Love, Life, Quirks, and Quarks

I feel very fortunate to have been raised by relatives of such good character and strong values. My parents, 8 aunts and uncles, and 11 first cousins were dedicated to us becoming a united family. And we did. The biggest blessing my parents gave me was to be an independent thinker, engaging the ideas of others frequently to continue to build our values. After graduating from the University of Tennessee in biology, I had a great career managing quality systems in the biotechnology area of the pharmaceutical industry. I am a proud patriot, fiscal conservative, and social liberal. I love to discuss politics and religion, but we find it difficult to have respectable debates in this day and age, which is very troubling. I have changed my stance on a number of individual issues, but not on my basic principles. But not all was fortunate. A decade ago, I survived pancreatic cancer due to my surgeon, family and God; also overcame several occurrences of breast cancer. I hope you enjoy my story.