SEA-Horse Corral - About Me

Stewart's Corral

Photo Album - about me and horses

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This series is about How I went from a high-tech techno-nerd to a low-tech sufferer with EHS
enlarge to 1024x768 enlarge to 1024x768	1982.May.13 Stewart riding Penny I started riding horses before high school. I don't think many knew that. Here is the one picture I have on Goldie when I was flying. This was back before I got into computers, which became my academic focus for a decade.
Although the following decade had nothing to do with horses, in fact quite the opposite, it is notable that I excelled in high school, earned a GPA of 3.80 overall (including straight A's in 5 of 8 semesters), and received first place at FHS in the American High School Mathematics Exam. Then I became a computer programmer, systems analyst, technician, and network engineer, over the following 7.4 years of my career. I enjoyed those years very much, until the sensitivities I first noticed in high school, became a serious problem.
enlarge to 1024x768	1992.Aug.26 Roxy (1972-1995) Here I was getting back into horses, searching for a relief valve to the stress of my career. This was before I had a clue as to what was going wrong, and what would come.
My career was abruptly truncated in 1993 by multiple over-exposures, resulting in multiple chemical sensitivity, neurological damage, and electrical sensitivity, which sent my health into a tailspin. As more and more people have the same thing happen to them, my problem is no longer unique. See my health page to learn more. What was unique to me, were the specific exposures that ruined everything for me. I grew up very close to BPA powerlines. I grew up downwind of refineries. (One butcher at Lynden remarked about the livers of the cows/heifers shows serious disease near the aluminum refinery.) I played with remote control cars. At least those transmitters were analog back then. I played with HO-scale train set. The speed control was a large transformer. More magnetic fields. I placed a Tripp-Lite Line conditioner (large transformer for brown out protection) and computer equipment under my desk, right next to my feet. (TOO CLOSE, intense magnetic field) I started eating microwaved food in 1988. I was ignorant of the danger watching the food cook with my head close to the door, not to mention the altered nutrition (or lack of) in the food itself. I had just gotten two more fillings in 1992, drilling out existing mercury without precautions. My corner cubicle was sprayed for ants in 1993. Lack of ventilation was not considered. I am a second generation downwinder, as mom grew up near Hanford. I wore clothes made from synthetic fibers and treated with PBDE or brominated flame retardants. I was sickly as a child, there is a coorelation that I was vaccine injured, similar to my brother, who is now autistic. The day my health crashed, and the 24/7 headache started, I was installing a computer network in a customer's new office building (for the Georgia Pacific co-generation plant Lone Star Energy) built Right NEXT to a Transformer Yard. The place literally Buzzed. From the latter quarter of 1993 throughout 1994, I attempted to cope with the major pain and pressure like a concussion. The first breakthrough occurred when I noticed a sharp rise and fall of pain when traveling under larger power lines. After getting my first gauss meter, to measure it scientifically, the correlation between the two resulted in my first "ah-ha" moment. I next lived in the barn, to distance myself from the magnetic fields along the road, and spent my days at the stable, where I helped out somewhat, feeding meals and moving horses from stall to fields and back. That certainly didn't work when fly spray season began, as my multiple chemical sensitivities further isolated me. My attempts to heal stalled out, and I finally accepted that I Had to move away from the power lines if I was to get better.
enlarge to 1733x840	1999.Apr.24 Riding Shadow (1984-2000) up Forks Creek D-line After living 4 years on the SW coast, this was the first year I could say I had a day go by without 24/7 pain and headaches. During this time, I had abandoned computers and all electrical pollution, going low-tech from my formerly high-tech life, thus earning a reputation of "going from high tech to low tech." The only employment I could find that didn't aggravate my symptoms, was trimming trees, and herding cows from horseback. No motors, no magnetic fields, no electronics. At this time, this area was quiet, rural, and beautifully green, thanks to all the rain. Something the coast is known for in abundance.
Enduring 24/7 pain for so many years made me hard to be around, but finally by this year I started acting and looking normal again. I made a brief attempt to re-awaken my computer skills to help others with computer software problems, but I found it intolerable to be around most computers. The pain would soar in as little as 5 minutes. Then as my nest egg was erased, I stopped eating organic foods. Also around 1999 the use of organophosphate insecticide on the cows for fly control, added to my toxic load, and thus my health turned back around for the worst. Looking back at that year, I remember the horse Roan, showed symptoms of organophosphate poisioning. The dairy farm declined in future years. More injuries by big business. Then wireless towers were being put up in Lebam, and later around the Willapa valley. With my already known sensitivity to (magnetic fields of) power lines, and emissions from electronics, the new danger of wireless quickly became obvious. I could not tolerate being around cordless phones. I marked the threshold of cell-towers at 1.5 miles radius, from within I avoided like the plague. Power lines required a 0.25 mile buffer to not hear the buzz in my head, or simply feel better. Later testing for body voltage confirmed it is at a quarter mile that body voltage drops to zero AC volts, the distance sufficient to be outside the electrical field around power lines. The short term memory loss and brain fog, or inability to think straight, reappeared and interferred with my job on the farm. My declining health, combined with the cordless and wireless phones all around the neighborhood, eventually made it necessary to move again. In hindsight, the organophosphate insecticide exposure was the primary cause of my hyper-sensitivities returning. Also in 2001 during the quest to determine disability, I was diagnosed with Aspergers, which is in the autistic spectrum. It would take me eleven more years before actually understanding what this meant. Yeah, so I'm meticulous with details, and a perfectionist. My hearing is hyper sensitive, and I pay attention to details in my surroundings. Yeah, I'm definitely not social, and it is really hard for me to communicate with other people. At the time, it still seemed like an easy way out for the doctors who could not understand or diagnose EHS. Now however, the link between autism and EHS is being revealed by researchers. So as history repeats itself, anything that threatens the profits of big business must be kept hidden, disregarded and denied, or squashed. I'm just another casuality among many, in that regard.
enlarge to 800x600	2004.May.09 Stewart riding Snowcrest Glamour (1978-2007) Here I am in the mountains of NE WA, and it didn't take long to find a new horse. If I can't pursue any technical jobs or interests, then pursuing my interest in low-tech activities, like horses and riding, is all that's left for me.
enlarge to 640x480	2006.Apr.03 Glamour trotting and cantering around when left behind. Glamour furthered my education in hoof care, and as I learned how to correct her lameness, I found something to excel in again. This interest in hoof care was strongly motivated by Roxy's rotation in her last year, Roan's soring at every shoeing, and Shadow's strong dislike for a farrier's work in 2000. Oh yes, Shadow could kick! but that's another story told elsewhere.
enlarge to 800x600	2006.Jul.04 Stewart riding Cowgirl (2002-2011) Training a young horse this time, working on Level 2 Parelli in new Round corral. Now happily Bitless, Treeless, and Shoeless.
Around this time I was feeling better, and venturing out into using electronics again, having discovered the key ingredients to making a computer tolerable, and finding I could use a digital camera, I let the 35mm film fall into disuse. Since I am very sensitive to the chemicals from the film, it was not a hard switch. I furthered my interest and talents in surveying and cartography, along with programming again, this time for Flightgear, something I started in 2001 when I briefly found it useful for locating towers, thus deciding where to move to in 2002. My talent for photography also found a new outlet.
enlarge to 640x480	2008.Jun.25 frame# 0739 From a video of riding Cowgirl to the mailbox.
enlarge to 640x480	2009.Feb.17 Riding back from mailbox through snow covered woods 16½ inches
enlarge to 640x480	2009.Feb.26 frame# 188 From a video of Cowgirl and Abby playing in snowstorm that dumped 8.75 inches in one morning.
enlarge to 640x480 enlarge to 640x480 enlarge to 640x480	2009.Feb.27 frame# 589 frame# 1704 frame# 714 Riding Cowgirl back from mailbox on snow covered lane Both hands are on the camera. Cowgirl has made it to Level 3, and becoming very trustworthy. Meaning, I could ride her bridleless, if the neighborhood was safe to do so.
enlarge to 640x480	2009.Oct.27 frame# 1380 Riding up Nf2154000 in Colville National Forest during snow flurries, after ½ inch snowfall in morning, now melted on ground. Autumn colors in larch (aka tamarac) trees.
enlarge to 640x480	2010.May.20 Stewart riding Cowgirl
enlarge to 800x600	2012.Apr.25 Stewart riding Rowan (1996-2013), a 4H parade veteran, who is, or now was, indifferent and unafraid of any provocation, like traffic on the road, or dogs.
Many inspiring and entertaining things happened during these years regarding my horses, and I have put many of them together into a Five chapter eBook here starting with Chapter One which expands on the events up to 2001, focusing on the horsey side of my story. It is meant to be a separate series than the multi-Part pages focused on EHS or EMFIS. The story is only half over. This page, a prelude and introduction to where I am today, has focused around horses. It is said that, horses are good for the inside of a person, and I have found them to be a lifeline through my troubles. Next I focus on what is not good for the inside, and bring my story into the next chapter. Continue to part 2.
Events in 2013 have taken a divergent and tragic direction, and are now chronicled on a new page, calling it part 5 as a supplement to Chapter 5 of my eBook, where I go more in depth of what happened with video evidence and analysis.

Index	About Me and EHS
Introduction and Awareness. Real or imagined About me, part 1 How it started About me, part 2 Ongoing saga	Searching for EM-Smog Meter Evaluation Conversion chart and entry table Features to Look For Specifications Emissions More Meters Evaluation in Urban Measuring a cell phone	Indoor Equipment Evaluation part 3 Measuring cellular and smartphones part 8 Spectrum analysis graphs part 7	LIBRARY— Health Links part 4, Book and video recommendations, Top research picks.

If you enjoy the photos on my scenery and horses pages, and wanted to see the movies from which they came,
Now available on DVD for 2011
Lambert Creek Horseback

explore trails from the saddle, plus Horse Play, Weather events, and more

Copyright notice: All photographs on this page were taken and scanned personally.
You are free to download these graphics for personal or non-profit use only.

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