humanity
Advocates, icons, influencers, and more. All about humanity.
The big C
Anna is sitting in the waiting room and is reading a story about how the C word has the world in its grip. She gets confused for a second. 2020 is the year of the coronavirus for most of us, but for Anna it has been the year of the actual big C, cancer, and the chemo that followed. It's been over 4 months ago that she was diagnosed and there's no end in sight yet.
Barbara van de SandePublished about 15 hours ago in Longevity
Filled With Forget
My Author is forgetful. I don't mean forgetting where they put their keys, or a relatives birthday. I mean who they are, and what they've done from hour to hour, or sometimes less than that. I have large gaps in my own memory as a result; blocks of days where I don't know if my Author is alive or well. I've become used to being the nondescript, little black book, milling about with musty hats and bent umbrellas in a lost and found box, waiting to be claimed for the umpteenth time.
Chris GreenPublished about 19 hours ago in Longevity
The Swine Flu Cruise & the Catalina Golf Buggy Mixer!
A year into this current pandemic (Feb 2021) I'd actually worked through another less deadly one back in 2009/10 on the Star. Handover had been completed and I was about to start my first cruise as acting senior videograper on a 7 day Mexico cruise roundtrip from LA, having spent 3 months bringing up the numbers on the same run on the Sapphire I was fairly confident that if I'd did everything the same this first cruise on the Star we'd hit our video target and I'd make a good first impression.
Neil GregoryPublished 4 days ago in Longevity
I Am Wrecked
I Am Wrecked/Here's a Pep Talk by Louis De Lauro Sadly, I am suffering from a severe flare of Ulcerative Colitis and I am wrecked.
louis De LauroPublished 5 days ago in Longevity
The Magick of My Little Black Book
I don’t recall the day I found out I had cancer, I think the trauma was so intense that I blanked out, lost all memory. It’s amazing what you experience, when you discover you have an inoperable walnut sized tumor growing in your brain.
AlessandraPublished 6 days ago in Longevity
Christmas Day Miracle
Well, here is a Christmas Miracle for you and quite telling of the year 2020 has been for all of us. It is the true story of how I nearly died and suffocated to death on Christmas Day, December 25th, 2020.
Rosemary MartinPublished 6 days ago in LongevityVain Bequest
It was early Monday morning and the sun had not yet risen. It was Russell’s first day of his new scheduled time at DaVita Dialysis. He requested the change in time so he could possibly return to a somewhat normal life. The three hour stints each trip to dialysis lasted made it difficult to keep a normal schedule when they occurred in the middle of the day. Suddenly, his phone began to ring.
Russell RolfePublished 6 days ago in LongevityAnswered Prayer
When I was married to my first husband, Steve, I never tired of hearing his mother's story about the day she and the skill of a surgeon saved Steve's life. It was 1952. They were returning from a ball-game in St. Louis. Steve was sitting on her lap in the front seat. A car coming from the other direction hit them head-on. When the cars initially hit, Steve was thrown threw the windshield. The cars spun around and hit again. This time, Steve was thrown back into the broken glass of the windshield. He was seven years old. His mother had the presence of mind to apply pressure to the huge gash in his neck with towels they had in the car. An ambulance came and Steve was rushed to a hospital in St Charles (a St Louis suburb). When the surgeon, Dr Newbauser, first examined Steve, he offered little hope. Steve had lost so much blood. Dr. Newbauser elected to clamp the gash in Steve's neck at that time and began giving Steve plasma. Dr. Newbauser was encouraged because Steve began to "pink-up." The next morning, Dr. Newbauser performed delicate surgery, repairing the damage to Steve's neck. Steve's jugular vein had been spared by tenths of an inch.
Toni ComptonPublished 6 days ago in LongevityMemories
02/02/2019 I’ve been slowly losing my memories and Dr. Louis has suggested that keeping a journal might help me hold on to more of them. So, I got mum to get me this small black notebook. I know I need to write something, but I’m not sure what I’m meant to write. Maybe this is good enough?
Daniel IskanderPublished 6 days ago in Longevity
5 Lessons on How to Live –
About 15 years ago, I experienced a dangerous combination of existential crisis and the Dark Night of the Soul. No meaning in life and no God to comfort me. I was running from life - not to it and there’s a huge difference. I was angry. As the southern saying goes, “I was losing my religion;” at the end of my rope. Volunteering in hospice care beckoned. After all, I was dying. Not in a literal sense but in a major psychological and emotional way. Who better to commiserate with and where better to hide from the world than amongst those who were on the same trajectory? It turns out that living with the dying saved me. Through this experience, I learned how to live, to shed cloaks of darkness, to see the value of time, and to understand priorities. Though it was my experience, this is their story. These are some of the lessons they shared. I distilled them to the five most important.
Francesca Flood, Ed.D.Published 7 days ago in LongevityWays that the mind works
It's an unfamiliar feeling when you wake up from 9 hours of surgery, to have the 'dark passanger' in your head. I know this might not make sense just yet, but it will once you see who 'they' are.
Will Life Return to Normal?
In February of 2020, I hosted a Super Bowl Party, chaperoning a van load of teenagers. While most of them chatted and hung out in the arcade of Incredible Pizza, dropping quarters in video games and winning tickets, I sipped on Sprite, munched on pizza and watched my beloved Kansas City Chiefs win the Super Bowl. Although Covid-19 had arrived in the United States, I in no way anticipated a national quarantine. And to even consider a global shutdown bordered on insanity. But, here we are, almost a year later, and restrictions continue to throttle the economy and hamper the public's ability to return to a semblance of normalcy. Is "normal" life a thing of the past?
