Dear Customers and Reps,

Just wanted to take a minute to thank you from the bottom of my heart, literally, for all your love and support.  It makes me feel really special.  The reason I got into this business was to make some money from home and be independent from my emotionally draining first husband.  You have been my reason for staying.  I also wanted to do something to help the elderly in my community.

So many times, the Avon Rep is one of the only people to come visit shut-ins - This has been a lifeline to them during times of heat, illness and of course, Covid 19, 20, 21, 21 (I hope that covers all variants!)

I enjoy being the smiling face that brings them joy and I hope you enjoy seeing me.  It's been a difficult 2 years and I find myself still in a walker.  

Many of you do not know that last year in Sept 2020 when Covid was first rearing its ugly head, I went into the hospital for hip surgery.  Let me just tell you that I was concerned about catching it there, but they kept everything pristine clean at Osborn and I saw no reason to have fears and trepidations.  Only a month later I developed a 103 fever.

My husband called my doctor and he prescribed a muscle relaxant and an oral anti-biotic and said, "Do not go to the hospital."  He didn't want to catch COVID and did not want to pay again for his whole team to get tested.  I kept on not knowing what was in store.

The pain was so fierce that I could not lift my legs to get in and out of bed.  My husband had to pack me in ice every night so I could get any sleep at all.  In December I started testing again to try to find out why I was having so much pain.  My Ortho physician's office was not very responsive to my pleas for anything to fix the problem or even pain killers.  They only wanted to see me through Zoom.  The pictures of the infectious drainage did not alarm them and they said it was normal.  When I showed the pictures to the physical therapist, the infectious disease doctor and 3 nurses that I know, they all said it was an infection.

Finally, January came and my husband noticed that I was acting illogically.  I did things like put the peanut butter in the Fridge and butter in the cupboard.  I tried to turn off the burglar alarm by holding my key up poised to insert it into the doorbell.  These we real no brainers that something was wrong in my body.  He said, "I'm packing your bag.  Your doctor just told me not to take you to ER."  When I got there they did bloodwork and found that I had Staphlococcus MSSA and would have died if I hadn't come there within the next two hours.  

The infectious disease doctor helped get the original doctor to come back, and redo his work, but he took a shortcut which again proved to be a problem.  The staph was found on the apparatus so they operated and took it out, cleaned it, replaced it and for the next 6 months I was on a PICC line, with my husband giving me injections 4 times per day.  

I got ready to have the 2nd hip done in January of this year and was met with another problem.  I now have arrhythmias and currently am undergoing testing to see what the problem is.  I can't walk across the room without being out of breath.  

I hope you will keep me in your prayers.  I thank God everyday for knowing you and helping you as much as you have helped to keep me in business with Avon. I just recently celebrated my anniversary since joining in 1992.  I won, because of you, the title of Honor Society for sales performance last year.  Thank you again.  I will try harder to keep my site updated.

God bless you!

Karen Meyer