wonderful.  I mostly THANK the providers who took their time to put together such amazing seminars from which we all learn -- if we take the time and have the energy (thanks for the recent teacher in the U.K. who reminded me about THAT resource's importance), and shift our money resources a bit to investing in our health -- there is a LOT to learn on Lumigrate.com because of ALL of us. 

And for all this, I GIVE THANKS ~~ Mardy