Introduction...

I have been living and traveling between Ireland, America and Canada for the last 7 years.

But I have now settled myself for the moment in Edmonton, Alberta Canada with my traveling service dog Lazarus Lael while I work on getting my health, body and mind more stable. I was born with a rare genetic disorder called Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, chronic full body migraines and dysautonomia and the last 7 years have taken quite a toll on me. There is no cure, just management of symptoms and that is just what I try to focus on.

I have my service dog for medical alert and complex PTSD and we literally spend 24/7 with each other in the last 2 1/2 years we have been together. I trained him and since I pretty much take him everywhere with me he has traveled internationally 9 times since I got him.

He not only gave me my life back but gave me a purpose back in life as well. He means everything to me and when someone who knows us very well in Ireland said to me one day "that dog will die of a broken heart if anything happens to you" I have made it my mission then and there to give him the absolute best life possible and do everything in my power to "take one for the team" and try to out live him so he never, ever knows a single moment of heartache in his life. I want him to only know wonderful things in his life, see and be lots of beautiful places and meet and be loved by lots of beautiful people.

In Ireland while I have a wonderful doctor, there simply are no specialists and the wait time for tests and procedures is just unbelievably long. In America I have a great doctor and specialists are a dime a dozen, but I have no health insurance in that country.

So home to Canada it is for me...for now.

I have been blessed with a brilliant, kind and caring doctor and he already has me in to see some of the top specialists in Alberta. This is a rather daunting task at times as I require a specialist for each internal organ so it gets quite complicated and I am what I call "a professional patient" who usually is every doctors worst nightmare because I am convinced if I don't give up I can heal myself with the right help and positive attitude.

And this doctor actually seems to like me.

He also really seems to care about me, so yes I am actually very hopeful there are at least still many more things I can do to manage this disorder much better and dramatically increase my quality and quantity of life.

It has been 10 years now that I have been legally medically retired from "my old life" where I was almost always "on the go" and very passionately involved in the restaurant business for over 20 years. While I got my training at Wente Bros. restaurant in Livermore, California my entire heart and soul was with my own place that I started from the ground up, was an Executive Chef and was a very successful restaurant called Sweet Sisters Cafe in Pleasant Hill, California. I also raised and home schooled my 6 children during this incredible time in my life.

Then that life and that me was gone. And another life and another me appeared.

I have lived and traveled between the three different countries for the last 7 years because I am a Canadian, my 6 children are American/Canadians who were all living in Northern California and my current husband is Irish. My 20 year old son Reid and my 23 year old son Riley have chosen to join me in Canada for a year for our "amazing off to the great white north, off to the great unknown healing adventure" and so we can be there for each other and take care of each other.

I also have a 29 year old son Robert, 27 year old daughter Sterling who travels around the world as a model and 16 and 14 year old daughters Sacha and Siena. They live in America...moving to Edmonton in the middle of winter just didn't have a very strong appeal to these 4 born and raised Californians and they have more "settled in one place personalities" rather than the wandering gypsy souls like me Riley, Reid and Laz. Plus we absolutely love the snow and winter so we were pretty darn stoked about this gig here.

And even though Robert said to me one day "Muma you do realize you have moved so far north you could have moved back east again and be just as far away"...I didn't actually even realize this until Robert pointed it out because as I told him "moving up north" just didn't sound as far away in my brain as "moving back east". I mean at least this time I am still on the same continent for awhile anyway. And I have already done the whole east and west coast Canadian thing...Alberta is remarkably awesome for right now.

Robert has a way of pointing a lot of things out to me that I just don't really give much thought to. His brain works that way...my brain on the other hand is a crap shoot whether it even works or not so when Robert tells me something I always make an attempt to listen. Like when he told me the other day "Muma you really shouldn't walk barefoot all the time over in the downtown where you moved to, people spit a lot in those kinds of areas and you could get Hepatitis A, flesh eating bacteria or tuberculosis".

I really like to walk barefoot though so I am going to listen...but try to get away with it in the less "people busy areas" just to be on the safer side.

Robert really knows an awful lot...and has a way of taking the fun out of everything. He is unbelievably like my father...just very literal and practical about everything. I appear to be nothing like either of them as I am possibly one of the least practical people on the planet. And they both point out things that once they do seem so obvious but until they actually pointed it out it really wasn't obvious to me at all but then I know they are right.

My father is in Heaven now...but he lives on completely in Robert.

Actually my father used to always furrow his brow and ask me "where are your shoes" whenever he saw me walking and wandering around barefoot. Even at the end of his life at 86 with the end stages of Alzheimers he didn't remember who I was but would always ask me "where are your shoes" when he saw my bare feet.

To be perfectly honest though Robert is absolutely everyone in the families favourite to the point that if you asked a single person in our family if they had to pick on person to be stranded on a desert Island with forever...we would all openly pick Robert. He is not only the easiest person on the planet to get along with, he just knows so much about so many things we all know our chance of survival out in the wild would be greatly increased with how much Robert knows about so many things.

When people ask me what I do for a living now I simply respond "the government pays me to wander around all day with my dog and be nice to people"

I have just enjoyed taking it a little further now that I am feeling more "settled" and have now started writing about my little adventures wandering and strolling around with my dog as I just enjoy the peacefulness and simple beauty of my life. Since I literally have nothing but time on my hands and try to always make the most of my "healthy good days and manageable pain days" which is my way to off set the many "quite difficult and overwhelming bad health and high pain days" I like to spend as much time as possible outdoors with my service dog Laz meeting and get to know so many "random strangers" who are truly some very beautiful souls.

I also like to take my dog to visit with the seniors living in some of the senior homes a few blocks over and have a non-profit pet sitting and walking business with my two boys where I volunteer my time with my dog to walk and care for the animals of people who are sick, disabled or have to be hospitalized. I know first hand how stressful this is so this way they can at least know their beloved animals are safe, happy and loved while they are just able to focus on their needs.

I hope you enjoy my stories of all of the very interesting and intriguing people we meet and that I have met. When you stroll around all day with a very lovely dog, you meet an unbelievable amount of very lovely people.

I did not choose this life...I was just rather suddenly yanked from my old life so having to create and find a new life chose me. I just intend to make the best of it everyday, in every way I can. 27355718_10156121307272059_9200616111414325155_o (6).jpg 32702498_10156447059772059_301137852387819520_o (1).jpg ![18699391_10154736985086553_5683680658842424624_o (1)