Her Elixir’s Uncertain, But She’s Grateful

First Connie Ryan went blind in her right eye. Then, a few years later, she lost all sense of balance and was bedridden for three months. Finally, in 1981, she fell flat on her face as she worked on a window for her doll house.

That’s when doctors figured out that multiple sclerosis had caused her mysterious ailments over the years. They consigned her to a wheelchair. But Connie was a little too busy for such a setback.

No one else was going to finish her three-story Victorian masterpiece. She had daughters in school, her mother to care for.

“I don’t know how I did it,” she says, her voice roughened by 30 years of multiple sclerosis and smoking. “That’s why I maintain that a lot can be overcome.”

Three grueling months kicking laps in a pool gave Connie back the use of her legs. A physical therapist friend prodded her through the workouts, past her tears.

Connie learned from that ordeal to keep pushing. She studied the unfinished doll house she had crafted from hand, and asked her husband to teach her to use his band saw so she could continue construction.

She’d learned not to trust her body so she didn’t drive a car. But when her mother was diagnosed with cancer in 1984, Connie climbed back into the driver’s seat.

She brought her mother meals, drove her to chemotherapy treatments, mowed her lawn. Two years later, her mother died and Connie found peace finishing her doll house. But her body was worn out.

By 1989, Connie was losing control of both sides of her body. Her lungs hurt. She needed an electric wheelchair because she didn’t have the strength to push herself. She decided to leave California and die in a beautiful place.

Her family found a home cradled in the rolling meadows and protective mountains of northern Kootenai County. Connie’s remission began immediately.

“I don’t know if it was the well water, the air or what,” she says. “Or if it was the grass that needed mowing, the fruit that needed picking, the dog messes that needed cleaning. I just started doing it all.”

Connie is 56 now and walks with a dancer’s deliberate grace. Her wheelchair and walker sit in the garage covered with years of dust. Her hands lack the control for intricate doll house work, but she exercises them by playing solitaire and stitching yarn into pictures.

“I’m blessed,” she says, nodding with certainty. “I think until you’re dead, the door is never totally closed, so you just keep opening it a little further, a little further.”

Tourist season

So many Asian students are scheduled to come to Coeur d’Alene this summer that program coordinators are struggling to find homes for them all. The idea was to expose North Idaho to other cultures, but the visitors arrive in July, just as many in the Panhandle leave for summer vacation.

These kids stay just long enough for you to enjoy them and leave before you tire of having visitors in your house. If you’ll be home in July, try a Korean or Chinese experience.

Korean students from Chung Cheong College arrive July 9 and leave Aug. 3.

Their program coordinator is Cheryl Hoppe at 769-7737.

Students from the People’s Republic of China arrive July 20 and leave Aug. 15. Their coordinator is Donna Patterson-Udell at 667-0347.

Night swimming

Swimming at Coeur d’Alene’s City Beach on hot nights under a full moon is one of my favorite summer memories.

Swimmers usually stay in their suits there because too many people hang around City Beach.

But a full moon attracts skinny-dippers to Tubbs Hill like bugs to floodlights.

What’s your favorite summer night memory? Keep it G-rated for Cynthia Taggart, “Close to Home,” 608 Northwest Blvd., Suite 200, Coeur d’Alene 83814; send a fax to 765-7149; or call 765-7128.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo