Hello Boomers!

During 2016, I began dealing with walking issues (balance and pain), a delayed result from having spent a month at home in a wheelchair in 2015 healing from surgery needed for a bad break in my left foot. After the 'space' boot was removed and follow-ups with the doc were finished, I seemed to have little problem enjoying a good mile walk with my dog. About a year later, my body started talking. After getting treatment for pain in my heels, knees, and tendonitits, it was determined that the problem was in my hips. Found an awesome chiropractic and learned that my spine was all out of shape including scar tissue around my neck and shoulders. Good news is healthy spine allows for 95 % recovery, but it will take a while. When I started treatment I needed a walker to ease the pain and keep my balance. Today, the worst of it is gone. I can move around my home and short distances without any assistance. Longer distances still need a cane. Chiro believes my spine has reacted to stress from the last 10 years, during which time I suffered a lot of personal loss as well as multiple mega changes at work. Thankfully, I learned in April that I was financially able to retire, and did so at the end of June. Spent those two months scrambling to write up instructions for the tasks that, as the first person in that position, I'd initiated and been doing for 20 years. Left it all with the young, new boss. Now I more leisurely continue chiro and have added acupuncture to more directly address balance as well as chronic fatigue.
When I'm not going to treatments, I have more time to play, run errands, watch TV and plan out things I want to do when I'm feeling better.

Also during these last two years, in an effort to locate some male companionship, I checked out a few match making sites. Big mistake. Some people have luck , but all I met were scam artists. One texted me for 2 weeks before asking me to check his bank account. Caught several others in lies and conflicting info. Alerted BBB and found out that my experience is typical and that I lucked out by not sending anyone any money. I was supposed to be interviewed by BBB and FBI for a media special, but I was so sick I didn't leave the house. Instead, even though I could barely talk, I was contacted by most of Chicago's main TV and newspaper stations. I had agreed to do so but, naively, thought it would be only one call. Not much came of those conversations because another woman lost $ which made my experience less newsworthy. Also, the media's romantic scam report was preempted by the murder of Chicago's police superintendent who was gunned down. Earlier this year, BBB asked if I would talk with a reporter. I agreed as long as it was understood that I didn't lose any money. The interview was done by ABC 7 and aired on 2/14/19. I provided the reporter, Jason Knowles, with copies of the email communication, part of which was used as examples of 'what to watch out for' because it is very easy to be mislead. This year, that same station did a follow up report said that women sending $ are unknowingly being involved in money laundering. Learned a lesson; never met anyone.


Annette

I was wondering what happened to you butterflybabe. I noticed you hadn't been around much after you slipped on some ice (I think). Glad you are on the road to recovery.

Good that you didn't get yourself scammed!

I am out of breath just reading all that's happened to you in the past few years! BUT you are still here and fending off everything that life throws at you. Ahhh the romance scams. Yeah, my sister got caught in one. I knew immediately from the mushy, poor grammar love notes from day one of the 'relationship' that this was a scam. She refused to listen, insisting they were going to be married (her hubby had just died and she was so lonely) and she was on the verge of sending him $5k when I got her daughter involved and together, we managed to intercede and stopped all the scamming. Happy that YOU figured it out before losing the money. Time and emotions lost are bad enough. These guys are experts at scamming innocent people (men and women).

Hoping all your physical stuff gets better and better. Sounds like you are coping with all of it day by day. Sending good thoughts to you especially today.

That's quite a journey you've had the last couple of years, butterflybabe! Sounds like you've come out on top though.

Glad you are back ButterFlyBabe ... quite the story

Nice to see you, butterflybabe. Take care now

Nice to hear from you. Never send money to those scammers, they are too lazy to work
and depend on others.

Take care. Remi.(curly)

One question the reporter asked was why didn't I open the link to look at the one scammer's bank. First, I credit my employer who is diligent about training employees about being aware of bogus emails. I worked at a community college and, about once a month or so, there'd be an alert email sent from IT about the latest one; sometimes it seemed to come from the college president but was forwarded from a local college that had had their system hijacked. Also, I was one of those that got caught in the Microsoft scam. My internet screen froze and said to call Microsoft because of a problem. Long story short, I believed it, followed what they said, allowing them remote access. When they said they needed to go to my bank account, I refused, so they hijacked my computer. I needed a passcode to enter it. Tried to hard boot it down and it came right back up. Called a pc friend who took it home, unlocked it and reset the memory to before the mess happened. Later learned from a friend who had something similar happen to simply unplug and replug the computer from the socket which seemed to work. When you realize you fell for one of those things you feel sooo stupid until you realized many others have also. Scammers make it seem real and know which 'buttons' to push to make a person act.