Weight Loss Surgery - My journey to thin!
Meet Molly
My brother sent me an email about Molly and I wanted to share her story with you.
Meet Molly. She’s a gray speckled pony who was abandoned by her owners when Katrina hit southern Louisiana, USA . She spent weeks on her own before finally being rescued and taken to a farm where abandoned animals were stockpiled. While there, she was attacked by a pit bull terrier, and almost died. Her gnawed right front leg became infected and her vet went to LSU for help. But LSU was overwhelmed, and this pony was a welfare case. You know how that goes.
But after surgeon Rustin Moore met Molly, he changed his mind. He saw how the pony was careful to lie down on different sides so she didn’t seem to get sores, and how she allowed people to handle her. She protected her injured leg. She constantly shifted her weight, and didn’t overload her good leg. She was a smart pony with a serious survival ethic.
Moore agreed to remove her leg below the knee and a temporary artificial limb was built. Molly walked out of the clinic and her story really begins there.
“This was the right horse and the right owner,” Moore insists.
Molly happened to be a one-in-a-million patient. She’s tough as nails, but sweet, and she was willing to cope with pain. She made it obvious she understood (that) she was in trouble. The other important factor, according to Moore , is having a truly committed and compliant owner who is dedicated to providing the daily care required over the lifetime of the horse.
Molly’s story turns into a parable for life in post-Katrina Louisiana . The little pony gained weight, her mane felt a comb. A human prosthesis designer built her a leg.
The prosthetic has given Molly a whole new life, Allison Barca DVM, Molly’s regular vet, reports. And she asks for it! She will put her little limb out, and come to you and let you know that she wants you to put it on. Sometimes she wants you to take it off too.” And sometimes, Molly gets away from Barca. “It can be pretty bad when you can’t catch a three-legged horse”, she laughs.
Most important of all, Molly has a job now. Kay, the rescue farm owner, started taking Molly to shelters, hospitals, nursing homes, rehabilitation centers. Anywhere she thought that people needed hope. Wherever Molly went, she showed people her pluck. She inspired people. And she had a good time doing it.
“It’s obvious to me that Molly had a bigger role to play in life”, Moore said, “She survived the hurricane, she survived a horrible injury, and now she is giving hope to others.
“She’s not back to normal,” Barca concluded, “but she’s going to be better. To me, she could be a symbol for New Orleans itself.”
This is Molly’s most recent prosthesis. The bottom photo shows the ground surface that she stands on, which has a smiley face embossed in it. Wherever Molly goes, she leaves a smiley hoof print behind!
Now when I complain that losing weight is too hard or I want a piece of cake or a pat of butter, I’ll think about Molly and smile. What I’m putting up with is nothing.
Thursday, 29 May 2008
Tuesday, 27 May 2008
OwenKelly.net » Blog Archive » Dalai Lama’s 18 rules for living
OwenKelly.net » Blog Archive » Dalai Lama’s 18 rules for living
Dalai Lama’s 18 rules for living
At the start of the new millennium the Dalai Lama apparently issued eighteen rules ofr living. Since word travels slowly in the digital age these have only just reached me.
1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
2. When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.
3. Follow the three Rs:
1. Respect for self
2. Respect for others
3. Responsibility for all your actions.
4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
6. Don’t let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
7. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
8. Spend some time alone every day.
9. Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.
10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
11. Live a good, honourable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll be able to enjoy it a second time.
12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
13. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don’t bring up the past.
14. Share your knowledge. It’s a way to achieve immortality.
15. Be gentle with the earth.
16. Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.
17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
Dalai Lama’s 18 rules for living
At the start of the new millennium the Dalai Lama apparently issued eighteen rules ofr living. Since word travels slowly in the digital age these have only just reached me.
1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
2. When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.
3. Follow the three Rs:
1. Respect for self
2. Respect for others
3. Responsibility for all your actions.
4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
6. Don’t let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
7. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
8. Spend some time alone every day.
9. Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.
10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
11. Live a good, honourable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll be able to enjoy it a second time.
12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
13. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don’t bring up the past.
14. Share your knowledge. It’s a way to achieve immortality.
15. Be gentle with the earth.
16. Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.
17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
Saturday, 24 May 2008
Tuesday, 20 May 2008
Saturday, 10 May 2008
Off the record| Music | This is London
Off the record| Music | This is London
STANDING UP FOR GOTHS
After giving life sentences this week to two of the five teenagers who beat 20-year-old Sophie Lancaster to death for being a goth, the judge said to Brendan Harris (15) and Ryan Herbert (16): “This was a hate crime against these completely harmless people targeted because their appearance was different to yours.”
Following Sophie's shocking death, after she'd tried to protect her boyfriend, Robert Maltby, from the attackers, her mother, Sylvia, set up a memorial fund — Stamp Out Prejudice Hatred + Intolerance Everywhere (SOPHIE), at www.myspace.com /inmemoryofsophie — which has become the internet focal point for a heartfelt campaign. On 28 March, 7,153 people signed a petition calling for the Government to “widen the definition of hate crime' to include crimes committed against a person or persons, on the basis of their appearance or sub-cultural interests.”
Number 10 has responded with a polite no', because “these are not intrinsic characteristics of a person and could be potentially be very wide ranging, including for example allegiance to football teams — which makes this a very difficult category to legislate for”.
Yet as the blog Alterophobia (http://alterophobia.blogspot.com) exhaustively details, abuse against people who align themselves with goth culture is rife worldwide. And if any alternative lifestyle is as intrinsic to a person's being as a religious faith, it is this one. Appropriately for a murky world fascinated by vampires, goth is the subculture that never dies. Indeed, it is more popular than ever.
Yes, you can grow out of it, unlike your sexuality, disability, race or other categories that are officially included in the classification of hate crime — but many don't. Emerging from the post-punk scene of the early Eighties in the black-clad shape of bands such as Bauhaus, Siouxsie and the Banshees and Sisters of Mercy, the early proponents of goth still thrive. Both Siouxsie Sioux and The Mission (an offshoot of Sisters of Mercy) performed major London shows as recently as March this year, and in the same month Bauhaus released their first album since 1983. The spirit of pioneering Soho club night The Batcave has been kept alive (or undead) by Inferno at Camden's Electric Ballroom and Slime-light at Electrowerkz in Islington, which claims to have a membership of 10,000.
Musically, the sound has splintered many times, but the macabre, glamorous aesthetic remains. There's the sexually charged metal of Marilyn Manson, the garage punk of London's latest ghouls The Horrors, and theatrical rockers My Chemical Romance, figureheads of the milder emo scene who still thrive on similar dark imagery and songs of outsiderdom. The latter two groups have both been victimised for their style: My Chemical Romance were bottled off at the 2006 Reading Festival and Horrors singer Faris Rotter lost a tooth after being assaulted by seven people in Whitechapel the same summer.
Goth attracts the alienated and lonely, hence the perception that it's a world of losers. With their white faces, lank hair and extensive piercings they are still more likely to be laughed at than physically attacked. The other British goths in the news this year were the couple who were kicked off a bus in West Yorkshire because one was holding the other by a dog lead, which gave the papers a good giggle.
Yet time and again we hear that for all the violent music and horror imagery, they couldn't be a more mild-mannered and peaceful bunch. If the sympathetic public reaction to the Sophie Lancaster case is anything to go by, we know who the real losers are.
STANDING UP FOR GOTHS
After giving life sentences this week to two of the five teenagers who beat 20-year-old Sophie Lancaster to death for being a goth, the judge said to Brendan Harris (15) and Ryan Herbert (16): “This was a hate crime against these completely harmless people targeted because their appearance was different to yours.”
Following Sophie's shocking death, after she'd tried to protect her boyfriend, Robert Maltby, from the attackers, her mother, Sylvia, set up a memorial fund — Stamp Out Prejudice Hatred + Intolerance Everywhere (SOPHIE), at www.myspace.com /inmemoryofsophie — which has become the internet focal point for a heartfelt campaign. On 28 March, 7,153 people signed a petition calling for the Government to “widen the definition of hate crime' to include crimes committed against a person or persons, on the basis of their appearance or sub-cultural interests.”
Number 10 has responded with a polite no', because “these are not intrinsic characteristics of a person and could be potentially be very wide ranging, including for example allegiance to football teams — which makes this a very difficult category to legislate for”.
Yet as the blog Alterophobia (http://alterophobia.blogspot.com) exhaustively details, abuse against people who align themselves with goth culture is rife worldwide. And if any alternative lifestyle is as intrinsic to a person's being as a religious faith, it is this one. Appropriately for a murky world fascinated by vampires, goth is the subculture that never dies. Indeed, it is more popular than ever.
Yes, you can grow out of it, unlike your sexuality, disability, race or other categories that are officially included in the classification of hate crime — but many don't. Emerging from the post-punk scene of the early Eighties in the black-clad shape of bands such as Bauhaus, Siouxsie and the Banshees and Sisters of Mercy, the early proponents of goth still thrive. Both Siouxsie Sioux and The Mission (an offshoot of Sisters of Mercy) performed major London shows as recently as March this year, and in the same month Bauhaus released their first album since 1983. The spirit of pioneering Soho club night The Batcave has been kept alive (or undead) by Inferno at Camden's Electric Ballroom and Slime-light at Electrowerkz in Islington, which claims to have a membership of 10,000.
Musically, the sound has splintered many times, but the macabre, glamorous aesthetic remains. There's the sexually charged metal of Marilyn Manson, the garage punk of London's latest ghouls The Horrors, and theatrical rockers My Chemical Romance, figureheads of the milder emo scene who still thrive on similar dark imagery and songs of outsiderdom. The latter two groups have both been victimised for their style: My Chemical Romance were bottled off at the 2006 Reading Festival and Horrors singer Faris Rotter lost a tooth after being assaulted by seven people in Whitechapel the same summer.
Goth attracts the alienated and lonely, hence the perception that it's a world of losers. With their white faces, lank hair and extensive piercings they are still more likely to be laughed at than physically attacked. The other British goths in the news this year were the couple who were kicked off a bus in West Yorkshire because one was holding the other by a dog lead, which gave the papers a good giggle.
Yet time and again we hear that for all the violent music and horror imagery, they couldn't be a more mild-mannered and peaceful bunch. If the sympathetic public reaction to the Sophie Lancaster case is anything to go by, we know who the real losers are.
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