About me: After living all over the world and being active all my life, both osteo and rheumatoid arthritis hit me in my early forties, throwing me for a loop. My mistake: steroids, pain meds and anti-depressants; the combination packed on a hundred pounds and left me lifeless, lethargic and depressed for the first time in my life! Since I am the only one who can take it back, I am working to grab my life back with gusto. The good news: six months after being off the steroids, my body is finally letting go of the weight. It took almost four months of migraine hell, but I am clean of all the anti-depressants and pain meds. (I still need caffeine daily but that is my only stimulant.) I'm walking a mile a day and in physical therapy. I hiked Kilimanjaro and the area around Victoria Falls with my father when I was just a child, the Rockies, the Black Hills, the Blue Ridge, Yellowstone and parts of the Southwest in my youth and young adult years, Hawaiian climbs in my middle years, before the
