Awesome Story
Author: Ken Gaub
At the time I was driving on 1-75 near Dayton, Ohio, with my wife and children. We turned off the highway for a rest and refreshment stop. My wife, Barbara, and children went into the restaurant. I suddenly felt the need to stretch my legs, so waved them off ahead saying I’d join them later.
I bought a soft drink, and as I walked toward a Dairy Queen, feelings of self pity enshrouded my mind. I loved the Lord and my ministry, but I felt drained, burdened. My cup was empty.
Suddenly, the impatient ringing of a telephone nearby jarred me out of my doldrums. It was coming from a phone booth at a service station on the corner. Wasn’t anyone going to answer the phone? Noise from the traffic flowing through the busy intersection must have drowned out the sound because the service station attendant continued looking after his customers, oblivious to the incessant ringing.
“Why doesn’t somebody answer that phone?” I muttered. I began reasoning. It may be important. What if it’s an emergency? Curiosity overcame my indifference. I stepped inside the booth and picked up the phone.
“Hello,” I said casually and took a big sip of my drink. The operator said: “Long distance call for Ken Gaub.” My eyes widened, and I almost choked on a chunk of ice.
Swallowing hard, I said, “You’re crazy!” Then, realizing I shouldn’t speak to an operator like that, I added, “This can’t be! I was walking down the road, not bothering anyone, and the phone was ringing....”
“Is Ken Gaub there?” the operator interrupted, “I have a long distance call for him.”
It took a moment to gain control of my babbling, but I finally replied, “Yes, he is here.” Searching for a possible explanation, wondered if I could possibly be on Candid Camera!
Still shaken, perplexed, I asked, “How in the world did you reach me here? I was walking down the road, the pay phone started ringing, and I just answered it by chance. You can’t mean me.”
“Well,” the operator asked, “is Mr. Gaub there or isn’t he?”
“Yes, I am Ken Gaub,” I said, finally convinced by the tone of her voice that the call was real.
Then, I heard another voice say, “Yes, that’s him, operator. That’s Ken Gaub.”
I listened dumbfounded to a strange voice identify herself. “I’m Millie from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. You don’t know me, Mr. Gaub, but I’m desperate. Please help me.”
“What can I do for you?”
She began weeping. Finally, she regained control and continued, “I was about to commit suicide, had just finished writing a note, when I began to pray and tell God I really didn’t want to do this. Then, I suddenly remembered seeing you on television and thought if I could just talk to you, you could help me. I knew that was impossible because I didn’t know how to reach you: I didn’t know anyone who could help me find you. Then, some numbers came to my mind, and I scribbled them down.”
At this point she began weeping again, and I prayed silently for wisdom to help her. She continued, “I looked at the numbers and thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I had a miracle from God, and He has given me Ken’s phone number?’ I decided to try calling it. I can’t believe I’m talking to you.
Are you in your office in California?”
I replied, “Lady, I don’t have an office in California. My office is in
Yakima, Washington.”
A little surprised, she asked, “Oh, really, then where are you?”
“Don’t you know?” I responded. “You made the call.”
She explained, “...but I don’t even know what area I’m calling. I just dialed the number that I had on this paper.”
“Ma’am, you won’t believe this, but I’m in a phone booth in Dayton, Ohio!”
“Really?” she exclaimed. “Well, what are you doing there?”
I kidded her gently, “Well, I’m answering the phone. It was ringing as I walked by; so, I answered it.”
Knowing this encounter could only have been arranged by God, I began to counsel the woman. As she told me of her despair and frustration, the presence of the Holy Spirit flooded the phone booth giving me words of wisdom beyond my ability. In a matter of moments, she prayed the sinner’s prayer and met the One who would lead her out of her situation into a new life.
I walked away from that telephone booth with an electrifying sense of our heavenly Father’s concern for each of His children. What were the astronomical odds of this happening? With all the millions of phones and innumerable combinations of numbers, only an all-knowing God could have caused that woman to call that number in that phone booth at that moment in time.
Forgetting my drink and nearly bursting with exhilaration, I headed back to my family, wondering if they would believe my story. “Maybe I had better not tell this,” I thought, but I couldn’t contain it. “Barb, you won’t believe this: God knows where I am!”
“Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.” –Jeremiah 33:3
“Roep My aan, en Ek sal jou antwoord en jou bekend maak groot en ondeurgrondelike dinge wat jy nie weet nie.” –Jeremiah 33:3
Showing posts with label story. Show all posts
Showing posts with label story. Show all posts
Monday, 18 October 2010
Tuesday, 17 August 2010
Agent of Kindness
Spy specializes in acts of kindness
By Daveen Rae Kurutz, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, August 16, 2010
Most Pittsburghers have never met Laura Miller, but her alter ego, “Secret Agent L,” has touched thousands of people by making their days a little brighter.
An administrative assistant by day, Miller, 32, of Shadyside has masqueraded online as a secret agent of kindness since July 2009, documenting the random gifts she and fellow “agents” have left across the region for strangers to find. Gifts have included fresh picked flowers, $10 gift cards to various shops and inexpensive toiletries.
“It’s another good way to let people know that they aren’t alone,” Miller said. “We’re letting people know there’s someone out there who isn’t buying into the anger and the hate and the yuck that is out in the world. We’re making deliberate choices to do what’s good.”
During the past year, what started with a single purple hydrangea on a windshield, turned into a top secret mission that leaves strangers pleasantly surprised across the globe. Through her blog, Miller’s affiliated agents have gone on hundreds of missions of kindness. They return with the tale and photos of what they did to brighten a stranger’s day.
Miller’s first mission last year was completed as a birthday present for a fellow blogger who asked Miller to perform a random act of kindness in lieu of a gift. Once the creative wheels started turning, Miller paired up with coworker and friend Vivian Lee Croft to execute her plan.
Now, Croft is “Agent 99” to Miller’s “Maxwell Smart” and helps her friend devise and carry out new missions. The pair’s favorite was when they visited Allegheny General Hospital during a breast cancer event, leaving dozens of tiny gifts throughout the hospital.
“People don’t see out of their daily box because they’re so bogged down in life,” said Croft, 33, of the North Side. “(The hospital visit) made the importance of doing good things so real to me.”
Since a story on CNN.com shared her secret identity with the world, Miller’s e-mail inbox has been bulging with messages from people who want to help. Her group of agents has increased from 80 to more than 700 and grows every day. Visitors to her website, www.SecretAgentL.com, can sign up to become affiliated agents and be charged with a gift anonymously for someone.
“The thing that makes me the happiest is all the new affiliated agents that want to come on board,” Croft said. “These people now have worth. They feel like they can make a difference, like they matter.”
Miller is amazed at the amount of people who want to carry on her mission.
Each day, she e-mails dozens of “Secret Agent L” business cards for agents to attach to their gifts. Even a year later, she gets a thrill from leaving a $5 gift card or a blooming flower with a note for a stranger to find.
“You don’t need large sums of money to make a difference in someone’s life, you don’t need to be rich, you don’t need to be famous—you just have to care.”
By Daveen Rae Kurutz, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, August 16, 2010
Most Pittsburghers have never met Laura Miller, but her alter ego, “Secret Agent L,” has touched thousands of people by making their days a little brighter.
An administrative assistant by day, Miller, 32, of Shadyside has masqueraded online as a secret agent of kindness since July 2009, documenting the random gifts she and fellow “agents” have left across the region for strangers to find. Gifts have included fresh picked flowers, $10 gift cards to various shops and inexpensive toiletries.
“It’s another good way to let people know that they aren’t alone,” Miller said. “We’re letting people know there’s someone out there who isn’t buying into the anger and the hate and the yuck that is out in the world. We’re making deliberate choices to do what’s good.”
During the past year, what started with a single purple hydrangea on a windshield, turned into a top secret mission that leaves strangers pleasantly surprised across the globe. Through her blog, Miller’s affiliated agents have gone on hundreds of missions of kindness. They return with the tale and photos of what they did to brighten a stranger’s day.
Miller’s first mission last year was completed as a birthday present for a fellow blogger who asked Miller to perform a random act of kindness in lieu of a gift. Once the creative wheels started turning, Miller paired up with coworker and friend Vivian Lee Croft to execute her plan.
Now, Croft is “Agent 99” to Miller’s “Maxwell Smart” and helps her friend devise and carry out new missions. The pair’s favorite was when they visited Allegheny General Hospital during a breast cancer event, leaving dozens of tiny gifts throughout the hospital.
“People don’t see out of their daily box because they’re so bogged down in life,” said Croft, 33, of the North Side. “(The hospital visit) made the importance of doing good things so real to me.”
Since a story on CNN.com shared her secret identity with the world, Miller’s e-mail inbox has been bulging with messages from people who want to help. Her group of agents has increased from 80 to more than 700 and grows every day. Visitors to her website, www.SecretAgentL.com, can sign up to become affiliated agents and be charged with a gift anonymously for someone.
“The thing that makes me the happiest is all the new affiliated agents that want to come on board,” Croft said. “These people now have worth. They feel like they can make a difference, like they matter.”
Miller is amazed at the amount of people who want to carry on her mission.
Each day, she e-mails dozens of “Secret Agent L” business cards for agents to attach to their gifts. Even a year later, she gets a thrill from leaving a $5 gift card or a blooming flower with a note for a stranger to find.
“You don’t need large sums of money to make a difference in someone’s life, you don’t need to be rich, you don’t need to be famous—you just have to care.”
Wednesday, 16 June 2010
A true story....
Suicide watchman saves scores at death spot
AP, 13 June 2010
A former life insurance salesman has "sold life" to scores of people trying to end it all at Australia's most notorious suicide spot.
In nearly 50 years Don Ritchie, 84, has saved at least 160 people at The Gap, a rocky cliff at the entrance to Sydney Harbour--and he is still on suicide watch.
Lost souls who stood atop the cliff, wondering whether to jump, say their salvation was a soft voice breaking the sound of the wind and the waves, asking: "Why don't you come and have a cup of tea?"
And when they turned to the stranger, they say his smile made them want to live.
Mr Ritchie, who lives across the street from The Gap, is widely regarded as a guardian angel who has shepherded countless people away from the edge.
What some consider grim, Mr Ritchie considers a gift.
"You can't just sit there and watch them," he said, perched on his beloved green leather chair, from which he keeps a watchful eye on the cliff outside.
"You gotta try and save them. It's pretty simple."
Since the 1800s, Australians have flocked to The Gap to end their lives, with little more than a 3ft fence separating them from the edge. Local officials say around one person a week commits suicide there and in January, Woollahra Council applied for nearly £1.2 million government funding to build a higher fence and tighten security.
In the meantime, Mr Ritchie keeps up his voluntary watch. The council recently named him and his wife of 58 years, Moya, 2010's Citizens of the Year.
He has saved 160 people, according to the official tally, but that is only an estimate. Mr Ritchie does not keep count but says he has watched far more walk away from the edge than go over it.
Dianne Gaddin likes to believe Mr Ritchie was at her daughter's side before she jumped in 2005. Though he cannot remember now, she is comforted by the idea that Tracy felt his warmth in her final moments.
"He's an angel," she says. "Most people would be too afraid to do anything and would probably sooner turn away and run away. But he had the courage and the charisma and the care and the magnetism to reach people who were coming to the end of their tether."
Each morning, Mr Ritchie climbs out of bed, pads over to the bedroom window of his modest, two-storey home, and scans the cliff. If he spots anyone standing alone too close to the precipice, he hurries to their side.
Some he speaks to are fighting medical problems, others suffering mental illness.
Sometimes, the ones who jump leave behind reminders of themselves on the edge--notes, wallets, shoes. Mr Ritchie once rushed over to help a man on crutches, but by the time he arrived, the crutches were all that remained.
In his younger years, he would occasionally climb the fence to hold people back while his wife called the police. He would help rescue crews haul up the bodies of those who could not be saved and would invite the rescuers back to his house afterwards for a comforting drink.
It nearly cost him his life once. A chilling picture captured decades ago by a local news photographer shows Mr Ritchie struggling with a woman, inches from the edge. The woman is seen trying to launch herself over the side--with Mr Ritchie the only thing between her and the abyss. Had she been successful, he would have gone over too.
These days, he keeps a safer distance. The council installed security cameras this year and the invention of mobile phones means someone often calls for help before he crosses the street.
But he remains available to lend an ear, though he says he never tries to counsel, advise or pry. He just gives them a warm smile, asks if they would like to talk and invites them back to his house for tea. Sometimes, they join him.
By offering compassion, Mr Ritchie helps those who are suicidal think beyond the terrible present moment, says psychiatrist Gordon Parker, executive director of the Black Dog Institute, a mood disorder research centre that has supported the council's efforts to improve safety at The Gap.
"They often don't want to die, it's more that they want the pain to go away," Mr Parker said. "So anyone that offers kindness or hope has the capacity to help a number of people."
AP, 13 June 2010
A former life insurance salesman has "sold life" to scores of people trying to end it all at Australia's most notorious suicide spot.
In nearly 50 years Don Ritchie, 84, has saved at least 160 people at The Gap, a rocky cliff at the entrance to Sydney Harbour--and he is still on suicide watch.
Lost souls who stood atop the cliff, wondering whether to jump, say their salvation was a soft voice breaking the sound of the wind and the waves, asking: "Why don't you come and have a cup of tea?"
And when they turned to the stranger, they say his smile made them want to live.
Mr Ritchie, who lives across the street from The Gap, is widely regarded as a guardian angel who has shepherded countless people away from the edge.
What some consider grim, Mr Ritchie considers a gift.
"You can't just sit there and watch them," he said, perched on his beloved green leather chair, from which he keeps a watchful eye on the cliff outside.
"You gotta try and save them. It's pretty simple."
Since the 1800s, Australians have flocked to The Gap to end their lives, with little more than a 3ft fence separating them from the edge. Local officials say around one person a week commits suicide there and in January, Woollahra Council applied for nearly £1.2 million government funding to build a higher fence and tighten security.
In the meantime, Mr Ritchie keeps up his voluntary watch. The council recently named him and his wife of 58 years, Moya, 2010's Citizens of the Year.
He has saved 160 people, according to the official tally, but that is only an estimate. Mr Ritchie does not keep count but says he has watched far more walk away from the edge than go over it.
Dianne Gaddin likes to believe Mr Ritchie was at her daughter's side before she jumped in 2005. Though he cannot remember now, she is comforted by the idea that Tracy felt his warmth in her final moments.
"He's an angel," she says. "Most people would be too afraid to do anything and would probably sooner turn away and run away. But he had the courage and the charisma and the care and the magnetism to reach people who were coming to the end of their tether."
Each morning, Mr Ritchie climbs out of bed, pads over to the bedroom window of his modest, two-storey home, and scans the cliff. If he spots anyone standing alone too close to the precipice, he hurries to their side.
Some he speaks to are fighting medical problems, others suffering mental illness.
Sometimes, the ones who jump leave behind reminders of themselves on the edge--notes, wallets, shoes. Mr Ritchie once rushed over to help a man on crutches, but by the time he arrived, the crutches were all that remained.
In his younger years, he would occasionally climb the fence to hold people back while his wife called the police. He would help rescue crews haul up the bodies of those who could not be saved and would invite the rescuers back to his house afterwards for a comforting drink.
It nearly cost him his life once. A chilling picture captured decades ago by a local news photographer shows Mr Ritchie struggling with a woman, inches from the edge. The woman is seen trying to launch herself over the side--with Mr Ritchie the only thing between her and the abyss. Had she been successful, he would have gone over too.
These days, he keeps a safer distance. The council installed security cameras this year and the invention of mobile phones means someone often calls for help before he crosses the street.
But he remains available to lend an ear, though he says he never tries to counsel, advise or pry. He just gives them a warm smile, asks if they would like to talk and invites them back to his house for tea. Sometimes, they join him.
By offering compassion, Mr Ritchie helps those who are suicidal think beyond the terrible present moment, says psychiatrist Gordon Parker, executive director of the Black Dog Institute, a mood disorder research centre that has supported the council's efforts to improve safety at The Gap.
"They often don't want to die, it's more that they want the pain to go away," Mr Parker said. "So anyone that offers kindness or hope has the capacity to help a number of people."
Friday, 4 June 2010
Be the one
Be The One: Serve
By John Maxwell, June 1, 2010
In life, it's not what happens to you, but what happens in you and through you that counts. When adversity visits your life, you have two choices: to be a victim or to be a victor. Victims allow circumstances to get them down, and they spend their lives asking others to redress the grievances life has dealt them. Victims are needy and demand to be served. Victors, on the other hand, rise above the challenges they encounter. They rebound from life's hardships with newfound strength, and they use their strength in service of those around them.
Juliette Magill Kinzie Gordon was born in 1860 to a wealthy family in Savannah, Georgia. Far from the typical Southern belle, Juliette was willful and tomboyish, always in search of adventure. She was the type of person never to be caught sitting still; she enjoyed trying new things and traveling new places.
In her mid-twenties, the first of a series of misfortunes struck Juliette. Suffering from chronic earaches, she sought medical care, but doctors mistreated her. As a consequence, Juliette lost the majority of her hearing in one ear. The following year, Juliette was married, but as she and the groom exited the ceremony a grain of rice, tossed by a well-wisher, lodged in her good ear. While attempting to remove the grain, a doctor punctured her eardrum, and Juliette lost hearing in her second ear.
For someone who enjoyed an active lifestyle, deafness could have been devastating, but Juliette persevered. She moved to her husband's estate in England where she became a favorite in social circles. Her humor and vivacity made her a sought-after guest and celebrated hostess.
However, Juliette soon crossed paths with tragedy again. Her husband's alcohol abuse and infidelity contributed to the gradual decline of their relationship, and in the middle of divorce proceedings, Juliette's husband died from a stroke. To make matters worse, he bequeathed his substantial estate to his mistress rather than giving it to Juliette.
Having lost her hearing, her husband, and her home, you would have expected Juliette to feel bitter and victimized. However, at this very point in her life, she chose to serve. Somehow, she moved past her own tragic circumstances to see the good she could do for others.
Having befriended Sir Robin Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts, Juliette became intrigued by the Girl Guides, Britain's sister organization to the Boy Scouts. The Girl Guides program awakened passion in Juliette, reminding her of youthful adventures from days gone by. With the help of Sir Baden-Powell, Juliette returned to the United States with a notion to launch the Girl Scouts.
Over the next 15 years, Juliette devoted her life to pioneering the Girl Scouts of the USA. She founded its inaugural troop, authored its bylaws and handbooks, and solicited its startup funds. Thanks to her tireless recruiting and relentless campaigning, the Girl Scouts program blossomed. The organization was such a source of joy for Juliette that, when diagnosed with cancer, she hid the illness as long as possible in order to continue advancing the scouting movement. While she never had children of her own, by the time of her death Juliette had an "adopted family" of more than 160,000 girl scouts. Her legacy lives on today in the 3.4 million young ladies who belong to local Girl Scout troops in America.
Study may shed light on when it's appropriate to remove wisdom teeth
By Laura Hambleton, The Washington Post, June 1, 2010
Bethesda oral surgeon David Ross studied the X-ray of my 17-year-old daughter's mouth. She had 28 fully grown adult teeth, with long roots, looking pretty straight after a few years of orthodontia. In her upper jaw, though, two errant teeth floated above the rest out of alignment, lurking in the shadows.
"These teeth are completely impacted," said Ross, pointing to where they hid in her upper jaw, to explain his recommendation to pull them. "In this position, they probably aren't going to drop down."
Or they might. And if they do, my daughter would have two perfectly functioning molars at the back of her upper jaw.
But if the teeth don't come through or push through only part way, they might cause problems down the road. Ross showed us the X-ray of a 75-year-old man who left in place a wisdom tooth that was now growing sideways, surrounded by a cyst. The man's jawbone could be in jeopardy, and so the choice was clear: The tooth needed to come out.
For my daughter and me, the decision was not so straightforward. We had to weigh the risks of possibly unnecessary surgery against the advantage of taking the teeth out then, while their roots were less formed and easier to pull, in the hope that she would avoid problems--ranging from infection and damage to adjacent teeth to cysts or even tumors--that might, or might not, happen in the future.
This is the dilemma for those whose wisdom teeth aren't causing them problems.
Dentists often recommend that young people get those teeth pulled, particularly before they head off to college for the first time. Yet, as I discovered when trying to decide what to do with my daughter's two errant teeth, there just aren't any etched-in-stone, must-do rules, good scientific studies or even helpful statistics to indicate when it is reasonable to pull a wisdom tooth and when you can leave it.
A controversial 2007 article in the American Journal of Public Health by retired dentist Jay Friedman likened pulling an asymptomatic wisdom tooth to removing a healthy appendix just to prevent the future possibility of appendicitis. "If there's no evidence to support a surgical procedure, then it should not be done," he said. But others say that there aren't enough data to support that conclusion--or any other at this point.
The National Institutes of Health hopes to fill in some of these statistical and clinical gaps through a study it launched a year ago that is following 750 dental patients in five northwestern states. The study will look at the reasons given by general dentists when they recommend either keeping or pulling third molars and what the patients then decide to do. It will follow those patients for two years after their decision to assess rates of complications, according to Greg Huang, principal investigator for the study and head of the Department of Orthodontics at University of Washington School of Dentistry.
"There isn't any good information about the life cycle of third molars," said Donald DeNucci, a periodontist with NIH'S National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research in Bethesda. "In Great Britain, they have been looking at this closer. They state that if a wisdom tooth has a cavity or is causing swelling of the gum or has periodontal issues, remove it. Then things move into the gray area, where it's not so clear. In Great Britain, the National Health Service now says if impacted wisdom teeth are not causing problems, don't remove them." DeNucci said the NIH study will help oral surgeons and dentists in this country make informed decisions about wisdom teeth based on scientific evidence.
Most people are born with four wisdom teeth, or third molars, which ordinarily begin to come into the mouth between ages 17 and 25. "They are called wisdom teeth, I suppose, because they come in during the late teens and 20s, when a man begins to possess some wisdom," said DeNucci.
Wisdom teeth can become impacted--or trapped in the jawbone, unable to grow above the gum--for a variety of reasons, most commonly for a lack of space or because another tooth is in the way. Or the teeth grow in a skewed manner, sideways in the gum or at a slant toward adjacent teeth.
Chevy Chase dentist Steven Kahan, who has been practicing for 40 years, said: "It is the kind of thing where all of us make a somewhat educated guess. You can't always predict how a tooth will grow. I have one wisdom tooth locked in my upper arch, and it's been there forever. The advice of the oral surgeon when I was in dental school was to leave it alone. I've never had a problem."
Yet it is clear that there can be problems.
"Sometimes a sac forms around a wisdom tooth," said Washington dentist Richard Steinlen, who estimates he has cared for about 4,000 patients a year during his 28-year career. "Mouths are more cyst-prone than other parts of the body. Lots of cysts form around wisdom teeth."
Partially erupted wisdom teeth also create troubles because they are hard to clean, he said. As a result, food can get lodged in the back of the mouth and create a perfect environment for a bacterial infection called pericoronitis, which can cause pressure, pain and swelling. (Antibiotics are often prescribed to treat it.) In addition, partially erupted wisdom teeth are prone to tooth decay.
Thomas Dodson, a professor of oral surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital and author of an April study in the British journal Clinical Evidence that reviewed other studies on impacted wisdom teeth, found that 25 percent of patients who had wisdom teeth without symptoms had periodontal disease on those teeth.
According to Dodson, this shows that the absence of symptoms does not mean the absence of disease. As a result, he said, patients who keep their wisdom teeth should be monitored periodically to assess the health of those teeth.
Often when Dodson tells patients with asymptomatic wisdom teeth that "there are no data" to help them decide whether to pull the teeth, "60 percent elect extraction; 40 percent choose to retain the wisdom teeth and schedule a two-year follow-up visit with me," he said.
Dodson noted that whatever the patient decides, the surgery has become easier.
Still, pulling a wisdom tooth is surgery, and surgery can lead to problems. Wisdom teeth in the upper jaw can be very close to sinuses, which can get perforated during surgery. The lower teeth, meanwhile, lie very close to several nerves; damaging them can cause temporary or even permanent numbness in the lips, tongue or chin.
"But the most common complication is infection," Dodson said, and "that happens one in 20 times. Then there can be postoperative bleeding, nerve injury and a host of rare complications, such as a possible break in the jaw. Dry socket [which occurs when the blood clot that is left after a tooth is pulled dislodges and the bone is exposed] and infection can be as high as one in 20."
By John Maxwell, June 1, 2010
In life, it's not what happens to you, but what happens in you and through you that counts. When adversity visits your life, you have two choices: to be a victim or to be a victor. Victims allow circumstances to get them down, and they spend their lives asking others to redress the grievances life has dealt them. Victims are needy and demand to be served. Victors, on the other hand, rise above the challenges they encounter. They rebound from life's hardships with newfound strength, and they use their strength in service of those around them.
Juliette Magill Kinzie Gordon was born in 1860 to a wealthy family in Savannah, Georgia. Far from the typical Southern belle, Juliette was willful and tomboyish, always in search of adventure. She was the type of person never to be caught sitting still; she enjoyed trying new things and traveling new places.
In her mid-twenties, the first of a series of misfortunes struck Juliette. Suffering from chronic earaches, she sought medical care, but doctors mistreated her. As a consequence, Juliette lost the majority of her hearing in one ear. The following year, Juliette was married, but as she and the groom exited the ceremony a grain of rice, tossed by a well-wisher, lodged in her good ear. While attempting to remove the grain, a doctor punctured her eardrum, and Juliette lost hearing in her second ear.
For someone who enjoyed an active lifestyle, deafness could have been devastating, but Juliette persevered. She moved to her husband's estate in England where she became a favorite in social circles. Her humor and vivacity made her a sought-after guest and celebrated hostess.
However, Juliette soon crossed paths with tragedy again. Her husband's alcohol abuse and infidelity contributed to the gradual decline of their relationship, and in the middle of divorce proceedings, Juliette's husband died from a stroke. To make matters worse, he bequeathed his substantial estate to his mistress rather than giving it to Juliette.
Having lost her hearing, her husband, and her home, you would have expected Juliette to feel bitter and victimized. However, at this very point in her life, she chose to serve. Somehow, she moved past her own tragic circumstances to see the good she could do for others.
Having befriended Sir Robin Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts, Juliette became intrigued by the Girl Guides, Britain's sister organization to the Boy Scouts. The Girl Guides program awakened passion in Juliette, reminding her of youthful adventures from days gone by. With the help of Sir Baden-Powell, Juliette returned to the United States with a notion to launch the Girl Scouts.
Over the next 15 years, Juliette devoted her life to pioneering the Girl Scouts of the USA. She founded its inaugural troop, authored its bylaws and handbooks, and solicited its startup funds. Thanks to her tireless recruiting and relentless campaigning, the Girl Scouts program blossomed. The organization was such a source of joy for Juliette that, when diagnosed with cancer, she hid the illness as long as possible in order to continue advancing the scouting movement. While she never had children of her own, by the time of her death Juliette had an "adopted family" of more than 160,000 girl scouts. Her legacy lives on today in the 3.4 million young ladies who belong to local Girl Scout troops in America.
Study may shed light on when it's appropriate to remove wisdom teeth
By Laura Hambleton, The Washington Post, June 1, 2010
Bethesda oral surgeon David Ross studied the X-ray of my 17-year-old daughter's mouth. She had 28 fully grown adult teeth, with long roots, looking pretty straight after a few years of orthodontia. In her upper jaw, though, two errant teeth floated above the rest out of alignment, lurking in the shadows.
"These teeth are completely impacted," said Ross, pointing to where they hid in her upper jaw, to explain his recommendation to pull them. "In this position, they probably aren't going to drop down."
Or they might. And if they do, my daughter would have two perfectly functioning molars at the back of her upper jaw.
But if the teeth don't come through or push through only part way, they might cause problems down the road. Ross showed us the X-ray of a 75-year-old man who left in place a wisdom tooth that was now growing sideways, surrounded by a cyst. The man's jawbone could be in jeopardy, and so the choice was clear: The tooth needed to come out.
For my daughter and me, the decision was not so straightforward. We had to weigh the risks of possibly unnecessary surgery against the advantage of taking the teeth out then, while their roots were less formed and easier to pull, in the hope that she would avoid problems--ranging from infection and damage to adjacent teeth to cysts or even tumors--that might, or might not, happen in the future.
This is the dilemma for those whose wisdom teeth aren't causing them problems.
Dentists often recommend that young people get those teeth pulled, particularly before they head off to college for the first time. Yet, as I discovered when trying to decide what to do with my daughter's two errant teeth, there just aren't any etched-in-stone, must-do rules, good scientific studies or even helpful statistics to indicate when it is reasonable to pull a wisdom tooth and when you can leave it.
A controversial 2007 article in the American Journal of Public Health by retired dentist Jay Friedman likened pulling an asymptomatic wisdom tooth to removing a healthy appendix just to prevent the future possibility of appendicitis. "If there's no evidence to support a surgical procedure, then it should not be done," he said. But others say that there aren't enough data to support that conclusion--or any other at this point.
The National Institutes of Health hopes to fill in some of these statistical and clinical gaps through a study it launched a year ago that is following 750 dental patients in five northwestern states. The study will look at the reasons given by general dentists when they recommend either keeping or pulling third molars and what the patients then decide to do. It will follow those patients for two years after their decision to assess rates of complications, according to Greg Huang, principal investigator for the study and head of the Department of Orthodontics at University of Washington School of Dentistry.
"There isn't any good information about the life cycle of third molars," said Donald DeNucci, a periodontist with NIH'S National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research in Bethesda. "In Great Britain, they have been looking at this closer. They state that if a wisdom tooth has a cavity or is causing swelling of the gum or has periodontal issues, remove it. Then things move into the gray area, where it's not so clear. In Great Britain, the National Health Service now says if impacted wisdom teeth are not causing problems, don't remove them." DeNucci said the NIH study will help oral surgeons and dentists in this country make informed decisions about wisdom teeth based on scientific evidence.
Most people are born with four wisdom teeth, or third molars, which ordinarily begin to come into the mouth between ages 17 and 25. "They are called wisdom teeth, I suppose, because they come in during the late teens and 20s, when a man begins to possess some wisdom," said DeNucci.
Wisdom teeth can become impacted--or trapped in the jawbone, unable to grow above the gum--for a variety of reasons, most commonly for a lack of space or because another tooth is in the way. Or the teeth grow in a skewed manner, sideways in the gum or at a slant toward adjacent teeth.
Chevy Chase dentist Steven Kahan, who has been practicing for 40 years, said: "It is the kind of thing where all of us make a somewhat educated guess. You can't always predict how a tooth will grow. I have one wisdom tooth locked in my upper arch, and it's been there forever. The advice of the oral surgeon when I was in dental school was to leave it alone. I've never had a problem."
Yet it is clear that there can be problems.
"Sometimes a sac forms around a wisdom tooth," said Washington dentist Richard Steinlen, who estimates he has cared for about 4,000 patients a year during his 28-year career. "Mouths are more cyst-prone than other parts of the body. Lots of cysts form around wisdom teeth."
Partially erupted wisdom teeth also create troubles because they are hard to clean, he said. As a result, food can get lodged in the back of the mouth and create a perfect environment for a bacterial infection called pericoronitis, which can cause pressure, pain and swelling. (Antibiotics are often prescribed to treat it.) In addition, partially erupted wisdom teeth are prone to tooth decay.
Thomas Dodson, a professor of oral surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital and author of an April study in the British journal Clinical Evidence that reviewed other studies on impacted wisdom teeth, found that 25 percent of patients who had wisdom teeth without symptoms had periodontal disease on those teeth.
According to Dodson, this shows that the absence of symptoms does not mean the absence of disease. As a result, he said, patients who keep their wisdom teeth should be monitored periodically to assess the health of those teeth.
Often when Dodson tells patients with asymptomatic wisdom teeth that "there are no data" to help them decide whether to pull the teeth, "60 percent elect extraction; 40 percent choose to retain the wisdom teeth and schedule a two-year follow-up visit with me," he said.
Dodson noted that whatever the patient decides, the surgery has become easier.
Still, pulling a wisdom tooth is surgery, and surgery can lead to problems. Wisdom teeth in the upper jaw can be very close to sinuses, which can get perforated during surgery. The lower teeth, meanwhile, lie very close to several nerves; damaging them can cause temporary or even permanent numbness in the lips, tongue or chin.
"But the most common complication is infection," Dodson said, and "that happens one in 20 times. Then there can be postoperative bleeding, nerve injury and a host of rare complications, such as a possible break in the jaw. Dry socket [which occurs when the blood clot that is left after a tooth is pulled dislodges and the bone is exposed] and infection can be as high as one in 20."
Tuesday, 26 January 2010
This is good, one of my very favorite stories
This is good, one of my very favorite stories
This Is Good
The story is told of a king in Africa who had a close friend with whom he grew up. The friend had a habit of looking at every situation that ever occurred in his life (positive or negative) and remarking, "This is good!"
One day the king and his friend were out on a hunting expedition. The friend would load and prepare the guns for the king. The friend had apparently done something wrong in preparing one of the guns, for after taking the gun from his friend, the king fired it and his thumb was blown off.
Examining the situation, the friend remarked as usual, "This is good!"
To which the king replied, "No, this is not good! Are you making fun of me, or what? I am minus a thumb, it hurts and is bleeding like crazy, and you say it is good? To prison you go and then you can see how ‘good’ it is," and proceeded to send his friend to jail.
About a year later, the king was hunting again in an area that he should have known to stay clear of. Cannibals captured him and took him to their village. They tied his hands, stacked some
wood, set up a stake and bound him to the stake.
As they came near to set fire to the wood, they noticed that the king was missing a thumb. Being superstitious, they never ate anyone who was less than whole. “This is a bad Omen, a bad sign, let’s get rid of him quickly!!” they said. So untying the king, they chasedt him away.
As he was happily running home he looked at his hand with the missing thumb, saying “It is good, my friend was right! This is good!”
As he returned home, he was reminded of the event that had taken his thumb and felt remorse for his treatment of his friend. He went immediately to the jail to speak with his friend.
"You were right," he said, "it was good that my thumb was blown off." And he proceeded to tell the friend all that had just happened. "And so, I am very sorry for sending you to jail for so long.
It was bad for me to do this."
"No," his friend replied, "This is good!"
"What do you mean, 'This is good'?
How could it be good that I sent my friend to jail for a year?"
"If I had not been in jail, I would have been with you and I have both thumbs…." His friend answered.
So remember, “This is good”! Whatever happens is for your good, for all ,
ALL things work together for good to them that love God” (Romans 8:28),
even if at the moment it seems terrible what happened! So you can
“be thankful for everything,” (1 Thessalonians 5:18, Ephesians 5:20 )
because you trust God, that whatever He does, it is for the better,
and He doesn’t let anything happen to you, unless it is somehow good for you….
Just wait and look for the good; and you will see ...
This is good!
This Is Good
The story is told of a king in Africa who had a close friend with whom he grew up. The friend had a habit of looking at every situation that ever occurred in his life (positive or negative) and remarking, "This is good!"
One day the king and his friend were out on a hunting expedition. The friend would load and prepare the guns for the king. The friend had apparently done something wrong in preparing one of the guns, for after taking the gun from his friend, the king fired it and his thumb was blown off.
Examining the situation, the friend remarked as usual, "This is good!"
To which the king replied, "No, this is not good! Are you making fun of me, or what? I am minus a thumb, it hurts and is bleeding like crazy, and you say it is good? To prison you go and then you can see how ‘good’ it is," and proceeded to send his friend to jail.
About a year later, the king was hunting again in an area that he should have known to stay clear of. Cannibals captured him and took him to their village. They tied his hands, stacked some
wood, set up a stake and bound him to the stake.
As they came near to set fire to the wood, they noticed that the king was missing a thumb. Being superstitious, they never ate anyone who was less than whole. “This is a bad Omen, a bad sign, let’s get rid of him quickly!!” they said. So untying the king, they chasedt him away.
As he was happily running home he looked at his hand with the missing thumb, saying “It is good, my friend was right! This is good!”
As he returned home, he was reminded of the event that had taken his thumb and felt remorse for his treatment of his friend. He went immediately to the jail to speak with his friend.
"You were right," he said, "it was good that my thumb was blown off." And he proceeded to tell the friend all that had just happened. "And so, I am very sorry for sending you to jail for so long.
It was bad for me to do this."
"No," his friend replied, "This is good!"
"What do you mean, 'This is good'?
How could it be good that I sent my friend to jail for a year?"
"If I had not been in jail, I would have been with you and I have both thumbs…." His friend answered.
So remember, “This is good”! Whatever happens is for your good, for all ,
ALL things work together for good to them that love God” (Romans 8:28),
even if at the moment it seems terrible what happened! So you can
“be thankful for everything,” (1 Thessalonians 5:18, Ephesians 5:20 )
because you trust God, that whatever He does, it is for the better,
and He doesn’t let anything happen to you, unless it is somehow good for you….
Just wait and look for the good; and you will see ...
This is good!
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