PeaceFleece and Lynn Hellerstein/Beth Fishman for it's FIRST Chanukah/Holiday Season - 2011

The Peace Fleece went to the south Denver-metro office of Dr Lynn Hellerstein to attend a meeting with my long-but not lost-colleague.  "Coincidentally", since it was the week before Christmas and the start of Chanukah, her sister and head of the therapy programs at the clinic, Beth Fishman, had time to meet as well!

We had FUN taking a photo by their front office's signage and they got a reminder of how lost I can be -- as they scurried to the door to the front reception area to pose in front of the "Hellerstein and Brenner" backdrop, they said 'you can go out that door' which I'd just come in from the waiting room through, but it hadn't clicked in my brain the sign Lynn had referred to was behind the receptionists so I was looking around on their waiting room walls for the sign they were heading for.  It was nice to be in a place where the people understood what was going on -- Dr Hellerstein was the first professional to start me figuring out when I was a new occupational therapist in my new/second career that I'd had a head injury.  

It was at birth I figure; the doctor used forceps before my mother wanted to go that route because, the story my parents relayed, it was a beautiful spring day and he had a 3 pm golf tee time.  The optometrist I went to at the age of 19 for contacts had seen the damage to the left side of my face and said I likely would need an eyelid surgery in middle age from forceps damage but there was no further discussion about deeper injuries.  I'd been going to eye doctors since I was in elementary school. So, you see, I work hard with my education with Lumigrate to empower YOU, the consumer to learn and persevere finding the right provider for you, who might further your health care a little more or a LOT.  

   

I'd had a very successful career in my 20s and early 30s assisting with program administration for the now-famous/infamous visibility/air quality researcher and program the National Park Service and other government agencies, such as the US Navy, funded at Colorado State University.  I did all the administrative things related to hiring people, making purchases, and getting the requests for proposals out and the proposals in, and moving all the money around. The results of our team's efforts lead to the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990. It was very hard work for me, but I used the skills I'd developed as a person with life-long learning difficulties/differences/disabilities and was successful at it, AND I learned a lot.  My experiences there with staffing and procuring equipment for a video and graphics studio combined years later after much experience in the health care arena to lead me to create Lumigrate.  

I'd sailed through a notoriously difficult internship at the Denver VA, but they don't bill insurance so I had to simply do a sensible weekly progress note in the computer. EASY!  You could even cut and paste and change the things that needed to be changed, it was wonderful!  I got to really pay attention to my patients and my health actually was really good while doing internships due to the balance I could have in my life.  

Computers are awesome tools for those with learning disabilities; I'd not been able to use a computer in OT school for tests and I did not get to use one in a work environment until seven years ago.  NO kidding!  So I got into Medicare-based rehabilitation with the elderly in skilled nursing homes in my first job out of internship, and I was struggling with pen and pencil.  I was putting my initials in the wrong little boxes on my billing grids, something which could allow Medicare to deny a WHOLE claim with just ONE mistake! Fortunately my manager's manager got called in to come work with me, it turns out she had been my partner in a week-long additional course I took to get certified in the Assessment of Motor and Process Skills the year or two before.

Some people go on spring or winter vacations, I took a class in order to be better prepared to be an OT upon graduation.  It was the best week-long class I've ever taken and I've used what I learned EVERY day since! I make an effort to keep up with continuing education and I am happy to relay here that Dr Hellerstein's DVD course has CEUs approved for certain professionals! I'll come back with more information about that.  

An example I like to use of the "processing problem" related to sequencing and multitasking came into play when I left the above-mentioned position after 8 years, to a less well funded/older building at CSU to get experience in health education, and went back to taking and routing calls on a hookswitch phone system which didn't have an intercom system.  I'd learned and used the identical system with no problems for about a year five years prior! My supervisor had someone take an hour to come give me 1:1 training on a phone system I used to use backwards and forwards only a few years before! I have found it really interesting that the least understanding people about learning disabilities and brain differences are those I have encountered since going into working in health care! I've had to do oral dictation of evaluations (again, no computers for therapist) at a station so close to a very loud PT that the transcription would come back with notes indicating they couldn't hear me over the other voices around me! Imagine how tired I was when I went home after dealing with THAT all day! The therapists there who were making productivity were cheating and breaking Federal laws to keep their jobs.  It's been a LONG road since I first met Lynn and Beth when I was first an occupational therapist.  

In my case, things evolved into more complexity when I was developing what later was determined to be fibromyalgia.  Naturally you don't just wake up one day with something like that and the day before was pure health, it's a gradual shift your body accommodates for until things finally become apparent.  My onset was more gradual than what many people describe, with years of symptoms I can backtrack and point to.  And the more I learn, the more things become clearer, and at this point I suspect there is a connection between brain injury and fibromyalgia in my case.  I believe it is under-estimated and appreciated in many cases of fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue, actually.  I have a new 'spotlight' shining from Lumigrate related to brain injuries because of a new focus in the US related to concussion and sports, mainly; in 2012 a new law will go into effect related to schools and head injuries in Colorado, where I and Lumigrate are 'based'.   

It was at that time of the job shift in 1992 at age 32 that I first noticed my brain just going blank when there was a loud noise behind me during a lecture; I forgot EVERYTHING the physiology professor had just said that I'd not yet written down in my notes: no worry, as I had learned I had to tape record my lectures and then go over my notes after class with colored pencils, while standing up at a drafting table.  Then before a test I would review those notes again and I was FINALLY getting grades that were in alignment with my tested IQ.  

Our student health center psychiatrist presumed it was ADD and gave me a Rx for a stimulant and it acted as a stimulant on me, so it was NOT ADD.  I'd had migraines and asthma come on about two years before, when I turned 30.  It wasn't long before I was having other symptoms of fibromyalgia, such as tight shoulder and neck muscles, and then had to start lessening the weights I used in my regular workouts; I was 13% body fat, weighed 133# and was 33; I thought 3 was my lucky number! My weight soared to 170# when I was in OT school at age 35; I'd given up my health club membership when becoming a student because I paid a fee to use a recreation center but it was full of a bunch of young kids and wasn't convenient and FUN like my health club had been (all my friends went there and we'd have drinks and snacks or go to dinner on Wednesdays and Fridays).  

Finally getting a diagnosis many years later in 1998 at age 38, I was sometimes able to get appropriate and helpful treatment from my insurance-based providers.  It was around that time that I did vision therapy with Beth, under the supervision of Lynn Hellerstein. I have the utmost respect for the initial optometrist who made vision therapy available in his clinic without all the trainings and certifications Lynn and Beth have and appreciate very much that it was available in my smaller Colorado city of Fort Collins.  But when you're with them, you know you're working with the 'top tier'.  I'm grateful that initially I had the money, energy and time to pursue treatment.  I continued therapy with the exception of something that was making it more distracting for me to drive at night, which was opening up the 'tunnel vision' I have related to detail my brain sees; it comes from being in stress I am told.  

Dr Hellerstein required me to have a psychologist on board to talk to if something was 'unlocked' related to the childhood trauma.  Thankfully, nothing identifiable as 'buried' has ever surfaced that I don't readily recall, and I have documented elsewhere in the Lumigrate forums and in a podcast with Dr Chris Young about "Adverse Childhood Experiences" and the proven connection to chronic illness in adulthood, including chronic pain and interestingly enough, autoimmune dysfunction.  I have the same score on the same items filling it out for my life as the one page questionnaire reveals if I fill it out based on my father's childhood history.  So back in the 1990s, she was taking a collaborative approach to integrate health care related to what might be lurking in the brain's 'recesses'.  

I even got a second opinion which was in agreement and was told 'you might think this is from all the stress you are under now, but it's not, it's from a long time in your past.' It's quite an honor when a competitor compliments the work of their competition! I told Beth about that when we met last week. But I was having to drive sometimes 3 and 4 hours a day in darkness and it was just overwhelming for me to see all the lights on the freeway between Colorado Springs and Denver so I stopped that one therapeutic intervention.  I was told to go play ball sports and exercise my newly bettered brain but there was no time; my father was needing help increasingly and I quite honestly was trying to maintain my home and refrigerator on the half of the weekends I wasn't helping with my family responsibilities.  I eventually became exhausted and took some time off, contemplating my options of filing for disability, and then the opportunity to come to Grand Junction opened up and I've managed to dig my way out of a very deep hole here. Somewhat to do with I drive 20% what I used to and have far less adrenalin time!  The day before my meeting someone lost control at an intersection in the snow and went just a few feet in front of my car as I was stopped at a red light.  "Life in the big city" is draining on the brain.  And body.  And spirit -- for me at least.  

I find it often helps readers interested in these topics to hear my story -- it allows them to make connections to their situations oftentimes. I went to work at age 24 after 'dropping out' of studying business in college due to falling grades, and my ego went down alongside them.   An incredibly sharp PhD who was a master at strategizing and at making a budget stretch saw my potential and how he could get a good worker for a low cost and hired me; he retired recently, earning the only EPA lifetime achievement award given to someone who was not working for EPA at the time of retirement.  I am proud to say he repeatedly asked me to come back to work for him when after 8 years I went on to Health Ed then OT school; at the time I graduated and got a VERY good paying job, as that's how salaries were in therapy back then, he offered to pay 50% more if I'd return.  He'd called me a while after I'd turned the job over to the best person I could find to replace me, offering a doubling of what I'd made if I would return.  Trust me, there have been MANY times I have regretted not having the stability, the benefits for health and disability, but believed that not to be the true path for my life; I believe I finally am ON that path with Lumigrate: Our slogan is "Lighting the Path to Health and Well-Being".  By bringing dozens of providers like Dr Hellerstein to Lumigrate, it allows for anyone in the world to potentially find THEIR path through providers in their area or those who consult via the telephone, video conferencing, etc.  

My visionary boss had initially hired a woman to assist him who was older and with graduate degrees who went on to become one of the VPs of CSU, whose seat I was to fill at that time.  The second person he hired was a newly graduated graduate student in recreation resources who carried out the plan to survey the consumers of national parks -- US taxpayers and international tourists -- related to what THEY wanted and saw at key locations in the US.  And that set the foundation for saying in EVERY paper after, many of which I typed and/or edited in the next eight years, for funding the program he envisioned.  

I went on to marry that younger researcher, who had sustained a massive concussion/head injury in junior high school PE class, later ending his career as a hockey player due to having seizure disorder and hydrocephalus come on when he was about 18. He had been hospitalized for 2-3 days and put in a room with low or no light, so he had been treated.  In the time between injury and symptoms, he enjoyed being a star hockey player and  the Minneapolis Star newspaper did a whole piece on him where he was slated to be the next Gordie Howe.  His life has been incredibly difficult and tragic to many who know the details. While we ultimately didn't stay married due to his not wanting me to return to college and become an occupational therapist, I credit him and my first husband way back in junior high as well as my father with their doing their best tutoring me in algebra but in high school in order to get good grades for college admission, I was allowed by my dad to take the easy math where you learn to balance your checkbook and read food labels and recipes.  My parents didn't have any money problems preventing them from sending me to the experts they knew existed, it was the value that they placed on their children and discrepancies that are very complex related to dysfunctional family 'stuff'.  As an adult, I took control of those things as much as I could with the income and funds I had available to me.  Unfortunately, I was such a saver I chose to invest in IRAs in my mid 20s instead of my healthcare -- I looked at health care as something my insurance took care of.  

Yes, I have never been on 'spring break', aside from my 30th birthday to Belize, and at that time I had assets that the planners said were right for a woman of 40! By the time I was 40, I was broke because of the changes in the medical system affecting employment and pay, my health having deteriorated and requiring me to take time off between unfortunate job situations. From age 38 to 40 I worked 60 hour weeks and cared for my father 50% of weekends at a job that payed less than I made when I worked for the air quality program without a college degree!  But I was getting experience in driving rehabilitation for a visionary and innovative program, which used techniques similar to what See it. Say it. Do it! teaches!  I looked at it as being paid somewhat to get an education and quit when I was so exhausted I fell asleep as my father ate his dinner one Saturday night.  He insisted I quit and find a better job, which took a while, it was a time of recession. I didn't have the money to seek out treatments that insurance didn't pay for but I did have the time and insurance COBRAd so pursued things via insurance-based MDs/DOs and it was like two steps forward and one back.  My doctor had been off on a maternity leave and hadn't kept up on how insurances and referrals worked, so it took 2 months to get to a cardiologist and I was passing out every evening from 'something'.  

It was an education in the realities of good providers in the bad system of health care that we continue to be struggling with.  But in the end, as you see in the information about me at Lumigrate's landing page, this all came together to provide me with the incentive to create Lumigrate; the idea was just starting to formulate five years before the meeting with Lynn Hellerstein as I was 'off' recovering from a hysterectomy due to all the years of bungled treatment related to my hormone system. Which was part of the head injury I believe. If you get to live long enough and have the right things come your way, you start seeing things all come together!   

My second husband sat with me in front of our fireplace coaching me on exponential and linear equations, which was required to get into OT school. I actually do use some of that education when looking at the growing rates of different health care issues in the US compared to the world: typically the other developed countries have a linear rate and the US' is exponential.  I sit there and go away pondering WHY that is.  And what am I going to do about it with Lumigrate. Facebook also connected us in recent years enough for him to look at my story on Lumigrate and him to ask 'did my health cause you to get sick?'; I honestly answered that it was part of it but it was also the new construction outgassing, family stress, and a birth-related head injury, toxins from breathing in cigarette smoke and immunizations which used mercury, tooth fillings in the past which I've had removed that had mercury, etc. He had not liked that I was seeking out spiritual growth after I'd gotten ill, but he did like that my explanation at age 50 included that this was, I believe, the life path I was to have, including all the hard things, much of which was assisting with his health issues for a while.  His ongoing, horrendous seizures I know lead to adrenal gland burnout -- I would shake like a leaf harder and harder as the years went on before getting chronic fatigue.  You see how his having a head injury as a teen and me having one as at birth and all the other things that comes with modern day life affects families and our society? Some things are not solvable, some things can be remedied to some extent or another, and it all adds up or subtracts down. Vision therapy and proper glasses I think are an extremely potent and important means for 'subtracting down' stress on the body/brain/spirit.  

I was ONLY able to FINALLY succeed AFTER having encountered an optometrist who had taken some advanced training in the way the brain perceives information and how to address anomalies.  That occurred at the age of 29 when I had chronic fatigue syndrome finally catching up to me and bringing me down hard. I was able to succeed in the OT program with that intervention's benefits, but wasn't able to perform to the standards needed in the medical world until I had ANOTHER round with a OD/COVTT team that is second to none in the specialty area of the brain's perception of visual information.  

Dr Hellerstein is a Fellow of the College of Optometrists in Vision Development (COVD) and of the American Academy of Optometry.  She is past president of COVD and an adjunct professor at several colleges of optometry. Hence, the OD, FCOVD, FAAO after her name.  (OD = Doctor of Optometry, not to be confused with DO which is Doctor of Osteopathy -- hard for those of use with dyslexic brains to always get right!). Beth Fishman, is Registered Occupational Therapist, Certified Optometric Vision Therapy Technician, yielding the OTR, COVTT after her name, and she is ALSO Sensory Integrations Certified. I was told by my CSU OT program professor who was/is one of the world leaders in SI that I had a very significant case.  My poor lab partner in our applied neurology class was struggling with get me to move through the developmental sequence when Dr Bundy walked in to check on the lab and came over presuming it was the lab partner's learning curve and when SHE could barely get my nervous system to respond, I was again learning more about myself and my impaired neurological system. Basically, another therapy which is difficult to get the funding to do; it would be fun to have the time, money and energy to 'therapize' everything I am aware of but everyone has to chose their battles so to speak, within the resources they have.  Very challenging as we go into times where there's more disparity than ever in the United States with health care funding, insurances, and personal monies available for such things.  

So it was GRATE to see Lynn and Beth again! I couldn't have planned it better far in advance; they asked me about things I have become more expert in or have experts to consult with such as ways of cleaning and disinfecting which are safe for children/people sensitive to chemicals. 

I walked in with my dive bag that contains the beloved blanket and it definitely caught her interest after she greeted me with a hug in the waiting room which was surprisingly busy for being the 21st of December; it's a big operation and has the feel of a well-run clinic and my experience has always been that it was.  We went through the door into the therapy office/treatment 'great room', and Beth was approaching and didn't recognize me; we're about the same age but hadn't seen each other since we were in our late 30s I think. I explained, as I was pulling out PeaceFleece, that our Yenta on Lumigrate made it and asked me to do fibromyalgia awareness and raise money with it.  How she was thinking I could auction it off or make a small profit from it but I decided it would have much MORE value if it went on an interesting journey first.  

So that is what I have done, beginning on New Years Day of 2011 at the Ouray Ice Falls. EVERYONE who sees it is immediately drawn to it and most admire it.  Some say 'she should make these and sell them!', and Lynn was no exception!  She told the vision therapist working in the area what a "Yenta" was -- I clarified that we were going with the 'connector' aspect more than the 'matchmaker' word, but that is how it was made famous in "Fiddler on the Roof", which was my only exposure to Jewish people growing up in the mountains west of Denver. Lumigrate has Yenta because she laughed at my thinking her typing Yiddish for "Happy New Year" was someone's name and instead of saying 'thank you, you too', I responded 'who is that'?  She laughingly replied "Not who, honey -- it's a what, I just said Happy New Year".  So I asked her to write and educate those like me on Lumigrate, SHE took it to a while other level with the humorous stories and FUN.  Just like Lynn and Beth's book/workbook, Yenta makes things FUN! So it was really touching for me to see the two of them wrap up in the blanket when I said 'up to everyone how they pose and what they do with the PeaceFleece', after they were done admiring it like it was the most beautiful thing they'd ever seen .... and went walking like a push-me pull- you at first.  I got out my camera fast and got this photo.     

I had not been to their offices as a patient since 1999; they do have taller tables and chairs for their adult clients but we were the minority.  I saw one of the Colorado Rockies had thanked and credited Dr Hellerstein and the clinic for helping his performance. I'd been referred there as a patient in 1997 when my work at my first Medicare-based occupational therapy job was not up to 'speed' and my area manager's husband had learning disabilities so she knew about Dr Hellerstein; she has been President of the national organization for this specialty area of optometry which deals with the perception of the brain and uses vision therapy, prisms and filters in the glasses/lenses, etc. to retrain and compensate.  

At my initial exam, which was about the time I took and passed the national board 'registration' exam to be an OTR, I recall she stopped and referred to my chart on her desk and said 'I don't see here how you got your head injury, was it a car accident?'  That's when I started figuring out I had a head injury! I had sought out an optometrist in Fort Collins who had advertised in his yellow page ad that they had vision therapy at their office, that was at age 29 when I had first gotten chronic fatigue syndrome and the smallest muscles show signs of fatigue first; things had always jumped on me when I read but I thought that was 'astigmatism'.  It had been suspected by my second grade teacher that I had a reading problem but I had good grades due to the expectations of my parents and the way they put a focus on doing homework.  

My mother was my rural Colorado elementary school's 'resident' learning disabilities expert as a 4th grade teacher who liked teaching the lower ability class and took extra courses about LD, but she was also not the most attentive parent in the world.  It was the same school that years later one of the founders of the comedy show and movie South Park went to, so maybe THAT will help paint the picture in your mind.  My father's illnesses, chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia which were NEVER diagnosed and treated due initially to the medical system not knowing and later due to his lack of desire to pursue treatments, rendered him struggling to keep himself and his career and home/property on track.  He later revealed to me he had told his doctor he'd commit suicide if they took him off his narcotics around the time I was needing to be driven to Denver for such expert advise and treatment.  I 'fell through the proverbial cracks".  It was only due to the therapy I had at age 29 that I could return to college courses and finally do acceptably well; my friend of six years who was completing his PhD in experimental psychology pressured me to take his Intro to Psychology class in 1987 and I was not able to get an A without his giving me extra credit for running his PhD subjects which entailed memory and cameras in the courtroom; I aced the test about information that was presented in video (which was auditory more than visual) and he called me up the night I blew his mind on that and said 'Mar -- something's wrong when it comes to learning'.  

My mother died that semester and I only missed one day of class, but there was a lot that happened out of that with my father and then my husband's daughter, so it took me a while to go down the chronic illness drain two years later and not be able to read at all. My job at the time was high level administration liaison work, so I was motivated to find solutions even if they were expensive.  Fortunately I had the money to do so.  It turns out I was 'stereo blind'; I had not ever seen in 3D, and therefore couldn't judge closure speeds of approaching objects normally.  That explained why I was athletic like my dad and could get moderately good at sports with balls or skiing, etc. but then would miss a lot of balls or fall a lot and 'top out'.  It explained why I was not chosen to be on the 9th grade girls basketball team, something that had dinged my ego and baffled my friends who made the team.    

I then set my goal to get into the OT program at CSU which was very competitive back then, requiring almost straight A's for your last 45 credits.  I got in on my first application, and since I only had a 3.46 GPA I had worked especially 'smart' on my projects to get recommendations by important people: I did head injury prevention in my Peer Health Education class, collaborating with Rollerblade and the Colorado State University Recreation Center, Facilities Services, and Police Departments to bring FREE alcohol-free Saturday night skating events where they'd get to use Rollerblade skates, helmets, sticks and balls to play for a night in a parking lot; they later went on to fund a nice piece of asphalt by the athletic fields and NOT ban inline skating on campus as the administrators were thinking in the early 90s due to problems of skaters injuring the campus and it's people sometimes.  I would also go to the housing areas on campus and present to children with eggs 'with and without' little helmets I'd fashion out of styrofoam.  I'd remind parents/adults that the #1 thing that determines kids' compliance with wearing helmets with their bicycles, etc. is seeing the adults doing it when they ride.  It has been an unbelievably difficult road for me to get through school and the 'fast paced' medical world since becoming an occupational therapist. I'm VERY much into prevention as well as options for treatment that people might be interested in pursuing.  Not everything is for everyone so with Lumigrate we put YOU in the powerful position to determine which person's information to follow out to a website and learn more, then come back here for MORE if YOU wish.  That applies to our major focuses of the past on fibromyalgia and fatigue, colds/flu, nutrition/hormone and the supplementation of it, aging and navigating hospitals, nursing and rehab facilities, wills, power of attorney, etc.   And I was meeting with Lynn Hellerstein because I'm coming BACK around to head/brain injury for 2012 due to a new law going into effect in Colorado related to concussion/brain injury in school students. 

It was a good time for me to go to the Front Range because I have regular appointments in Grand Junction with a cranial field specialist osteopath who shifts things in my bones of my cranium/head enough that it requires an adjustment of the oral appliance for my lower teeth/jaw that I had made earlier this year by a holistic, cranial dentist.  (Jim Kennedy, DDS posts on Lumigrate so look for him!).  They felt that I perhaps have had interference on my pituitary gland, which is right above the roof of your mouth/palate, and my symptoms of adrenal fatigue and hormone problems, such as not being able to sleep, being very energetic and extremely thin despite eating like CRAZY trying to gain weight, which was then replaced in my 20s and to age 50 with massive weight gains and losses without changing anything about what I was 'doing'.  Thankfully I'm now sleeping well and my weight has stabilized for months and months; now to make more time for walking and the exercises that help me and lose what I had gained a year ago.  

I share and belabor this hear for readers to understand what a long process this can be; it takes tenacity and patience, and it very much helps if those around you understand that. The evening before I met with Lynn and Beth I was talking to a friend about health care costs and I was saying that on average my out of pocket after insurance is $500/month and he was saying 'that's about what ours is for a family' and he wasn't realizing I was saying that this was ON TOP OF what insurance costs.  And since I have 'fibromyalgia' I am 'uninsurable' so can purchase expensive insurance that has lousy benefits compared to what he gets through his employer.  Count me 'in' for the revolution about health care which is coming; I'm doing my part as much as I can in raising awareness wherever I can (including just now) about this 'gap' that people are falling through increasingly.  Suffice it to say I hope in the future the types of treatments Dr Hellerstein specializes in are covered for ALL.  (and Dr Kennedy, the DDS who perhaps has gotten to the core of the onion I've been peeling since age 15 when I was blacking out every time I stood up and my parents took me to the doctor for.)   

I have to pat myself on the back for my persistence in rectifying what I can of whatever has caused my health issues, which also included extremely high levels of mercury, lead and cadmium, likely from immunizations and secondhand smoke my mother and her mother inundated our small mountain house with when I was growing up; I haven't been able to tolerate cigarette smoke since my early 20s after I had an immunization to get married in Colorado in 1981; there were two brands of Rubella vaccine which were in a class action lawsuit, the biggest up to the tobacco suits, due to thimerosol being proven to have caused 5% of adult women who got it to have autoimmune problems come on after.  I learned of it only by being home watching TV on a Friday night in 1990, nurturing a good but slow recovery from the 1989 chronic fatigue syndrome in 1990.  It's because of these gurus that Lumigrate is here to benefit those who come to learn and hopefully make THEIR health and lives better. And I dedicate this piece to them, and work as hard as I can to help educate people no matter where they are on the chronic wellness/chronic illness continuum.  

In 1998-2000, when I worked exclusively with teens and everyone up to age 90+ having difficulties with learning to drive or continuing to drive safely, Dr Hellerstein was someone I suggested for those in the Denver area; in our Colorado Springs office I would suggest her as well as the two similar clinics in that area, as it was only an hour up I-25 to get to her office.  Naturally, due to car crashes, there were a lot of people coming to us -- back then their vehicle insurances could be billed for our remediation/therapies/professional time and the clinic with other 'regular retail' customers.  It might add up to $2,000 or so, but it would decrease their likelihood of future crashes so much, it just makes sense for insurance companies to pay for the process.  To me, that is, not to them.  So that program no longer exists at the company I had been hired by to formalize their increasingly busy 'rehab' customers; the recession of 2008 in addition to the changes in insurances just added up to making it not viable/profitable.  

Lynn and I have kept in touch since reconnecting with the marvels of facebook, as at about the same time as I was realizing my health and age combined with the increasing needs of my ailing father four hours away was needing me to work differently, and I created this online business where I can consult and educate using technologies instead of being in a clinic billing insurances for direct face time.  Lynn writes in the beginning of her GRATE book See it. Say it. Do it! that she re-evaluated her life and relationship with work and that included doing education related to what her profession is all about! We both use facebook for marketing and public relations and reconnected there.  She post a lot of great stuff, so I suggest you find her there! 

So! .... another ambitious woman whose body has given her feedback, and who has gotten the message and changed. I see a trend here --- and I'm sorry to see that we've had such hardships but I believe it's part of the process of our times, that are leading to NEW things that are going to be better for people.  I'm looking at how to 'work' in the role of occupational/functional/health care consultant for the rest of my years on Earth, I see the needs and hope I continue to get older and wiser and better at what I do all the time.  

I've referred MANY to the book, which now has a companion workbook with the See it... Do it! in small letters then a BIG "Organize it!"  Whenever I show one or both books to people they say 'where can I get this?'  Actually they initially ask if they can keep it for a while, and I keep my set of books from the Lumigrate Bookshelf with me at all times, I've learned that it's difficult to get books back from even the best of intentioned people.  They're busy, that's why they want the copy that's in their hands.   The answer is: you can purchase it from their website (which will gift wrap and I suggest that for busy parents looking for a gift idea for their children's teachers), or Amazon.com.  I find that all authors have found it easiest to encourage Amazon for the purchase due to the price and familiarity. I personally don't prefer Amazon because they won't work with Colorado-based businesses since our state closed the loophole of no state taxes on Internet purchases; you might notice our products page sets people up to purchase from Amazon but we also have a link to Colorado-based Vitamin Cottage.  

Kohava Howard, a local colleague and friend of mine, prefers to go to Barnes and Noble and have them order it it, then she goes and picks it up; she's written a lovely review of the book and I'll provide a link to where this book is located on the Lumigrate Bookshelf forum, so you can read it. I showed it to Lynn at our meeting and she said 'she got that from it?  I'll have to go look at the book and see what she's referring to'.  Aah, so here we have a consumer who is giving feedback and influencing the provider -- which is part of Lumigrate's conceptual core.  (Look at the YOU model, the consumer's the powerful/central one!) 

Yenta made the PeaceFleece in the fall of 2010 unbenownst to me and sent it to arrive at the Post Office just before Christmas and Chanukah of 2010. It was SO cool to have this HUGE box surprise me, open it up and see this AMAZING, beautiful, soft blanket with peace signs and butterflies with a purple backing.  Purple is the designated color for 'fibromyalgia' like pink is for breast cancer, yellow testicular, orange for MS, etc.  It was my first holiday season after my father had died and my second since Lumigrate was born; it was a transition time so I had not made any particular plans except to get caught up on things I'd not been able to focus on for the last looooong time. 

 

Here is what you will find at the Lumigrate Bookshelf's piece about this author and book: 

It is an honor to say that I know Lynn Hellerstein, OD, author of See it. Say it. Do It!  She not only further boosted my performance with brain / vision therapy and special eyeglasses, she has helped many of my clients and patients in the past 15 years as well.  She had written portions of books I had used in OT school in the 1990s, it turned out -- so it was a very good thing to have found my way to her when I was in Denver as a new OT in 1997.   And now she has something available for EVERYONE's benefit, no matter where you live!

This is a wonderful book which I believe should be part of every school and public library, made available to every teacher in the country, and wish every parent would obtain and read as well.  It is an  Award-Winning Finalist in the following categories of the “Best Books 2010” Awards, sponsored by USA Book News 

• Education PreK-12
• Education/Academic
• Parenting/Family: General

But I don't think it should just be for children -- this is actually an amazing book for adults who are wanting to have better performance mentally and physically.  I was thrilled to see on her website (which is an awesome website to explore), they had read my mind when I was thinking 'this would be such a great book for parents to give teachers as gifts, or people to give family members' -- they have a workbook now as well, and bundle things together in different ways which are really very good bargains when you think of what the recipient will accomplish from the information in the books on increasing their life's performance!

See it. Say it. Do It! integrates three key concepts to create better learning.  Visualizing, declaring, performing ... hence See it. Say it. Do It!   Dr. Hellerstein is five years older than I am, we're both in that age of becoming 'crones' (a favorable term!), and while I have fifteen years' experience as an occupational therapist, she has made optometry and developmental optometry her primary vocation and profession her entire adult life I believe, so she has risen to such an amazing level of experience that it is just a GIFT that she has written this book! 

In the forward, she candidly refers to a health crisis she had in 2002 which resulted in difficulty in thinking, working and being productive.  She has attained an incredible status in her professional realm, both being known as an authority and having a large and very successful partnership/practice, and says that the health issues she faced were allowing her to re-evaluate who she was, what she was doing, and what she wanted to do differently.  Healing took place through utilizing a mixture of 'traditional and non-traditional' medicine (i.e., 'integrative medicine, as Lumigrate embraces).  Utilizing visualization and the concepts she writes about in See it. Say it. Do It! were instrumental in her recovered health.  And then she wanted to write a book to bring the information to others.  

She writes: 'I now am making choices on my life's journey from a totally different perspective, from a more balanced approach, balancing my passion with peace, through visualization and intuition.  I have been given another chance in life and want to make the most of it.'

In the more recent years of my working with patients, I was not so appreciated by providers and managers who were not progressive thinkers or using progressive concepts which have been available to us for decades.  If we learn something along the way in a workshop, since our 'team' doesn't understand it or 'buy in', there ends up to be a conflict sometimes.  So progress is very slow to move forward. However, if you get enough people from one team educated on something, it kind of seeps around enough that those who didn't initially learn the concepts do.  My hope is that will occur with See it. Say it. Do It! . 

When you market anything, you need to find your 'core market', and Lynn decided to make it teachers and parents with this book, but it truly is a wonderful book for adults of any age who are wanting to get more action from their brain/body/spirit.  As an example, Lumigrate's core market is about fibromyalgia, but most all the information on here applies to everyone else who is interested in progressive concepts because many, MANY more people have some of the symptoms starting and don't realize where it might be heading.  "I'm so tired", ""I'm forgetful", "I'm getting sore shoulders and my neck is tight all the time" -- it's helpful for them to be reading about the things that people who are really motivated to get better will be reading. 

And one of those things for EVERYONE following Lumigrate, is See it. Say it. Do It! .  "Visualize this book being in your hands today.  Act on that visualization.  You'll be glad you did!"

The information from the handout cards goes on to give the following information for purchasing: Available at bookstores or www.lynnhellerstein.com [1].  info@lynnhellerstein.com.  303/850-9499 (USA, Colorado).  ~~ I highly encourage a trip to her website at the very least!  ~~ "Live and Learn.  Learn better and live better" ~~ Mardy