Williamson health center revealed he had alarming, diabetes-qualifying blood sugar levels. He’d had mini-strokes in the past, and his physician said a much bigger one was probably on its way if Muncy did not take drastic steps.

The doctor put him on a tight carb-cutting diet, connected him to physical therapy and put him in the home-visit diabetes program.

Now Muncy walks 5 miles a day and is a regular at the farmer’s market. His weight is down to about 145 pounds, he said in a recent interview. He still smokes, though.

AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE

University of Washington researchers recently calculated something called “healthy life expectancy” — the period someone born today could expect to live in relative health. West Virginia, at 62½ years, was the lowest among states.

Clearly, health problems abound.

Blacklung disease rates and coal mine injury rates appear to be up.

West Virginia has been at the top of the charts in hepatitis B and C infection rates. Adding to that, the state saw an HIV outbreak last year, and it is still weathering a hepatitis A outbreak — both associated with injection drug users

Maggie Hill, the lifelong West Virginian, has little hope for the future. But she does have Charity.

Charity is a 10-year-old girl Hill adopted about five years ago. Hill’s son had been raising her but lost custody during his ongoing struggle with drug addiction, Hill said.

Hill and Charity live in a small wooded valley with a creek in it — a holler, as they say in West Virginia. Her house is a cabin that from