Challenges of LIVING with Chronic Illness ... Beginnings & Endings (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781492323976)

Kathleen Lewis was born & raised in Greenville, SC on a farm that was inside the city limits. Early on, Kathleen was involved in her church ... choir, attained Queen Regeant in Service in the Girl's Auxillary, felt called to be a medical missionary in Ghana ... candy stripper at local hospital, athletic, communed with nature. Music has been a major part of her life. She graduated from Vanderbilt Uni. Nursing School with a BSN. She met her ex-husband there who left her after 21 years of marriage. Her nursing experience spans from ICU, a med/surg floor, Shriner's Hospital, taught nursing at Kentucky State University to the inner city Visiting Nurses Association in the inner city in Baltimore, MD and Atlanta, GA ... combat zones. Kathleen is blessed with 2 sons, Jamie & Keith and 4 grans, Miel, Tristan, and Owen. After loosing her home of 25years to mold contamination, her sons have invited her into their homes to live ... currently with Jamie and his family in Atlanta, GA. After her nursing career became an impossibility in 1978 & going on disability, due to the advent of the first chronic illness diagnosis, she went back to Georgia State University and earned a MS in Rehabilitation Counseling with a specialty in chronic illness, and completed the core content for Marriage and Family counseling with the hope of counseling the chronically ill and their significant others. She, now, has a private phone counseling ministry ... Celebrate Life. With illness entering her life on a daily basis she began writing ... journaling, poems, articles for professional and lay publications. Kathleen has authored Successful Living with Chronic Illness ... Celebrating the Joys of Life which is now in its 3rd edition as Celebrate ... New Attitudes for Living with Chronic Illness published by the Arthritis Foundation and Prayer Without Ceasing ... Breath Prayers. As an involved volunteer with the Lupus Foundation and Arthritis Foundation, she helped develop and test the SLE Self Help course. Ms. Lewis is uniquely prepared to address how to LIVE with chronic illness, professionally, academically, and personally. She has found her mission field is with the chronically ill! Her moto for living is ... "To kiss the joy of life (a bright winged butterfly) is to live in the Spirit; it is to live immediately boldly with gracious abandon daring to risk much, willing to give one's self!" Robert Raines. Butterflies are everywhere. Her license plate is JOY{;-)AWE!