David, water buffaloes are among the most dangerous of all animals in Africa. There’s a reason they have the cheery nicknames “black death” and “widow maker.” For our next chapter of Sit Down Before Reading, we delve into the harrowing time of getting diagnosed with an unfamiliar disease, then jump forward, to the summer of 2020, when things were again feeling off. Really off. The water buffalo was snorting. Only this time we didn’t have a guide with an elephant gun. Chapter 4: The Widow Maker releases today along with a preview for Chapter 5. Below is the direct link to the home page of Sit Down Before Reading: A Memoir where all available chapters are displayed. Don't like clicking links in emails? Copy the link above into your internet browser or go to the home page of ActiveMSers.

If my discussion of water buffaloes sounds familiar, it is. I lifted it from one of my favorite pieces from ActiveMSers about the importance of attitude. It’s worth a revisit. Also, as previously mentioned in an earlier email, I not only buried my health challenges of the past year from you, but I buried them from my community. For the past six years I’ve written a regular column for the small village I live in, Los Ranchos de Albuquerque, and this article from last summer does a pretty good job of keeping everything peachy.