Location: Danville, Ohio
Nearest major city: Columbus
Background:
I was born in Mansfield, Ohio, and grew up in “Amish Country”. My dad was a hunter, and enjoyed raising beef to feed the family of seven children. I attended Clear Fork High School, and for my Junior and Senior years attended the Knox County Career Center as a Cosmetology student. This is where I met my husband, Mike, who was enrolled in the welding class. A year after graduation from high school, I married my sweetheart to fulfill my only desire: to be a wife and mother. Our first daughter, Jacinta, was born in nine months after our wedding, and it took another nine years to have another child, Andrew. By the grace of God, three more children, Patrick, Anna, and Regina, were born over the next 10 years. I was almost 42 years old by then! (There are 22 years between Jacinta and Regina.)
We have lived in central Ohio most of our married life, except for a short bout in Oregon in 1983 when Mike was laid off work, and five years at Cannon Air Force Base in New Mexico while Mike was in the Air Force. We still live in the heart of “Amish Country”, enjoying life in a small town.
We chose to home educate our children when Andrew was in Kindergarten, and continued this for the rest of the children. Patrick, being rambunctious and in need of more activity than I could give him, enrolled at the Knox County Career Center as a sophomore, and graduated in 2015. Anna and Regina are continuing their education at our local public school after completing grades 6 and 8 at home. This was all quite a change for all of us. After 20 years, I no longer considered myself a home-schooling mom!
Reason for becoming a Certified Women’s Health Instructor:
My own bad experiences beginning with having to have a C-section for our first baby, which I felt should never have been, is when my interest in women’s health began. After having our baby, my periods never resumed; the only solution I was offered was birth control pills, which I refused. I was under-weight, and exercised, but not to the extreme. I wanted to get answers and solutions but it was to no avail.
When Mike was in the Air Force I volunteered in the OB/GYN clinic twice a week and began to see all the problems women experience. It was during this time that I took Clomid to stimulate ovulation and we conceived our son. When he was two years old I began to have episodes of nasty heart palpitations that made me weak, nauseous, and scared. I was then put on Atenenol, and was told that I would have to be on that for the rest of my life to keep my heart rate under control. After 16 years, five pregnancies with two miscarriages, I, though my own research, found my trouble was do to hormone fluctuations. I began to change my diet (which is a story of its own!) and quit the medication. I have not experienced any heart palpitations except for last year I was given a CAT scan and I had a bad reaction to the dye used. People need to hear the truth. There is so much confusion and misunderstanding. I hope to be a help in clearing things up so women can make informed decisions about their health.
Email address: cathyworley@hotmail.com
Phone number: 740-398-3779