Make that FOUR pages on Google search engine for the book, "Walking Free: The Nellie Zimmerman Story....

(fifth printing..coming up...soon)!!"

Let's see:

Buckeye Book Fair...in it's first year..2001...Called one of the best books published in the State of Ohio...in 2001.

Seven excellent reviews from large newspapers and hearty and continuing book sales at the local Borders...since 2002.

2003..movie script for the story written and then,..the stage play script!

2004 Gold Award for the story at Houston International Film Festival!!

In the meantime, Rosezelle has won two awards from Wright State University for her work on the book,..spoke with me at a Social Workers' Convention at Wright State as Keynote Speakers, and we both have spoken in I don't know how many college classes so as to promote the book!!

Daryl has been vacationing in Cancun and enjoying his publicity from the win of the Gold Award!! Rosezelle and I were not crying over the win..either!!

Heh! I wasn't crying when the Massillon Women's Club had me as a "center-piece" speaker for a luncheon for the book!! The Canton Women's club was not a "bad gig" either!!

I am NOT talking about my FAUX PAS at the Football Wives Breakfast. THE LESS SAID ABOUT THAT THE BETTER!!

The "fan mail" is piling up in Rosezelle's FOUR filing cabinets.

None of this is "OUTSTANDING,"...but none of it can be sneezed at either!!

The most pleasure that I have gotten from the whole "Shebang"..was been SPEAKING TO THE ELDERLY DEAF,...WHO ACTUALLY KNEW NELLIE AS I DID AT COLUMBUS COLONY FOR THE DEAF AND SPEAKING TO THEM IN SIGN LANGUAGE SO THAT THEY COULD UNDERSTAND ME,..SO THAT THEY COULD ENJOY THE PROGRAM AS IT IS ENJOYED BY HEARING FOLKS ALL OF THE TIME!!

I am getting tired so I am not going to talk about what is "up-coming" or what is being planned. I haven't mentioned,..really,..everything that has taken place since 2001,..but I will say that it has been all very exciting for me,..perhaps not exciting enough for some.."fluff-heads"..to want to share it with me,

...........but exciting enough for me.

As I said on the "online message board" recently that I used to play on...

(quote from an old rock song!):

.."If you can't please everyone

...Then,..you have to please..YOURSELF!!

...La-de-dah-dah-dah!!"

I stop and think of the blessings of sound, and then,..I see an info-commercial at 3:00 am on the television and I understand the blessings of silence!!

I am going BACK to bed....as I contemplate the effects on my life of a book that I was once expertly told..."does not exist!!"

Hmmmmmmmmmmn!

Yah coulda fooled me and a few thousand people,..who have bought it and read it!!

The high powered anti-biotics seem to be doing their job quite..well!! As I have said before,..2000 mg of penicillin VK can work wonders!! I can feel no more ear aches and stunned Rosezelle by talking to her on the telephone and answering her.

I can and have always TALKED quite well on the telephone,but answering the person on the other end of the line has always been a problem!! It's funny how having excellent speaking skills can make some people INSIST that a talker must also be a listener!!

Heh! Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight!!

Now,..if only they had the ability to "make it so"..as the Captain, Jean Luc Picard says on STNG!! If I wanted to "fry my liver" with 2000 mg of penicillin VK on a daily basis,..I guess that I could talk on the phone everyday!!

However,..I am right fond of being alive and have had enough trouble with other health problems! I don't see liver failure d/t almost 1000 mg of blood pressure pills on a daily basis and then add on a 2000 to 4000 mg dose of some hi-tech anti-biotic as "hearing maintenance!!" I would see such an option as certain..death.

Walking Free: The nellie Zimmerman Story has about three pages of references on Google and has thirty one direct refernces on the Dogpile search engine! Rosezelle should be very proud of her work! I know that I am proud of it and I am proud enough of the small part that I played in it!!!!

I have not even beun to check and see how many references THE BLACK HEART BOOK has as yet. Right now,..it is on the "To Be Published"..list, but it;s time will come. It's time will come. I have faith in the hard word of its' author!!

Rosezelle is a woman, that if life had had it's way, who would have been a "throw-away" person. She overcame her deafness and all of the obstacles that were thrown in her path to go on and lead a life, that folks with half of her so called disabilities,...would have envied!!

Social worker,..manager of a children's home, and author..it is small wonder that I admire this woman so much. Right now, I am trying to set up some lectures for her in different college classes. If I can succeed in this,..the whole world, aged eighteen to twenty four..in this geographic area, will be able to see what a wonderful person that she is!!

One cat in front of the fridge..doing a "one kitty seranade!!

5:30 AM.

Chopped chicken liver to be served on a paper plate!!

Damn cat!!

Graaaaack!!

I have to go back to the dentist again today to follow up on my oral surgery.

Still,..no so called pain.

Interesting.

The sensation of feeling like a foot tickle has even vanished.

My right cheek and jaw,.however,..are so puffy..that they look like they are about to give birth!!

I see more antibiotics in my future!!

Ooooooooooooooow! Sore jaw!!

Damn sore jaw!!

I am amazed that I can feel the pain!! I am thankful that I can FEEL the results of the drilling and grinding that went on in the upper part of my mouth!!

The doctor seemed even more amazed than I was!!

"Two strokes?" was all he said about it still I could see something was getting his attention when he and his assistants went in for the kill inside my oral cavity!!I asked him after the oral surgery just what was so surprising about my mouth. He said it was the way that I can unhinge the left side of my jaw and let it hang!!

The one nurse seemed to think that it was sort of unappetizing to have a patient, who can take a part of her mouth apart like the parts in a tinkertoy set. I guess the popping and grating noises..(so Bill tells me!!) that the jaw makes when I dislocate the left side of my jaw and slide the left side of my face over into the right side of my face..sort of un-nerved her!!

Then,..so that my mouth would open up wide enough for them to get in there,..I just let my lower jaw hang open!! Drool city!! I could hear the drill and feel some vibrations when they put it to the bones in my upper jaw,.but the one nurse ran out of the room when I wouldn't stop giggling! The drill tickled!! The other nurse paled...and hung in there with the oral surgeon. I guess I was the first patient for this type of surgery..who didn't have to be completely sedated!!

Somehow,..they clamped a small piece of plastic sheeting over my upper jaw and I didn't have to worry about the water that they used to rinse aside the blood and stuff from the surgery...going down into my windpipe!!

Anyway,..I survived the operation with a minimum amount of pain and I am enjoying the sensation...this so called pain!! I told my husband it felt like having my feet tickled. He said in a jokey way that I literally do have a "numb-skull!"

So,....surgery today on the jaw. A bit of surgery is much better than the allternative!!

Broken abcess in jaw=systemic poisoning=pushing up daisies!!

NO THANKS! I'll take the surgery!!

Rosezelle is in the hospital again,..too! I'm surprised!! And yet,..I'm very happy that she is having her particular problem taken care of!

I have never met anyone like Rosezelle before in my life! What a dynamo! She is talking about helping me with what I have been trying to write and what she wants to write on her own.

I keep telling my old friend that my manuscript isn't as imporant as the Black Heart series of books,..but she keeps talking about the impact of what I have seen in the past two or three years...let alone what I have experienced!! I can see her point. I know that SHE won't back down to please someone else.

We have two book events to do next month. Planning ahead in cases like this can never hurt!! :D

I will say that the penicillin VK has done it's job with me!! The swelling in my jaw is going down and I'm using the telephone. I'll be ok till the antibiotic runs or my liver runs out...whichever happens first!!

The swelling in my jaw has gone down,..and I can hear a HELL of a lot more than I was hearing!! Traffic on the road makes a growling sound like a lion, I think,..sort of an "uuuuuummmmmmm!"...as it goes by the house. Match the vibration with the "sound" and a person knows what they are listening to!!

I have always liked certain forms of music,..but most of it is still just a compacted wall of sound..like those operas Bill was trying to help me appreciate.

Bill and I snuck in that one VHS tape upon which "Meatloaf"..makes his debut!! He is a singing cyclist with a bashed in head! The music made little sense,..but the visuals were..."okeedokee!"

Christopher Reeve is dead! What a sobering thought.

Here is a man,..who could have literally become embittered and sat on his duff, and spent the rest of his life...mourning what he lost,..and he lost a lot!! He became an "over-night quad!"

A man,

..who was the epitome of physical perfection to the point that he was chosen to play the "folk hero,"..Superman;

..who was so athletic..that he did his own movie stunts,

..who was so daring that he tempted fate and did dangerous things...just for the thrill of it.

And,

...then,

..one day,

..he fell off the back of a horse,

..no less,

....and the thrills seemed to be over.

(Perhaps,..he counts..as a person,..who should have never been born???)

(I believe I can fly.....")

In the time that passed of Chris Reeve's short life,..52 years is not all that..old,..he addressed congress on behalf of victims of catastrophic illness,...continued as a loving father and took an active part in his family life, and was a person,.who was willing to go to bat for stem cell research when it was an unpopular cause!!

He spoke to large groups..(I heard him....(through a sign language interpreter) when I was a member of the Ohio Governor's Council On People Wth Disabilities at a "Solidarity Ohio Convention in Columbus, Ohio.

("I believe that I can touch the sky!!")

He was an excellent speaker. That's not bad for a man,..who depended on a respirator for almost every breath that he took!!

He stood up for life after it knocked him down and wrote books, became a director,..continued acting...(won a "Screen-Actors' Guild Award for a movie..."Rear Window",..I believe it was called,); brought tears to the eyes of the 1996 Avademy Awards Ceremony audience when he told them that they should be making movies about more "socially relevent issues;"..and did a host of so many things with his life after he fell..that I can't name them all..besides,...I'm crying as I write this.......

(I...make it up to Heaven's door,

...take my wings and fly..some more!!)

After Christopher Reeve,..Superman, fell,...and became a quadripelegic,..he became a SUPER MAN! I guess that Chris Reeve went ACHIEVED more sitting in a wheelchair..than most people get to even think about or even get to try to think about!!

He's free!:

No more gasping for every breath through a trach-hole..cut into his neck.

If, he was like many other quads,no more sitting and waiting for someone else to pass him a glass of water when he wants to drink, or pissing through a cather and hoping that there will be no bladder infection if the urine is cloudy.

No more bed sores, which can occur even with the best and most loving caregivers.

Let's face it..the man DID earn his wings!! I do believe that he is truly soaring now!!

Fly,..Chris!! Fly!!

SOAR!

.......Stanelle

The dentist said that I have a HELL of an infection in my ear, jaw, and sinus!! It's an abcess of sorts caused by years of untreated ear infections. I guess that the first step in getting rid of it is "a massive dose of antibiotics,"..which I have already started on. Then,...I guess that I have to have two root canals, which are pretty well advanced!! My teeth have no cavities in them and I feel no pain!!

The dentist could not understand just why I could sit so still while she probed around in my mouth when I had such a swollen jaw. I told her that I felt no pain. She asked me,.."And why do you feel no pain?"

"I have had two strokes in my lifetime," I told her quite placidly, "I just don't feel much pain in my mouth and jaw!! I have trouble swallowing..which I feel that I hide quite well...and my jaw on the left side is not really attached!! The muscles are so weakened that that the left side of my face is of no use to me when I chew and swallow."

The dentist looked at me, tightened her mouth and finished her examination, x-rayed my mouth, forced it to stay open with some sort of a gripping devise,..probed, picked,..x-rayed my jaw, and finished her examination. Then,..she sat down in front of me and cried!!!!!

Why would she do that?

I am the one who has to live with this "untreated mess," that a certain doctor told my mom so long ago.."was just a product of a young girl's fevered imagination!!"

"Mom,..could that doc have been a quack?"

Fresh Jersey cow milk!!

Ohhhhhhhh yummers!

Home made churn,

...one quart jar,

...put said milk in said quart jar,

and shake!

(It also helps if you shake up the jar real good!)

Shaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaake!!

Shaaake!!!

Shaaaaaaake!!

Oooooooooooooooooooooh shaaaaake,


............shaake, shake...a..shake,..shake,..shake

...................................shaaake that thar jar!!!!!!!!!!

Little yellow flecks of golden buttery curd appear!!

Shakey shake,..shake,..shaked!!

Globs of yellow..appear!

Strain the "butter milk" through a cheese cloth with a butter press and presto,..magico!

Fresh butter milk....,(yummers with hot corn bread in a dish and eaten with a spoon!!)

Annnnnd lovely..(don't ferget to salt it!!)...yellow soft golden homemade butter!!!

(Guess who is making scratch buttermilk biscuits to go with that fresh butter!!)

But that is tomorrow and tomrrow is another day!! :D

....Stanelle