DEATH IN BIRTH - Fragile Tanzanian Orphans Get Help After Mothers Die

The New York Times featured an article this morning entitlted Death in Birth- Fragile Tanzanian Orphans Get Help After Mothers Die. They also had a corresponding Photo Gallery.

I must confess I read this article with a very heavy heart. It brought back some painfully buried memories of my own childhood during one of the years that my mom sent me to attend school in the Dominican Republic. It was the Summer of 1981, I was 12 years old and my cousin was going through her residency to become a doctor at a poor obstetric hospital in a village near Santo Domingo. My cousin was not your average young woman. She was a 22 year-old mechanic by hobby, rapelled down caves and explored the naturally mountaneous and rocky outskirts during the weekends, and rode a motorcycle she had constructed herself by collecting spare parts. To get around the capital itself, she often drove her trademark yellow military jeep with the propane tank between the two back seats. Although it may seem a bit unconventional to take a 12 year-old to work with you, I believe she sought to expose me to being a doctor and needless to say, my cousin was not exactly your run of the mill conventional chick anyways. She had taught me some basic care including how to stitch wounds and other emergency procedure.

On our trip to the hospital, I recall taking several old rickety buses along treacherous dirt roads for at least 2.5 hrs to get there accompanied by chickens, goats, and overwhelmingly fragrant passengers. Then, having to walk about a half mile to access the hospital. From the outside, the public hospital was a small cement building with metal blinds. Inside, the hallways were depressingly dark and old worn wooden benches sporadically lined the hallways. It was eerily quiet when we entered. It almost had a church-like feel, but as you moved along the corridors, you could hear the desperation of the women screaming and calling out for someone to pay attention to them.

As we walked further, I saw cots and old beat up beds placed along the walls of a couple of large waiting rooms. Many women were walking holding their swollen bellies to pass the time and others were crouched on the floor in agony as their cries were ignored yet again. I saw a nurse race by with numerously sorted supplies within her conjoined hands and yell at one of the patients to be quiet that she needed to wait her turn as the sweaty, spent woman collapsed along the wall. I could not understand what had happened; I mean, a couple of hrs ago, I was in my cousin’s house in the modest neighborhood of Gazcue with all the necessary comforts and now it was as if I had stepped into The Twilight Zone. This was all so very surreal. How could this morbid, dank, deplorable place be a hospital of all things?

You see, to me and upto that point in time, a public hospital meant when you were admitted you would get a bed and guaranteed some basic healthcare. The staff is overworked and probably not in a good mood, but no one would kick you in your pregnant belly if they were upset with you. In this place, and at this time, all those of rules of civility went out the window. No longer was the long wait most americans complain about the most upsetting thing you had to deal with. Oh no, in this place, you had to worry about the threat of infection, the hospital having room to even accommodate you, your case being severe enough to even be considered to be admitted, the staff having the supplies necessary to actually treat or help you, etc.

I tell you, until you have held a recently delivered stillborn baby in your own arms, cleaned him up, and had to place that little pale and lifeless body in a tiny bodybag and finally propel it down the chute as if it was garbage, you really can’t appreciate the severity of the conditions in this place. Stillborn babies were a daily ocurrence and other neonates were born with deformities ranging from mild to severe. This experience made me appreciate how truly blessed we are in this country. I know, I know…we complain about this and that, but the truth is that we are more than spoiled. We have strong able-bodied people here that refuse to work because they have minor aches and pains, emotional issues, or because ‘the man’ is holding them back, or whatever other excuse they can think of, but these people have homes, get disability checks, food stamps, WIC checks, or other government issued stipends to make ends meet, they get free education and have come to expect basic emergency healthcare if rushed to a hospital, and to be treated with certain documented civil rights or they can sue the place, and most likely, will win. They don’t live like this.

They are not forced to sell their older children as indentured servants to rich homes to work as domestics in order to avoid selling peanuts, corn, fried fish or ‘yeniqueque’, a crunchy and salty deep fried dough. They don't have to travel for miles to work in sweat shops as soon as they are old enough to walk and follow directions to produce branded products they can never dream of affording, or hustling trinkets to gullible and overindulged tourists, or maybe just maybe 'entertaining' lonely middle-aged men who hopefully will take them in temporarily and spoil them just a little bit in exchange for underage sex. Many youngsters walk for miles in the hot sun and many are fortunate enough to be wearing worn thong flip flops that we get here at the $.99 store just to get the opportunity to make some money. Many have an overdeveloped shoe of calloused and scaly skin because they have never owned a pair of shoes during the entirety of their lives, but must still continue to seek out financial sustenance.

I now wish I had had the foresight to pictorially document this event. It is something I will never forget, but I never feel I truly manage to bring this point across to others. Words fail to describe not only the true state of the conditions, but the feeling of hopelesness and desperation that lingered in the air. Next time you are feeling down because you can’t afford to go to the movies, can't get that new car, cell phone, or charge card because your credit is bad, or because you will need to cut down on your daily Starbucks visits because you want to save your pennies to buy more crap you don't really need, remember to be happy with what you got because as little as you think it may be, there is someone out there in the world that has way less and is extremely grateful to have what they got!

Meaningful Beauty Endorsed by Cindy Crawford

I watched the infomercial with Cindy Crawford boasting how wonderful the products are and how they are the only products she’s been using since she was 28. I had purchased one of her workout videos in the past and absolutely loved it. It was a kick ass exercise routine with various martial arts and oriental disciplines mixed in. I could totally buy into the fact that Cindy herself actually did this routine. It was 90 minutes of sweating your butt off and working your arms and chest hard.

I was so excited to order the Meaninful Beauty products. I went to their website and clicked on the introductory 30 day kit icon. Then, I discovered that they automatically keep sending you products every 3 months and charging your credit card $29.95 each month + shipping and handling. I just wanted to try the products not join a club or commit to paying out Guthy Renker for the rest of my life. What is Guthy Renker, LLC? Basically, a marketing firm which sells a bunch of celebrity endorsed products, which if they were as good as advertised would actually not need stars peddling them to their fans in the first place.

Now, let me state that I have never tried Meaningful Beauty products. I feel it’s important to come totally clean on that fact. Other than that, I called the number on the website to inquire if I could order the trial kit without the everlasting automatic shipments. What really bugged me was that if you get the kit with the automatic shipment, it’s $29.95, but if you get it separately as a one time order, then it’s $59.95. Well, I gave the phone sales rep the slip…pronto!

Let me get this straight. If I walked into a store and saw a product selling for $29.95 with the condition that I give them my credit card number so they could keep sending me stuff whether I wanted it or not, would I do it? Hell, no!

So that clinched it for me…no sale for DweaM. It’s not like I am going to die without these products anyways. I am sure it’s just more needless crap, which I will stop using in a few weeks anyways. I am not a big product user at all. I was just tempted to buy the products from the hypnotic infomercial, but thankfully their shady sales tactics saved me from making a very annoying mistake. If you don’t believe me, read these testimonials.

So unless you have expendable money just burning a hole in your pocket, stay far away from this website and spend your money on something else.

Tammy Burns is a REAL Inspiration...

to anyone whose trying to lose weight, but even more so to us all trying to lose it around or over the 40 age mark. You begin to realize your body has changed dramatically and what was once so easy to just diet away does not work in the same way.

See her video journey here

After losing 410 lbs., Tammy is my hero for the day. You go, girl with your bad self!!!

Weightloss Haters Everywhere

Since February of this year, I have been busting my behind going to the gym 4-5 times per week, have taken up cardio kick-boxing, hired a personal trainer and eat sensibly. The result has been losing over 15 lbs. Now, that doesn’t sound like a lot, but my body has changed dramatically. Losing weight at the cusp of reaching my “40-ness” is not the same beast as losing weight when I was in my 20’s. The changes in my body have reminded me that I have to put a lot more into it to get any results at all. The pounds aren’t just melting off as they did once, they are more like eagerly holding on until I work myself into weekly cardio and strength training frenzies. They then have no choice but to finally let go, but only a little bit at a time. Am I saying the weightloss at this age is a test of endurance, discipline, and determination? Yes, absolutely!

So I have gone from a hefty 207 lbs during most of 2008 to 180 lbs now. I still have a ways to go, but I am enjoying how I look now that my body is finally slimming down again. No longer is anyone asking me when is the baby due when I wear a high waisted blouse. No longer do people give me dirty looks on the subway when I try to go for a seat as they are thinking “I can’t believe she’s gonna squeeze her fat butt in here!” No longer am I exclusively shunned to the ‘plus size’ women stores, which by the way do not cater to women like me anyways…sorry, I just did not have boobs over a D cup even if I mashed all my fat around my chest to the front and stuffed it into my bra. Their clothing just never fit me quite right. And of course, the average person stores never carried anything over a 14 and left the old me out as well. No longer am I hating my own body because the jiggly fat has overgrown in all the wrong places and refuses to budge. No longer am I looking in the mirror and hating what I see. No longer am I bound by excuse after excuse to stay fat and then compalining how I can't do anything about it because nothing works when indeed I am the one that is not working to make it happen.

I am still not small by any means, but I feel healthier, stronger, increasingly agile, more energetic, my moods are balanced much better, and I love that physical feeling only exercise can give me. And to be quite honest, I am not entirely certain I want to be small anyways...been there, done that, not so impressed. I think I just want to be a really strong and healthy kick ass medium sized woman. I have found a wonderful personal trainer who understands having bad knees, who understands hormones and aging and everything in between. She definitely motivates me and pushes me to my limits and not beyond them, which I really appreciate.

But, for all the positives that working out and slimming down bring, I cannot help but notice that people’s behavior does change as your body transforms. Yes, there is increasing attention from the opposite sex and even the disdainful looks from other women who in their minds consider you competition and that’s all very flattering and sometimes quite annoying. However, I have noticed a change in behavior in regards to coworkers. I used to have lunch regularly with a friend and she now has lunch alone and doesn’t let me know when she is taking her break. When I inquired why the sudden change, her response was that I was turning into someone with an eating disorder because I wasn’t always hungry right at lunch.

Another coworker went out of her way to compliment another coworker who has lost some gradual weight over the past few months (we all started losing around the same time) and ensured I overheard her numerous comments. The coworker doing the complimenting gave up on the gym about a month ago, the coworker receiving the compliment has lost weight I don’t deny that, but to be quite honest, it has not been very dramatic at all. But, even despite this I brought her weightloss to her attention weeks ago and made it a point to gush over her since I know it made her feel good. It wasn’t important how much weight she actually lost, but how she felt about herself by losing the weight. She even stood in front of me, pulled up her blouse, and sucked in her gut to show off her shrinking stomach. But, do you think anyone (including her) has EVER said anything to me? Nope! Instead, I get that I am developing an eating disorder because I am usually full from breakfast by the time lunch rolls around. It’s not like I skip lunch, I just have it later or sometimes I go to the gym here at work and work up an appetite when I can’t get to my usually gym in the mornings. Believe me, when I was younger I do believe I became obsessive about exercising and I do believe that then I was on the brink of anorexia athletica. I fully admit to that now and I vowed NEVER to get that way again about anything in life. It’s just not that important, and guess what? I have not. If I don’t feel like working out one day, I just don’t. I know tomorrow will be there for me to pick up where I left off. There is no hurry to the finish line. I want me investing time and energy into my health to be a life commitment, not something I do temporarily to get a certain size, weight, or whatever.

Do I need my coworker’s adulation or reassurances? No, but I also like to receive compliments just like anyone else and when I notice that people I see every day are purposely not mentioning my weightloss as if it’s the big elephant in the room, it doesn’t make me feel very good about their friendship or personal feelings towards me. I have even received looks of disgust when I wear new clothing that actually fits me instead of having to pin the waist on my old oversized pants and hope no one notices the weird pleats that are not supposed to be there.

I know others on weightloss forums have and are going through and have written about the same thing so I know it’s not my imagination, that I am full of myself, or that I am hypersensitive to people’s comments. You don't believe me, look it up yourself. Go to any weightloss forum and type 'negative comments' in the search box and see how many entries come up. I went through something very similar when I lost over 70 lbs back when I was in my youth. All I can say to anyone that is being hated in this fashion and who is still staying motivated despite this lack of support to lose weight is to keep your chin up and take every one of those insults, negative comments, dirty looks, or diet sabotage actions as a compliment in your own mind. These very insecure people are acting out their resentment because they are not able to verbalize that in fact “Dahling, you look marvelous!”