Karen Otto:  

Life My life has changed a great deal in the last 12-14 months. Ken and I bought a farm (40 acres) in Westfield, NC and hope to build in the next year. The farm is located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The views are just fantastic. At times, I cannot believe the farm belongs to us, but it does. I am slowly going deaf in both ears, wear hearing aids in both, about the last four years. My hearing loss is sensory-neural and there is no surgery available to bring this loss back. I am adjusting to a new way of hearing. The docs have told me I be completely deaf by the time I am 60. This is why school is so important for me. We will be raising dogs for the hearing impaired on the farm. Ken contracted colon cancer last year, but it was eradicated through surgery and was only in stage 1. This has set us back slightly but we are still forging ahead with plans to build in the country. Our children are grown, Christoper is 31, a chef and James is 27, 2nd degree black belt (Tae Kwon Do) and works at Wake Forest University. Also, my youngest brother, J...Expand for more