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It's my 51st anniversary! No, it's not my 51st birthday; I'm 69 years old. I haven't been married 51 years (39 years last month). And it wasn't 51 years ago that I water skied from Key West to Cuba, although I wanted to until I saw just how big barracuda were and understood that they might think that I was bait being trolled by a fishing boat.
I celebrate June 2, 1958, because it is the anniversary of me breaking my neck and living through it. I dove off of a seawall in Atlantic Beach, Florida, breaking my fourth, fifth, and sixth
cervical vertebrae.
Breaking one's neck in the 1950s was almost certainly a death sentence -- if not immediately then within about five years. I am a living, laughing, loving, goofy
quadriplegic who has had a wild and wonderful life in the 51 years since I broke my neck. Since then I have:
- obtained a high school diploma
- completed a bachelor's degree and attended graduate school
- been a hippie
- partied a lot
- drank too much
- worked as a clinical psychologist
- taught psychology at a university and community college
- become a rehabilitation psychologist
- gotten married and become a mom
- raised a wonderful son who is now 24 years old who works for our business
- gone to parties and danced in my wheelchair
- ridden horseback
- run a state program for the governor of Florida
- started Greens+ 20 years ago with my husband and turned it into a successful nutritional supplement company
- retired and gotten bored with being retired
I have led the most incredible life that I could have dreamed! I wouldn't change places with anyone! And that, my friends, is why I celebrate my 51st anniversary with joy!