Please welcome Kathryn Treat as my guest blogger today. Kathryn is the author of Allergic To Life: My Battle for Survival, Courage, and Hope. The book is an inspiration; a story of hope, and Kathryn’s courage is impressive.
“It is a book of survival for anyone who has battled against chronic illness each day.”
Keep Reaching
I am honored that Bruce has invited me to write a guest blog
post today. I tossed and turned on what
my topic today would be. Would I write about my book and my illness? Would I
write about what it is like to suddenly have written a book? Or would I write
about the amazing opportunities that have been afforded me since writing the
book?
After pondering all this for some time, I realized that I
wouldn’t have written a book nor had all the amazing opportunities afforded to
me if my life hadn’t taken a sudden detour from healthy to quite ill. My
journey through illness and sensitivities many cannot fathom is the reason I
wrote “Allergic to Life: My Battle for Survival, Courage, and Hope”. I believe
the reason for my illness was that I was meant to be a spokesman for those
whose voice could not be heard or those who didn’t have the strength or
conviction to tell their stories.
I was an active mother of two nearly grown teenagers when
illness struck me. My life went from attending meeting after meeting,
volunteering in clubs, and starting back to work to living with infection after
infection and developing one strange infection after another. All of this was followed
by becoming sensitive to the chemicals that most use in everyday life (my hair
color, my laundry soap, the chemicals in my carpet, and the solution I used for
my contacts). I became allergic to most foods and medications as well.
It was during my treatments at the Environmental Health
Center in Dallas that I learned that I was not alone. There were others just
like me. We were all sick, alone, and isolated. I suffered extreme depression
as the illness took me down one horrific path after another. I began writing in
my journal as a way of dealing with the day’s stress. My journal became the
person I could talk to when my world was crumbling around me. I shed my tears
and wrote my deepest feelings in it. It was hard to explain to others what my
life was like and how difficult it was to just survive. I decided that I needed to tell the story of
my journey to let others who were suffering know they were not alone. I wrote
to bring awareness to environmental illness.
I never considered myself a writer. I was crafty and could
take a pattern and a scrap of material and create wonderful things. I could
envision something quite different and alter the pattern to suit my needs.
Suddenly through my writing I was thrust into a whole new world. It was the
world of authors, bloggers, reviewers, and the scary social media scene. Sure I knew a little about social media
because I did have a personal Facebook page to communicate with friends and
family. I had heard of Twitter, Tumblr, and Pinterest but really did not know
much about them. I was told that I needed to begin blogging as a way of
marketing and promoting myself and I needed to get a Twitter account. Fear
paralyzed me. What could I possibly write in a blog on any regular basis that
anyone would want to read? What could I
say in 140 characters or less? Would this really be able to help me promote and
market my soon-to-be-released book? I jumped in with both feet with a “sink or
swim” attitude. Soon I realized that I had plenty to say and the more I wrote
the more my fear eased.
Through blogging I made connections with others who suffered
from chronic illness and I made connections with fellow authors. Through these
wonderful connections I have become a member of PnP Authors and Rave Reviews
Book Club where I serve as Membership Director. Rave Reviews Book Club is also
where I met Bruce. I have had the opportunity to
participate in both written and video interviews. I have been hosted by
fabulous women on my first ever blog tour.
Most importantly I have been accepted for not only my writing but for
myself in spite of my crazy life. I have been accepted as a voice for
environmental illness.
I knew there had to be a reason why I continued to fight
when it would have been so easy to give up. Despite all the bad things that
have happened since becoming ill, some wonderful and exciting things have
happened as well. I encourage everyone to keep fighting through the strife in
their lives. There could be something
truly beautiful just beyond your reach. Keep reaching!
LIFE PASSES HER BY
She sits and stares out the window
and she doesn’t recognize anything
Life has passed her by and
Nothing is the same
Where was she when all this happened?
She was here but
Life Passed her by
****
She reaches out but
touches nothing
Life is just past
her grasp
She stretches and bends
and tries again
But life passes her by
She talks to people but
it is a jumble
to understand what they say
The life she missed is
just out of her reach
Life passed her by
Connect with Kathryn through her website, kathryntreat.com.
