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Today's Featured Biography

Sandra Spiller

I currently live in Auburn, ME with my sister Karen Spiller Johnson

I am retired/disabled after 26 years at Geiger Bros (home of the Farmers Almanac) Started off the Mon. after graduation as receptionist/switchboard operator, became an order proofreader, then supervisor of order entry. Worked for several years after the illness that left me legally blind, retiring on disability in March of 1996.
I have 2 daughters, Tracey Lynn (Tracey was given up for adoption when she was born, I was engaged to her father but when he found out I was pregnant he decided he didn't want to be married. Her parent's found me when Tracey was in college & brought her back into my life.
Kelly Lee (Kelly is actually my stepdaughter from my 2nd marriage, she lived with us & I raised her until the divorce) After my illness Kelly came back & lived with me for her senior year in high school) Kelly lives in Greene with her husband & their two daughters Chantel Marie & Caitlyn McKenzie

I worked steady at GB for 26 years & after my 2nd divorce started working part time also at FISC, starting out as an encoder, then as a sorter, finally as person balancing all the checks at the end of the night. I worked at FISC about 5 years when I got sick. I had a headache that lasted over a month while the doctors did every test imaginable to find out what was wrong with me. When it finally got to the point where I couldn't keep down the pain meds, they admitted me, did a spinal tap & decided I had blood clots (hundreds of them) blocking 2 of the 3 major arteries that run through the sinus cavities. I then had a small seizure, followed by a grand mal seizure. I spent 6 weeks in CMMC then 6 more weeks in Boston at New England Medical Center. While in Boston I had surgeries on both eyes to relieve the pressure on the optic nerve, woke up from the first surgery paralyzed on the right side & from the 2nd surgery with partial paralysis on the left side. I had several more seizures, including 3 in a row one night, after which they put me in a drug induced coma for a week. During that week (Christmas week ) they told my mother I was probably going to die but saved my life by running a catheter up into my brain & pumping in tpa to open up one of the arteries. A week later I came back to Maine (by ambulance during one of the worst snowstorms of that winter, very scarey) Back in Me, I spent a week in rehab & then worked as an outpatient with a physical therapist, an occupational therapist & briefly a speech therapist. My body now works (although I tend to be a little off balanced but that could be the vision problem). My vision is weird...in my right eye I can't see straight ahead at all, I do have a bit of side vision, off to the right. In my left eye I can see straight ahead but have no peripheral vision (basically tunnel vision).
I have no depth perception, have lost a lot of my color vision & because of the scarring on the optic nerve my vision is dark (kind of like being in a very smoky bar, or looking through a very heavy screen) but I can see to read (just not for long periods) & see to work on the computer). After the state of Maine pulled my driver's license (for some reason they frown on blind people driving, while drunks & morons are still behind the wheel, I sold my house in Greene & moved back to my old neighborhood to be near my parents house. At the time my dad had Alzheimer's & mom was taking care of him at home, I wanted to be near enough to walk over & stay with him if she had errands to do. I couldn't have gotten any closer, I can look out my kitchen window & see mom's house, across Court St. & 2 houses away. My dad has since died but if mom needs me I can be there in a flash (unless there's a lot of traffic).

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