Pinned Post: Overview for YOUsers Landing At My Blog Area

I've changed the contents of this pinned blog a dozen times in the dozen years since it was pinnedhere to the top of the blogs. I'm editing this that you're reading now, on 22 October 2022. 

I remember the "emerging media" professional pinning a blog I'd created along the way because it featured one of the providers I had included in the forums.  Then they couldn't figure out how to un-pin it that day, and we never got back to it. 

So I just left it pinned and change the content to be "current".  In 2010 it was foods and fibromyalgia.

In 2012 it's jewelry.  The many twists and turns in the road I've taken is "a story for another day".  Maybe someday I'll tell it.  

The nutshell version is I became an occupational therapist in my mid-30's, and had a pivotal change in my health as soon as I returned to full time education at Colorado State University.  Aside from two years working near campus for a contractor, I'd been either working for the University or taking classes from it.  Or both. 

I have the claim to fame of being the first person to see the first draft of what we know as the Colorado State University "ram" logo.  By being immersed in an office with the equipment and staff to produce videos, I'd see how I could bring video education online in the things I was immersed in as an OT in 2007.  I'd be ahead of the times, unfortunately, as download not streaming was how we had to go in 2008/9 when this website was created. 

I'd spend the price of a house creating the website embedded within a concierge style functional medicine clinic with all the same costs as being in a mainstream therapy clinic -- overhead, DSL lines, commercial telephone systems, employment insurance, helpers fees or wages, and so on. I'd forsee funds I thought were available to me in an estate, but monkeybusiness had ensued.  I'd have Lumigrate evaluated when someone who appeared on A&E's "Intervention" series attempted to get control of it, and me, in a deal I turned down.  It was worth 4x what I'd spent so far.  I couldn't let it go.  I persevered.  (Key word, perseverative....) 

The video aspect of Lumigrate died on the vine rapidly, but the forums flourished, for many years. I'd weave professionals and online activist consumers together on threads, or get a variety of providers to collaborate on one topic I'd request, such as thyroid. 

It was round-the-clock work for years catching people online when they had time to communicate (providers) or felt well enough (consumer writers) to forumulate building new content to offer "YOUsers" of the website.  The Videos tab is like a mosoleum for the video snippets no longer downloadable from the website, but they help validaate Lumigrate's beginnings and existence. 

The Products tab initiall mirrored what was discussed in the videos.  The idea was people could order from me what they learned about in the video they downloaded, if they wished.  I sold a number of DVD copies to local people, or gave them as kickstarters, and it all just died on the vine. 

I'd double back and create a prototype of a system to sell for organizing medical information, as my core niche has always been shepherding consumers through the medical maze.  What I did in person successfully as an occupational therapist billing insurances simply did not translate to the private-pay consumer.  Navigating their bills and provider and product choices didn't warrant an exchange of money.  I'd find that if I got to helping someone with cleaning or driving them on errands, I could get into helping them with that secondarily.  

In 2014 I, simply put, went into another dimension.  An esoteric trip.  I intend to write about it in the future in more detail.  It centers around the vision in my mind's eye that occurred in the spring and didn't stop until I "got the message" and pivoted my life in accordance. 

It would have everything to do with a big goofy dog living north of me about five miles, who was one degree of separation away from me since the time I created Lumigrate (in 2008).  It would take that "connector person" another year to connect us (in 2015), but the same moment I saw the dog for the first time as I drove in the driveway to "his" house to discuss my helping there, I saw THE object from my mind's eye that had haunted me (in 2014)!  

I'd notice, after agreeing to become the full time caretaker of the dog at his largely-abandoned house on 75 acres, he seemed to have symptoms like what people with "fibromyalgia" have.  I thought to myself "this is crazy, doggie fibromyalgia?". 

My German M.D. and auricular medicine mentor posted a photo that week of his dog, saying his dog had passed.  It looked a lot like the dog I'd just come to live with, and knowing "coincidences" are often things to pay attention to, I figured out how to take a photo with my phone and send it to him via Facebook Messenger.  The response was prompt and surprising:"The dog has mercury sensitivity."  That lead to a focus on THAT aspect, a topic about the M.D., and working towards his coming to the U.S. to teach those who'd want to learn.  I'd "broker" or middleman with the product maker I was intent on supporting so her products got to the market and people that would benefit, and with the tweeks she could make with the influence I provided from the German expert, it was a win/win.  

Sadly, he never came to the U.S., the pandamic happened first.  He died in the spring of 2021, about ten years after he started trying to get me to learn from him and almost exactly six years after I finally tuned in.  Another "facet" in Lumigrate's forums, and in my wheelhouse, dead-ended.  My cache in the Forums started feeling like precious cargo as censorship issues were increasingly known. 

I'd catch Covid in late 2020 from a client (who died of it, and I was cuspy for a day), struggle with effects long after and be starting to feel back to my baseline in the spring of 2022 when I'd catch the latest version of it, and again get set back. I'd get help from the "sub-mentor", who I think of as the protoge in the United States of the German auricular medicine doctor.  I'd outlive my mother at that point in time, and somehow I just felt like I've put in my time standing up for medical truth, providing education and shepherding, and Lumigrate is a testament to that.  

I took the opportunity to be mentored by a professional jeweler who I'd known from my days as Mardy PopIns helping the youngster's family.  It came about innocently enough when a client took me up on my offer to help in a no-cost to them way, clearing out the personal items of a family member who had passed.  They included the jewelry, which I hadn't even known about.

Contacting the only jeweler I know personally -- who I got to know because of O'Rio when living with the family with the wee one, years ago, it was strongly suggested, because I can still do my other helping, in person.  It allows me the flexibility to meet the needs of the few clients I help.  I'm opting to use Lumigrate for jewelry sales, at least for a while.  So now, you're caught up to present day, reading this pinned blog. 

If you continue on you'll see what I've simply pushed down and kept as information from the past that was, at that time, the present.   

The photo you see below is of me was a rare "selfie" taken in the summer of 2019.  I'd just gotten my hair cut.  O'Rio Grande, my sidekick since 2015 (when he was 10, I was 55 and became his live in "sitter") had "taken a back seat". 

I used this photo for the last "stretch" of my time living and working where I'd embed within a home where help was needed.  Basically an hour of my time was given in exchange for the housing.  The vision for what I would call the "Mardy PopIns" era of my life, began to come to me in in the spring of 2014: a recurring image in my minds eye haunted me the way a lingering dream can through the daytime if it's a predictive dream -- an older RV van.  It quit haunting me once I "got the message" and started doing the unthinkable!  Selling my things, preparing, I thought, to buy an RV and join my friends who had taken to RV living. 

In the process of selling things, someone offered me their house for two months in the winter when they were gone.  I'd take them up on it, and when they gave directions to come see it, they said "you can't miss it, there's a white RV van parked in front."  I got there, so excited to see what I'd envisioned seven months before, only to see a newer one, different brand -- not what I had envisioned.  But, it was meant to be, I knew when seeing the woman offering me her house. 

It would turn out that she knew a troubled family member would be done with their court stuff mid January and would be coming to live there.  Unstable, unfit to be responsible in a house (third generation with the mental illness running through the family), I'd see how difficult a time It had everything to do, I'd later realize, with O'Rio, and what I'd be inspired to do because of him. For him.  And, due to his being so willing and able to do as I directed, I got to see him improve.  More than any person I'd encountered.  Let me change that to FASTER than any person, and with results rarely seen with people I've assisted in their health and wellness journeys. 

I'd finally get to learning, understanding somewhat, and incorporating as much as I could, a model of medicine I'd become "aware of" in 2011.  I'd fully embrace it in the summer of 2017, and my life, and his, would benefit as a result.  It was, essentially like frosting the cake of health for me, finally getting to the "root causes" of things with people and our pets.  

In addition to what I do using the Internet platform of Lumigrate, I assist a variety of people and animals in my local community, typically in their homes.  This often involves my car to get there, or to shop for them,  transport them to an appointment, etc., and O'Rio would come with me as often as he could. But I knew his now-easier life would come to an end in the near future, hence promoting this photo with him "taking the back seat".  His family of origin loved him, but he and I were both "mercury sensitive" and I could keep him safe from traces of it getting on/around him and affecting him.  We all witnessed the horrendous symptoms of an autonomia episode -- in dogs the pupils dilate and the third lid swells.  I became his new official human guardian in the fall of 2017 and we'd have many adventures together, even on what turned out to be his last day, coinciding with summer solstice 2021.  

On August 15, 2021, he and I moved into a very similar home to the one I'd lived in for almost a decade at the end of my career working for others as a Registered Occupational Therapist (OTR) and the 7 years I created and built up the content and social media presence of my "brand".  O'Rio came along as a pet of a client I was secured to help, and he helped me tie together a lot of loose ends of information I'd simply not put together to that point. 

I'd see that he could be a helpful, interesting and "fun" training tool, and his owner saw that it was benefitting me, and those we could reach and teach.  Also, what helped O'Rio was the same thing that helped me -- our root causes of symptoms were similar, and it was a lot to learn and do for a dog if you didn't already do it for yourself, as I did.  So in the fall of 2017, I got to become his official human!  There was a niche, and it was now filled. 

O'Rio, or that which is guiding all, would opt to have a clearly divinely planned exit for him as summer turned to fall in September, which created more time for me to help others.  I was eager to get back to my former lifestyle, which tended to be as full with work as I could have it.  I gave away his things slowly, but immediately, and got a new client who had a white faced yellow lab limp out with my first visit, who I thought was meant to be because I could help him by giving them the special things for large dogs with bodily impairments -- elevated food and water bowls, kibble that was helpful for inflammation, and his beloved comfy bed which I'd bought him "from Santa" the first Christmas I was his substitue guardian.  

Within a week or so I'd get a text, asking me to "prayerfully" consider taking the old dog through to the end of his life since there were so many life changes for the guardian it wasn't possible to help him properly.  I agreed, once again seeing the "niche" that I could fill.  

I must continue to find people locally to help -- often for clients you'll find me doing the following: 

-- communicating with medical providers about details of care, setting or attending appointments, documenting key information and providing overall assistance and management of their health care

-- light meal preparation and cleanup

-- routine shopping, and errands. 

-- input about diet purchases in accordance with overall diet the client wishes to be utilizing, as I can give input on desired diet and items they consider purchasing or using, once a person has information from their providers about desired diet. 

-- cleaning (inside and outside), utilizing the basic concepts from German auricular medicine model relative to "elements of sensitivity", which typically are mercury, aluminum, iridium, and fluoride sensitivity.  These "sensitivities" to a handfull of elements in the periodic chart apply to all products the person and home come in contact with, including tap water and pertains to almost half of all people and animals.   What products are used provided by me are "screened" to be without traces of mercury and aluminum.  

--organizing (paperwork (receipts, routine life paperwork, including somewhat complex financial layers) to cabinets.  Putting in shelf paper and re-organizing was one client's need, for example.  Another had over 150 years of photographs, letters, and documents from their "homesteading" family, which needed to be culled, and rehomed to the various museums and family members and friends.  

-- compiling a 120 page "life story" from the afore-mentioned information, which served as a gift at year's and life's end, and a way for the client to "wrap up" and reflect upon their life, and help make others aware the end was approaching.  

-- home safety assessments and recommendations to increase independence and safety, due to previous career in occupational therapy. Can procure the needed equipment or items to meet the goals of the client. 

-- finding and screening helpers for tasks beyond my abilities (such as yard care, gardening, big cleanup requiring trucks, contractors for repairs, maintenance, plumbers, heating and air conditioning contractors, pest control, etc.). 

If you are local to the Grand Junction area and read this and wonder if I could be a good fit for a niche you have to fill, please contact me by phone.  I text too, if that's a good place to start.  Area code 970.  462, then 8662.  I look forward to hearing from you.  (2 hour minimum, additional charges for mileage and time if beyond the area Grand Junction city services reach $20/hour and 2 miles/$1).   

The creation date on this blog reflects the date of what was the main course that day, when I was taught how to pin a blog post to be at the top. Back then it was a nutrition collaborator focusing on fibromyalgia in early 2010. Then in the late 2010's I started editing it to be about what's currently the focus for me, and Lumigrate, or how they inter-relate.  Rather than unpinning and pinning a new post, I just edit this one, and mention the count here.  

The cornerstone of Lumigrate, and my work at the end of my occupational therapy career in 2007 and 2008, is The Lumigrate YOU! Model, below.  If you want to think of how I help a person, I join in the central role where you are, and guide the person to create a recognition of their current or past team, and ideally work on what to have in the future.  Naturally, it's an "organic" process, and ultimately a person will be able to do it without help, if they're able.  Some will always need assistance.  

If you'd like to have a session with me about this, we can easily do it over the telephone or other remote communcation (video chat, for instance), or often much is done with messages, texts, and emails.  

                                                          (Me, in the trees, fall of 2012, looking up at the beautiful colorful aspen around Aspen, Colorado.

Payments can be done with Zelle, Venmo, PayPal, and of course check and cash.  

PayPal link is: paypal.me/MardyRoss (or you can use my name or phone number, above, too)

I prefer people contact me by telephone.  

My phone (and I text) is ----- 970 as area code, 462 is the prefix, and 8662 are the last four.

My address is: Mardy Ross; Call and I can provide, Grand Junction, CO 81501

I'm on Facebook (Mardy Ross) and Messenger.  I will respond. If I don't, CALL.  

If you must, my email is mardy dot poppins at yahoo dot com but I do not check that daily.

Thank you for 1) Being a YOUser at Lumigrate if you've accessed this topic.  2) Giving if you will take the time, energy and have the funds and are so inclined.  3) Letting others know of the resource for information AND a place they can give if interested in helping us to help YOU! (the overall).  ~ Gratefully, Mardy