Cheryl Turkett:  

Life After receiving my degree from SFASU I returned to Fort Worth and married Jim Turkett (ehhs '71). We have lived in Arlington now for 31 years ...celebrating our 35th wedding anniversary in March 2011. Jim works for Congress in the United States' GAO (Government Accountability Office) in its Dallas office and I retired from the Arlington ISD with 27 years of service. We are members at St.John the Apostle United Methodist Church. I have joined the ranks of the "movers and shakers"---AKA Michael J. Fox, Muhammed Ali, Janet Reno, and the late Pope. I was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease in '96. Up until about 9 years ago the medications had managed the symptoms as well as masked them. Nine summers ago (2002) brought a drop in the times that I'm "on" and much more "off" time. On March 12, 2003, I became a member of the "Hole in the Head" gang as I had Deep Brain Stimulation surgery in hopes of gaining back some of the mobility I've lost. So far so good...in February, 2006, the battery of one of the two stimulators implanted under my collarbone was replaced because it no longer worked. Then in April of 2007 the other battery/stimulator was replaced. I continue to "have PD" but it isn't visible any more! I'm so very happy to be able to do things again as I did before this diagnosis. Thanks to all of you who remembered me and my doctors in prayer. Jim and I know the prayers made a big difference for us! If you want to read more of my experiences with Parkinson's, I've written some of my PD time down and it's online...you'd have to email and ask me since this site will not let me post the url. My retirement from teaching began with a bang because as soon as school was out that year we left on a 2 1/2 week trip to Alaska. We cruised up and then back down the Inside Passage. We also flew in a small plane around the summit of Mt.McKinley. We had a wonderful time! Since then we are becoming cruise ship lovers. The next year after retirement (AR) at Christmas we cruised from Puerto Rico with ports in the Southern Caribbean. Lr we were on a 21 day cruise to the Mediterranean and walked the streets of Rome, Ephesus, Cairo, Malta, Barcelona, in Morroco: Casablanca and Agadir, the Canary Islands, the Madeira Islands, Malaga, and finished our trip with two days in Paris, France! When I returned I began preserving our memories through the scrapbooking that I have taken up in the past five years. We turned a room in our house into a "scrapbooking room" and I spend a lot of time each day "telling" the story of our life with pictures and words in those scrapbooks. Now, onward and upward! See you soon I hope! School Considering the fact that I became a public school teacher, school has always been an important factor in my life. I always felt very privileged to have gone through my entire pub school career as a student within the same feeder school system...from first grade at Meadowbrook Elem to seventh grade at Meadowbrook Jr. High and tenth grade at Eastern Hills High School. After high school I attended Stephen F. Austin State University for four years and graduated in May of 1974 with a Bachelor of Science...Expand for more