“We are playing Pokemon and it has become our favorite thing to do. I almost died twice in the last year so I am happy to be outside. 14 years ago I had gastric bypass and never had a problem with it, but lately my intestines have been telescoping into each other and almost shut my system down. I get violently ill and end up in the ER. I have been hospitalized twice. The first time, my intestines almost shut down and they told me if my son hadn’t brought me in, I would have died a miserable death within the next 24 hours. It happened again and they stopped it in the ER. Any time I throw up, I go back to the ER. My insurance company just found a primary doctor and I see her on September 1. She is going to get me an appointment with a GI doctor who can start fixing me. She will also help with chronic pain because I have a bad back. Two years ago I was hit by a truck by a shoplifter coming out of a gas station. I am from upper Michigan and haven’t made close friends here like I had there. I moved here because my parents were snowbirds here and then stayed. I had a salon and a fiance in Michigan. One night after a date, he was reading the paper and I was looking at Facebook in bed and he had a heart attack. Before the ambulance got there, he looked up at me and said, ‘Baby, I am sorry, I didn’t mean for this to happen. I love you.’ That was the last thing he said to me. In the ER, they finally came out and told me he didn’t make it. That was the end of my life. We were three weeks away from our wedding. I packed up everything I could into my Chevy Impala and moved down here with my kids to live with my parents. That was five years ago. I was about to move back to Michigan this year because it got really bad when I was sick. We had gone through all of my income and used every charity. Our church helped us get through. We recently found out my mom is in the early stages of Alzheimer’s so I need to stay here and help my dad take care of her. My dad is terrified. She knows it is happening and it breaks my heart. They have their initial consult with the neurologist next week. She is going to be 70 in December and she and her sisters are the first females in her family to live past 55. My mom has the biggest heart. She treats everyone fair. I was a pain in the butt and at 19, I disappeared for two years and went to Phoenix. She didn’t know where I was. I called her when I was six months pregnant and told her she was going to be a grandma and I want to come home. She said, ‘The door is open, you know where the key is.’ I drove home, went upstairs and crawled into the bed with my mom. I haven’t left her since. She was with me when my son almost died in childbirth. I am hardheaded like my mom and my daughter is hardheaded too.”

“That is a lot to go through. How do you handle it?”

“My brother says, ‘This little family has a little curse that walks with us.’ There is a lot of sadness and a lot of hurt and I pray and depend on God to get through it. When I was sick, I was in bed for six months. I am back at work on the midnight shift at a gas station and think we are slowly getting on our feet, but things keep popping up. We need new tires on the car and the microwave went out. We reach for the microwave all of the time, but we can’t afford one right now. I have a family that loves me and my customers keep me going. If it wasn’t for my boys and healing my relationship with my daughter right now, I would go crazy. I was questioning my life because deep down I feel useless. When I moved down here it was hard to meet people and make friends and I have wondered what was wrong with me. I would do anything to help people. I have given the last of my money to help a homeless person eat. One day my kids will be gone and I look at the future and it is a long, lonely life. That is why this game that the milkman hooked me on has helped me. It is a connection. I have sat down with teenagers and twenty-year-olds laughed and had fun. Playing this takes up the time when I have some of the dark thoughts. I hate those thoughts and I don’t want to have them. Now we stop and look at the water and the dragonflies. We watch the fisherman use their nets. This stupid game is saving my life.”