My unusual journey began the winter of 2003-2004 - a normal winter for most people, but mine was about to become something nightmares are made of, closely resembling an episode from the Twilight Zone. The little town where I lived looked like a Courier & Ivies painting with snow piled up to the windows and paths scooped to each front door. I worked, played, skied and life was good, except that I began to have trouble sleeping. Not much of a worry at first. I was 51 years old and menopausal. Sleep problems are just a normal part of that, right? At least that's what I thought - at first. Then I began to notice a growing fatigue - even after nights when I did sleep. This became a real problem, and a puzzle. Where was my energy going? I wondered if I was developing Chronic Fatigue Syndrome - although I really didn't know what that was, but it surely seemed to fit. In an effort to alleviate the fatigue, I began taking extra vitamins. But nothing seemed to help. And, as I was to find out, for a good reason.

I had other strange, unexplainable symptoms as well and only later could I look back on them and understand that my body was trying to warn me, but I couldn't understand the warning.

My right hand had begun to bother me whenever I used the mouse on the computer. A tingling, burning sensation so painful that I would have to stop my work and get away from the computer.

I had been sleeping on a waterbed for over 20 years, but now on some nights, I would feel a tingling sensation in the bed. Could the heater have a short in it that I was feeling? That seemed just too strange and I dismissed that idea as totally foolish.

On a hike that July, I had a falling rock hit me on the leg - and falling rocks hit hard! It left a deep knot and bruise on my right leg. After it began to heal and the pain was mostly gone, I began to notice a very bizarre thing. Whenever I drove my car that leg would hurt so badly that I couldn't stand to keep my foot on the accelerator and I began, whenever possible, driving with the cruise control. At night my leg would ache so badly that I would put a cold compress on it to try and get some relief. This went on for months - much longer than it should have taken for that bruise to heal. My leg would start to get better and then worse again. Unexplainable to me - at the time.

The warnings were there, but I couldn't hear them. I had no knowledge that could help me understand what was happening to me. My body was under attack - and the attack was about to get much worse.

In the fall of 2004, I quit sleeping - totally. This went on for days - and then weeks. Even though I was totally exhausted, there seemed to be something that would not let my mind or body relax. It felt as though I was 'wired.' A therapist later described it as 'one foot on the accelerator and one foot on the brake'.

Fortunately for me, I had a friend who just might have the answer. Gary Duncan and I had developed a friendship at the Wiesbaden Hot Springs, where I worked, and when he found out about my sleep problem, he immediately wanted to measure the electromagnetic fields in my apartment and workplace and what he found was an environmental horror story. High electrical fields and a 2-3 milligauss magnetic field (electrical and magnetic fields are different, though related) throughout the entire apartment, but what was really alarming was that we eventually found a 'hot spot' that ran the entire length of the apartment that measured 15-30 mg (10 times higher than should be allowed). The EMF readings peaked at 100 milligauss near the water heater. He also found high electric and magnetic fields at the Wiesbaden, both in the office area and the motel rooms. (Detailed reports of his findings are included in the documents on the web site).

Gary told me I needed to get out and get out immediately. But, how could I just walk away from my home and job? However, desperate for sleep, I began spending nights away from the fields - and found that when I did, after 2-3 nights, I began to sleep a little. Many nights, in the dead of winter, I would get in my car, drive down the valley where it was a little warmer, and spend the night shivering in my car, hoping to get a little sleep.

During those months, I found the explanations for my 'unusual' symptoms. I fell on the ice and once again bruised my right leg and again had such a painful sensation when trying to drive that I couldn't keep my foot on the accelerator. I measured the fields in my car and discovered they were very high (as were the ones in my waterbed). The magnetic fields seemed to be 'attacking' the damaged tissues. The same was true with the mouse and the computer.

About Christmas time, I finally told my employer about my sleeping problems. She was sympathetic - although very skeptical and doubtful, but she did offer to let me sleep in any of the rooms at the Wiesbaden - or in a 3-bedroom house that she had. We knew that the Wiesbaden was bad, but surely in the house... I thought my housing problem was solved, temporarily, at least. Only after trying to sleep in nearly every room - without success, did we realize that I had been fooled when trying to read the meters. Fields coming from all sides were fooling the meters and giving a false reading. What I thought were 'safe' rooms, were actually very 'sick'. We finally tried shielding the bed in a tiny, cold garage apartment, with limited success. I continued sleeping in my car, and on my days off, would drive to the desert near Moab, where it was warm, and spend those days totally off-grid (away from all power sources). There, I finally began to recover some of my sleep, but when I went back to Ouray and work, the sleep went away.

When I told the landlord of the problem in the apartment, he said he would look into it. Apparently he did, but then said he was not willing to do what was required to fix it. That meant I had no chance of staying in my home of the past 3 years. The building was for sale at the time and I made sure the prospective buyers knew there was a serious problem there. For my efforts, Erin Eddy, the landlord, threatened to evict me.

My exhaustion continued to deepen and other symptoms began to get worse. I began having horrible reactions to the computer and then to my car. A tightening, constriction in my chest. It got to where I could only stay on the computer for a few moments at a time. My leg, although now healed of the bruise, ached so badly in my car that I used a stick on the accelerator (the cruise control broke). I got headaches from using the phone and the tingling in my hand from the mouse got much worse and now includes using phones and t.v. remotes. I felt nearly nonfunctional from exhaustion. The sleep I was getting in the desert could not keep up with the attacks and loss of sleep the rest of the week. I was full of despair and utter desperation, helpless and hopeless. What was I going to do and where could I go? I had no solution for that. I only knew that, somehow, I couldn't continue like this for much longer.

And I didn't. I had given my 2 weeks notice at work. Both Gary and Dr. Lynda Walters advised me not to wait, but to get out immediately. Dr. Walters is an M.D. who had had a similar bout with sleep disorder and fibromyalgia from her exposure to extremely high Electromagnetic fields at the hospital where she was the emergency room physician. (She quit her job and has had a complete reversal of symptoms). I thought I could finish my duties. Three days short of doing that, I came to the point of complete exhaustion, and I knew I could go no further. Gary had to come all the way from Moab to Ouray, in the middle of the night, to get me because I couldn't even finish my shift.

I spent the next 2 weeks in the desert trying to recover. It was a feeling I've never had before and hope to never have again. I couldn't think, couldn't function, couldn't hardly move. It's what E.I.'s call "flat line". I would lie in bed, partly awake, totally unable to move, barely able to breath. The place could have burned down around me and I wouldn't have cared.

After 2 weeks, I thought I was well enough to go back and begin the work of moving out of my apartment. I knew I had to get out of the apartment , just as I had the workplace, but where to go and what to do. Still no answer. I realize now that I was so sick, I couldn't even process the information, let alone find a solution. I only knew that I had to get out. But, I could only work for less than an hour cleaning the apartment and then had to leave. The fields in the apartment were so strong they again made me sick and brought back the exhaustion. Fortunately by this time, it was warm enough in the valley near Ouray that I began sleeping in my tent, instead of making the long drive to Moab. After finally getting out of the apartment, I began to sleep, still not a 'normal' sleep, but better than I'd had for many months. I began looking for a trailer that I could convert into a 'micro' off-grid home free of electromagnetic fields.

I even felt well enough to try a drive to Oklahoma to see my children and grandchildren, I thought. Not a wise move, however, as I soon quit sleeping there, felt the exhaustion returning and had to leave and come back to my tent.

I filed for unemployment benefits in the hopes of some financial help. My employer fought to keep me from receiving those, even though she knew that I was living in my car. That case went all the way through the Hearing Officer and the Industrial Court of Appeals. Each definitively substantiating my EMF hypersensitivity. No, I'm not crazy and the Colorado Department of Labor says so. After all the discounting and adversity I had faced, I needed that.

As of this writing, I'm starting a new chapter in my life. I've finally found my trailer and am in the process of converting it into a 'micro.' The result of nearly completely removing myself from the fields that made me sick is that I make visible daily recovery of health and energy, providing I do not re-expose myself to fields. Re-exposure quickly brings back the exhaustion, sleep deprivation, headaches, arthritis flare-ups and all the other problems. I've come to realize that this hypersensitivity is for the rest of my life.

Soon I hope to get my photography back into my life and really enjoy this 'gift' that I have been given.