My Brush with Almost Death

I was three years old but I remember it clearly. My Amish babysitter was Mary, a warm and somewhat smelly young woman who gave me all the hugs and kisses I needed. My mother told her, don’t bring food from your farm for Janice. She did it anyway, contaminated fecal matter food that gave me Hepatis A. For those of you who aren’t aware, that’s the milder form of hepatitis that we can get from food, not from needles, alcohol or hard drugs. But at my age, with no way to combat it, I was extremely sick.

No one told me directly that I might die, but I had so many clues. My parents had worried faces, as they bent over my bed and stared at my yellowed eyes. No one cried, but even my grandparents bent over my bed and leaned in closer to me than they did previously. No one cried. Everyone frowned. My sister and brother were kept away. Worried whispers in the hallway spoke of death and reassurance. All of this turned me into a listener and an observer.

Convalescence is a strange, removed state. Hours, days and weeks went by when I wasn’t part of the movement and life of my family. Quiet and immobility became mandatory. I liked being carried again, since it had ended when my brother was born seventeen months after me. When I got sick, I was lifted in and out of my bed.

Coming so close to death as a young child imbued a feeling for recklessness. I wanted risk. I didn’t want to lose my life, but it made me sanguine about death. I wasn’t scared of it, since my illness could have gone another way.

In the 1950s, hepatitis A was a major public health concern, often spreading through fecal–oral transmission via contaminated food, water, or personal contact. Outbreaks were common in institutional settings like schools, prisons, and state care facilities, and in rural or underserved communities with poor sanitation, such as Mary’s Amish farm. Living with hepatitis A in the 1950s meant enduring a prolonged, often debilitating illness with no cure, and dealing with limited medical options. The disease left lasting health consequences for many survivors

I just read online that in 1954, when I was three, there was a national crisis of hepatitis A. For example, at the Willowbrook State School for Children, 90% of patients had markers for hepatitis A, and children had a 50% chance of contracting it in their first year. Waterborne outbreaks were also documented, with cases tied to chlorinated municipal supplies and contaminated drinking water. Hepatitis A caused jaundice, dark urine, abdominal pain, loss of appetite, fatigue, and sometimes fever. The illness could last 6 weeks to 2 months before recovery, and in some cases, it left chronic liver damage.  With no effective treatment at the time, care was supportive, and focused on rest, fluids, and nutrition.

By the late 1950s, the U.S. began improving with reporting outbreak investigations, but many cases went unreported due to incomplete surveillance The focus was on outbreak control rather than prevention, and vaccination was not available until decades later. Treatment was complete, absolute bed rest.

I'm supposed to be cured but can’t give blood. Luckily I have no discernible liver damage when tested. I had to stop eating fried food many years ago, and I used to get sick from meat, so I haven’t eaten it in fifty years. I think my hep A is the cause.

Some psychics attribute their skill set to an accident or an abrupt accident or change in their lives. I don’t know whether I was psychic before I got hep A, or whether my near-death experience brought it on. I do know that my life was changed by the experience, and whenever I got a little bit sick, my parents were aghast and rallied around me like I might disappear. 

Settling Into Your Life

As soon as I get used to one change, it seems another one happens. Because I’m 75, which seems to be ¾ of the way to dead, I constantly assess my life and choices. Am I right to think I should move to a nursing home at 87? Should I wait until 90? Or should I stay in my beautiful paid-off home until my kids start bossing me out of it? 

Friends are a big deal for all of us. The problem is that so many of them drop off. One friend wanted me to do a trivia night with her and “win one for the team.” I had to let her know that I could do multiplication of double numbers in my head, but trivia is impossible. The answers would come to me in the middle of the night or the next day, not within one minute. She got so frustrated with me. Of course, we all have different brains. Mine works quickly but not with facts that I don’t care about. Friends come and go. If we are suddenly not important in their reality, then it’s best to be gracious and let go. My mother, Lorna, told me, pay attention to the ones who like you, Janice. One time that led to a date with an autistic man who snorted and grunted through a movie at the theatre, but mostly it’s served me well.

My intuition is useful with decisions. Today it says, why do you have to decide now, whether to live where you are or move? So apt. The only thing I have to do is to keep cleaning out my junk. Don’t have a yard sale like my sister did, to make her feel crazy. Just head over to the secondhand store on the weekend and give it away.

I keep thinking there is something I can actually do to stop the bumps that keep arriving on my skin, that itch and burn. But it’s a result of my radiation treatment for breast cancer, and the doctor told me it could be a year of that. So I must settle into that as my reality. I decided on a treatment for one part of my body, which messed with other parts. Just like all my decisions, they aren’t clear cut. 

I must settle into my life. I have to rest more and be astounded that my old body can’t keep up with my mind. That I can’t work four jobs anymore. That I can’t eat ice cream more than once a week. That seven cancer doctors said don’t drink any alcohol ever again. Oh the thought of life without champagne is a sad one. 

But I will not let anything keep me from being an optimist. I have a new grandchild, a girl this time. I can buy princess dresses for her in the future. I can take her shopping for back to school clothes when she’s older. She might like candy land for more years than my grandson did. 

I will remind myself of the good things and settle into that life.

Labels and Your Abilities

My psychic work meant decades of study, as I slowly eased myself into it. I got more heavily involved when I began my murder work with police in 1992, on a murder two towns over. The cops were content with my being called a psychic. Before that, people wanted to know exactly what I did. I compiled a list here in case you have one or more of these abilities and care to label them.

Clairvoyance: The supernatural ability to gain information about an object, person, or location without using the physical senses. I definitely do that, but what a hard word to spell and understand.

Precognition: The ability to see or know about events before they happen. I have this. If danger is involved and nothing has happened previously, it’s so hard to get people to understand this is a real danger.

Psychometry: The claimed ability to discover facts about an event or person by touching or being near inanimate objects associated with them. Most detectives wanted to show me pictures, ugh. That was the worst. I can see the victim in my mind’s eye, why would I want to see it in a gory situation. No thanks. In my readings, people like to send or show me pictures. Not needed, thank you though.

Telepathy: The transmission of information from one person's mind to another's without using any physical channels. I like to pretend I can do this with a potential romantic partner, but it’s a stretch. I used to try to do it with my children, to get them to do a chore about which I was sick of hounding them.

ESP (Extrasensory Perception): Perception occurring independently of the known sensory processes, such as telepathy or clairvoyance. Yes, I’ve had ESP for as long as I can remember.

Psychokinesis: Also known as telekinesis, it is the supposed ability to move objects with the mind. This I’ve never been able to do. I’ve tried to move things, but then it all just seems silly. Why would I need this, except as a party trick to show off? I can stand up and move things with my hands.

Ok, go to town on this, if you have any of these abilities. Concentrate. Practice. Research. Explore. Good luck! 

Shamans and Second Sight

I take a lot of walks with my high school pal, Hannah. I feel so good after our strenuous exercise, and it’s great that we help solve each other’s problems, but the best part is that we commune with nature. Doing so helps us use that experience to guide others to a new state of healing. For her, it’s massage. For me, it’s both my music and psychic work.

When my body is tired, I am more likely to float into my intuitive brain thinking, rather than having to tell myself to make that shift. The antenna in my brain goes up all by itself. Maybe the exercise lessens my anxiety and helps me to move there.

I read that wildlife helps us with healing. The wasps on my back porch and the bird on her nest on my front porch both remind me of the season change. I can’t let myself get stuck, and I can’t give up. One of the hard parts about aging is not the increase in doctor visits to help with what I call my old car, but to keep going when a problem occurs. The other morning my computer wasn’t working and my hair dryer died. At first, I wanted to crawl back under my covers for the rest of the day, but I soldiered on and had all good luck for the rest of the day.

I read about psychic ability in other cultures. I loved visiting Scotland, the most mystical country I’ve visited. In Scotland it is common for a child to inherit his or her father’s gift for “second sight”. I read about how in Native American and Indigenous traditions, shamanism is embraced openly. Shamans connect with the spirit world via a trancelike state. That is what I do when I give a reading. No wonder it feels like I can’t hear when I immerse myself in another dimension.

I have lots of autistic tendencies, with many autistic relatives on my mother’s side. Brain scans of autistic and schizophrenic people had slight differences from the average person in their caudate-putamens. This suggested that their seat of intuition was somewhat altered, for better or worse. It is most likely possible for them to have gifts that allow them to perceive or interpret information that is normally filtered out.

Gotta dash. My favorite local park, Coleman Park, is having an Earth Day walk. Happy Earth Day! Let’s try to appreciate nature.

Live for Today, Don't Get Stuck

My trip to Europe this year had some gorgeous sites. In London, the River Thames cruise at night, the Tower of London sanctuary for the Crown Jewels and its prison, and St. Paul’s Cathedral. Wales was castles and cathedrals, with warm people in small, old towns.

My contact with other people is worth mentioning. I’ll always remember two times when I went into a bar to rest and recharge. The first barkeep taught me a long forgotten way to treat myself to the ritualization leaf tea. Another bartender in a rundown bar in the middle of Wales, listened to my complaints about my blister the size of Greenland, and said, “What you need is a proper cup of tea.” He made it and I did need it.

One lady a year younger than I am was on our tour. She stared at me a lot and then launched in. “How can you travel ALL ALONE?” she asked, two days in a row. She had helmet hair, which she must have had “done” in the fifties style the day before the tour, and now she attacked with hair spray to keep it going. “Do you wash your hair EVERY DAY?” she asked me, then the next day, “is your hair naturally curly?” Her questions seemed so odd, but she had a connection so I like to exploit any connection. When she asked me again, “How can you do it? How can you travel alone?” I was a bit snide. “One foot starts, the other foot follows. Out of my house, into the car, into the airport, onto the plane right foot first. Into the car, then the hotel, in the morning onto the bus, off it to see Stonehedge and that’s it.”

Stonehedge was the most spiritual of all my jaunts. The wind was present, and the sun. The air crisp, the crowds light. The burial mounds in the distance moved me as much as the huge stones. I could easily see why people buried their loved ones in that peaceful spot in the countryside.

Travel sends me to other worlds. It makes me think in new ways. Due to the Helmet Head Lady, I came home feeling even braver, which is perfect for old age. The bartenders made me feel loved, and Stonehedge made me accept the passage of time, thousands of years of people before and after me. Life is profound. We just have to live it and try not to get stuck.

Ouija Boards

A Ouija board became my first introduction to anything paranormal. I had an older sister, so I asked her friend Pammy to explain it to me. I heard about it from horror movies and stories of seances. 

She told me I was too young to use it, and she showed me what she called one of her family parlor games. She didn’t tell me that the small, heart-shaped device on canasters was called a planchette, or that the name derives from the French and German words for “yes” (oui and ja). 

She did tell me that a person had to think of a question and it would answer yes or no. She wouldn’t let me borrow it to take it home. Never use the Ouija Board alone, she said. She told me a person had to be strong and not sick, and only special people could touch it. And that when finished, we had to say goodbye to let the spirits know we were finished talking to them.

I was bewitched and scared. To this day, I haven’t messed with one. I doubt I ever will. I get the creepy crawlers even thinking about it. Some people see it as harmless fun, but many others, especially those with religious perspectives, think it’s dangerous. I don’t see danger, I just feel a great big stay away.

How Did I Not Know?

In November, after a mammogram, I was diagnosed with a tiny, cancerous breast tumor. I’ve been so lucky in my life that I was shocked. Someone asked, as a psychic, how did you not know?

I had told my doctor for many months that something was really wrong with me, really wrong, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. He just stared at me.

With this bad health news, I try to be gracious and accepting but it’s not so easy. The biopsy hurt, and my surgery pain was rough, but way easier than labor or a bad tooth experience. I guess the worst thing is the worry. How will my radiation go? Will cancer come back in another form or mess with another body part?

I wish I had answers for all the other people who have a worst cancer case than I do. I want to change their sad stories. I’d like to change my own sad story, even though it’s been relatively easy, as the surrounding cells have clear margins. The other women have been so sweet to me, I call it the Cancer Club, but they call me a Pink Sister. When they ask my story and I hesitate because mine is easier, they tell me it’s hard for all of us.

No one can know everything, even the smartest of the smart. My worries seem to be receding as I learn more and move through the process. People have been so kind to me, checking in with me, sending love, listening to my woes.

We can all give love. We all have terrible things happen to us. I did what I could to lead a healthy life, and I will continue with that. When I wailed to the surgeon, I’ve been so careful with my eating and exercising habits, and so little alcohol, so why did this happen to me? She leaned in and said, “You’re old, just old. That’s why.” I couldn’t have done anything about that fact.