Kat Wanless:  

After I left Wilson my Freshman year, I went into drug & alcohol treatment and finished my second year at Grant. I then dropped out and got my GED and began working full time. When I was 17, I got pregnant and married. I now have three beautiful children; a son, 21; a daughter 20; and another daughter, 17. I went to college at Mt. Hood after my youngest started pre-school and completed two associate degrees (Information Processing Management and Software Applications Specialist) and a one-year certificate (computer graphics) in two-and-a-half years. I was on the President's List, the National Dean's List, and graduated Phi Theta Kappa (just like Phi Beta Kappa, but for two-year colleges. My carreer really took off in '98 with Louisiana-Pacific, working in the corporate office as Corporate Training & Improvement Rep., managing all training and self improvement projects for 18,000 employees in four countries. Unfortunately, in '01, LP downsized, eliminated the whole training department and soon after, moved their headquarters to Texas. The following summer, I became very ill and was eventually diagnosed with Chronic Myofacial Pain Disease and Fibromyalgia, leaving me disabled and unable to continue my career. I tried just doing freelance graphics from my home office, but the pain kept me from keeping my deadlines and I had to give up even that. I am married to a wonderful man named Drake since '01. We own a house in the Gateway area, but plan to move out into the East country area (Carver, Damasc...Expand for more