My wife had arrived home during the latter part of last evening while my besotted younger brother and I were watching episodes of three of the T.V. shows that we follow via our T9 Android 8.1 TV Box.
As far as I know, my wife had worked the long day at her friend's Thai restaurant ─ she and I never spoke beyond an initial general greeting shared with my brother and I where we were sitting in the darkened living room when she first came into the house.
She did speak with her two sons, of course. And she even spoke with my brother when he eventually went into the kitchen for further beer ─ my wife was then involved in some cooking. However, I had the only can of beer with me that I was ever going to drink that evening, and I had already eaten, so I never had occasion to set foot into the kitchen until after my wife had retired for the night.
I only went into the kitchen after my brother and I had stopped watching T.V. for the evening ─ I went to the kitchen to put away my empty beer can and to also rinse out a plastic container that was destined for the recycling bin outside.
I had hoped to speak with her concerning the monthly mortgage that is sometimes debited from our chequing account as early as the 22nd. But that is a topic destined for my older and private blog.
I'm unsure now, but I believe that I may have gotten into bed within 15 minutes of the advent of the midnight hour. And it took awhile for sleep to overtake me.
To my great disappointment, my first time check thereafter was 3:00 a.m. ─ a very poor showing for an initial block of sleep. I suspect that I was uneasy about the mortgage, and $300 in cash that I wanted to deposit via an ATM ─ it was money my wife had previously borrowed from our chequing account, and then subsequently repaid in cash at the start of the week.
But it needed to go back into the account.
I tried for about a dozen minutes to return to sleep for a little while further, but I realized that I had already become too uptight. And so I rose and came here to my computer in the small room next to our bedroom.
I tasked myself with adding half-a-morning's assignment of content into the new post I just recently started at one of my six hosted websites, for I deemed it too early as yet to be venturing forth into the frozen night to hike the near-mile to the outdoor ATM at the Coast Capital Savings Federal Credit Union building over by the King George SkyTrain Station.
I also wanted to have a hot caffeinated beverage to help perk me up in the interim.
The work took a little longer than I anticipated, for it was (I believe) 5:20 a.m. before I was underway on that hike. Already, many people would be starting their workday commutes ─ I wanted to avoid that.
However, I hustled, and got the chore discharged, arriving back home safely at 5:59 a.m.
And within an hour, I was bedded down on the floor here in front of my computer in order to not disturb my sleeping wife, for she would have to work again today with an 11:00 a.m. start time.
I had my cellphone's alarm set for 9:59 a.m., but I was to check the time less than 10 minutes before that alarm sounded, and made the decision to get myself up. And when I emerged from this room, I saw that my wife was already up and shut into the bathroom as she readied for her day ─ she would still have a bit of a drive in order to get to work.
I went downstairs and prepared myself an instant coffee, and then joined my younger brother who was in the living room watching T.V. Even my eldest stepson was up, despite his choice to not go in to work today.
The day proved to be very sunny and bright ─ once again, the snow still laying about everywhere serving to magnify that brilliance.
I did get my chance to have a few words with my wife ere she left, and she involved her eldest son.
My brother decided to return to his bedroom well ahead of noon to rest up before taking off for the afternoon as is his wont. And since I was not feeling particularly refreshed despite the probable three hours I had spent laying on the floor this morning, I soon enough returned to my own bed for a proper nap.
I was back out of my bedroom before my brother had yet emerged from his. Still, by 1:51 p.m. he had headed out the front door to do that which he had designs to do. My youngest stepson had just recently risen, and after a brief conversation with me, he, too, was out the front door (by 2:21 p.m.) to hike the mile or so to where he would be commencing his work shift today.
I praised his resolve to undertake the walk instead of busing that short haul.
He is confident that today Canada Post will be delivering a BMX that he had ordered from somewhere and only told me about yesterday, for the rather large delivery will require a signature.
Anyway, that essentially catches me up on my day thus far, for it is only 2:48 p.m. as I type these words.
Are you registered as an organ donor?
I don't know what the situation is like here in Canada, but apparently matters are not too rosy in the States ─ and that goes for both donor recipients and for the donors themselves.
This article may be illuminating for many Americans:
DrMicozzi.com
I only signed on for the very first time to be an organ donor when I renewed my two pieces of provincial ID back in October ─ previously, I think that I had always ignored those solicitations.
And then I came upon an article that cautioned against making this choice in view of today's prevailing standards / requirements for green-lighting such organ harvesting.
You can do a Google search and find all sorts of assurances that only the truly dead have their organs harvested ─ yet practically all of those assurances come from sources involved in organ donor harvesting. Even websites devoted to debunking myths and urban legends offer those same assurances...but again, the authorities they rely upon for issuing those assurances are the very people who are involved in the harvesting of donors' organs.
Hardly unbiased, wot?
We all know that in rare cases, medically-deemed "brain dead" people sometimes spark back into life. Sure it's rare, but it does happen.
If you're listed as an organ donor and have died via some means whereby you are deemed "brain dead" ─ as opposed to having been decapitated or had your skull crushed in some awful accident, for example ─ the chances that you're going to be kept on physical life-support on any long-term basis have pretty much evaporated.
There will be no miracle "re-awakening" days, weeks, or even months down the road for you. Those organs need to get harvested ─ the demand out there is great.
I stumbled across a good 2004 essay in the Journal of Medical Ethics that wrestles with this idea of "brain dead" being sufficient as the final judgment on whether someone truly has died: Does it matter that organ donors are not dead? Ethical and policy implications.
This is the abstract ─ I removed the indicators for a couple of footnotes or references, but you can refer to the original document to locate them, if you wish :
The “standard position” on organ donation is that the donor must be dead in order for vital organs to be removed, a position with which we agree. Recently, Robert Truog and Walter Robinson have argued that brain death is not death, and even though “brain dead” patients are not dead, it is morally acceptable to remove vital organs from those patients. We accept and defend their claim that brain death is not death, and we argue against both the US “whole brain” criterion and the UK “brain stem” criterion. Then we answer their arguments in favour of removing vital organs from “brain dead” and other classes of comatose patients. We dispute their claim that the removal of vital organs is morally equivalent to “letting nature take its course”, arguing that, unlike “allowing to die”, it is the removal of vital organs that kills the patient, not his or her disease or injury. Then, we argue that removing vital organs from living patients is immoral and contrary to the nature of medical practice. Finally, we offer practical suggestions for changing public policy on organ transplantation.
I don't want to blog overmuch about this, so I will stop; but it is something that each of us ought to be keeping in mind.
I have had knee cartilage wear since the mid-1970s; and by the time I was into my early 40s not 20 years later, I gave up running because I had practically crippled myself ─ my drive to push on with running despite the pain had been too strong.
When I read the following article concerning the use of a form of prolotherapy that involved using platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injections to alleviate pain and even help rejuvenate damage done to the discs of the spine, I soon enough wondered about other applications:
HSIonline.com
Could this possibly be effective for knee osteoarthritis to regenerate lost cartilage?
I found articles enough on the experimental procedure, but apparently it is no sure solution ─ here are three sample articles, if you are interested:
- Arthritis-Health.com: Efficacy of Platelet-Rich Plasma Injections
- Healthline.com: Is Platelet-Rich Plasma (PRP) a Safe and Effective Treatment for Osteoarthritis of the Knee?
- CaringMedical.com: Platelet Rich Plasma for Knee Osteoarthritis | When PRP will work and when PRP will not work
I must confess that I am quite pleased with myself for extrapolating the potential therapeutic benefit of these injections for the knee just from reading an article on treating spinal disc problems.
A final article I want to link to could be providing a solution to Americans unable to afford needed and essential dental treatments:
HSIonline.com
I am unsure if I have ever heard of Los Algodones, but apparently it does have considerable fame as being something of a dental / medical haven, despite being located in Baja, Mexico.
There are of course cautions if you do some Web research, for you can't please everyone all of the time, or however that saying goes.
Anyway, that article ended by giving the website for a Yuma organization calling itself Dentists of Algodones, but the article did not actually link to it ─ so this is a live link to the website: dentistsofalgodones.com.
I have a few photos to present now.
Google Photos created the following collage today by way of celebrating this day (February 21) back in 2013. The photos in the commemoration were taken from a photo album I created for photos my wife had taken back then when she returned to her home village in Thailand to visit her mother, other family, and friends:
I don't know the name or location of this (relatively new?) temple somewhere near the city of Udon Thani, but the three people posing are my wife at the far right, with her two friends from her schoolgirl years ─ Jak or Jack at the left, and Daisha in the centre.
Here are the three original photos:
I now bring this post to a close ─ I still have to create a post at my older and private blog.
Note that a package did indeed come for my youngest stepson, and which I had to sign for; but there is no way that it could contain a BMX bike unless it's a toy or model of one.
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