My Unusual Introduction to Astrology, Part 2

Planets and Possibilities: Explore the World of the Zodiac Beyond Just Your Sign
By Susan Miller

(Page 2 of 3)

I was now fourteen, the exact age my mother had predicted for the end of my health difficulties. Two weeks later, I agreed to surgery performed by a new young doctor and brilliant scholar. The protégé to the chief of a different hospital, he solved my case, and he is still my doctor to this day.

The secret of my illness was that I had had recurring life-threatening internal bleeding. I was born with veins in my left leg from the hip to the knee that were malformed and turning to tissue paper. The vessels would simply vanish. There was nothing for the surgeon to tie or hold on to, so for any doctor operating on me, a condition like this is a nightmare. Today such a condition is still rare-I am told that there are only forty-seven known cases in medical history. I am one of the very few survivors because my condition was located in the lower body. Had the malformed veins been near my head or my heart, the illness would have killed me. The doctor said it was better that we had waited for surgery, surmising that part of the problem was that during my growth periods, my vessels didn't grow along with me. Now that my growth (at age 14) was nearly over there was less chance that I would experience fresh internal bleeding. Even so, the doctors went the whole nine yards to see that my attacks never happened again.

I spent eleven months in the hospital when I was fourteen as doctors revamped my veins, arteries, muscles, and bone, and I even had a skin graft. A nerve was severed during the difficult surgery and I had to go through therapy to regenerate it, a process that took three years. During those years I could not actually attend high school, so I studied in the hospital and later at home, taking my state exams and SATs. I graduated high school and then at age sixteen entered New York University and later received a B.S. degree in business with honors. Studying by myself had helped my self-discipline. Through these years Mom told me, “Susie, get used to not having friends. They will understandably get tired of you being sick. Read, sweetheart, and for now let books be your friends. Later, when you walk again, you will have friends again.” She was, as ever, right.

During this period of recovery, no one was sure if I would ever walk again. With a severed nerve, I had no sensation or movement in the lower part of my left leg. Although my doctor never wavered in his cheerful predictions, the hospital residents were not so sure-and would privately tell me not to keep my hopes up.

I was highly motivated to find out what was going to happen next, and I needed a big dose of hope quickly. It was then that astrology entered the picture for me. I wrote a letter to the editor of Horoscope magazine, a publication I used to see my mother read occasionally. I asked the editor if she would do my chart and tell me if I would ever walk again. (I could have asked my mother, but I figured she might not tell me the whole truth if the answer was no.) In the letter I included my month, day, and year of birth, as well as the city and exact time of my birth, knowing from my mother's afternoon lunch conversations that this information was critical for doing a chart. I knew my time of birth because my mother so often talked about it. Much to my surprise, my letter was published! My mother, amazed that I had written to the magazine, sat down next to me and read the answer aloud. After a long analysis, the astrologer-editor said yes, she felt I would walk again and that I would eventually fully recover!

At the time I was still very, very ill and needed braces and crutches to get around, but I was very encouraged by the answer though still a little cautiously skeptical.

Instantly, I made up my mind that I wanted to know more about astrology and figure out exactly what the editor had seen-I wanted to do my chart for myself. Not being able to walk, I certainly had time to read and study. But I would have an unexpected obstacle: My mother surprised me by saying she did not want me to study astrology. She explained that astrology demanded a full and intense commitment, something I was still too young to know if I would be able to carry out. “A little knowledge is dangerous, Susan,” she would often say. She felt that novices often think they know more than they actually do, leading them to jump to conclusions. She warned, “Don' start, Susan. Leave it alone. If you aren' ready to study for twelve years straight, don' begin.” Of course, tell teenagers not to do something and that's precisely what they will do.

In those teen years, I could not get out of bed by myself; I was weak from many blood transfusions, and my hip was so swollen it was hard even to sit up. There was no TV or phone in my room. In our house, the TV stayed in the living room, the phone in my parents' bedroom or the kitchen. This situation was good because I had no distractions. My mother would go to the library and get me stacks of classic books to read, which I enjoyed.

Yet I also wanted my mother's astrology books. During that summer, when I was finally home from the hospital, my little sister, Janet, then eleven, would secretly bring my mother's books into my room. We would hide them under my bed's dust ruffle. I studied a great deal after I got my homework done but I did not tell my mother, and I kept this secret for years. In fact, my interest was only revealed twenty years later when one day I had to ask my mother for a written recommendation to an astrological research association that she belonged to. “You aren' ready,” she responded. Then I had to reveal that I had been writing a small column for a magazine and told her the full extent of my research. But before she would write the recommendation she took my articles home with her and did charts for all the months I had written about. She studied whether I was giving the right advice or not. I am lucky she was such a tough teacher, and I'm also lucky that I passed her test.

Copyright © 2001 by Susan Miller

About the Author

Susan Miller is an accredited astrologer who is also a writer and lecturer. Susan is a frequent lecturer and guest personality on many network television and radio programs. She is a regular, monthly contributor to Self and McCall's magazines and has just joined the staff of the new Time Warner high-tech publication, E-Company Now as a monthly. columnist. Susan belongs to American Federation of Astrologers, National Council for Geo-Cosmic Research, International Society for Astrological Research and the American Federation of Astrologers.