SAOIRSE

BBC

The dog clung to the front of the car for almost 60 miles

A dog is recovering after managing to cling to the grille of a car for almost 60 miles.

The dog travelled all the way from Coleraine to Belfast, wedged in the front of a Peugeot 306.

The driver thought he had struck something on the dual carriageway outside Coleraine after hearing a thud, but when he saw nothing on the road, he continued unaware of his “passenger”.

It was only when he got out at the Odyssey Arena in Belfast that he heard a barking sound coming from the front bonnet.

After such an ordeal, the dog was understandibly grumpy, and this attitude has earned him the nickname Father Jack, in honour of the cantankerous priest in the sitcom Father Ted.

Jack was not wearing a collar, which has complicated matters for staff at the Earlswood Veterinary Hospital in east Belfast who are trying to trace his owners.

Veterinary nurse Emma McGowan said the dog was still obviously traumatised by his ordeal.

“When Father Jack was brought in to us, amazingly his injuries were rather minor. He has a bit of pain in his back and neck, but he has no fractures or ruptured diaphragm,” she said.

“We found this quite amazing because he travelled all that way on the grille of a car on a wintry night.

“He was quite hypothermic when he came in. We warmed him up and he’s been here recuperating ever since.”

Despite receiving lots of care at the surgery, the vets say that Jack needs to go home.

They have appealed to his owner, or anyone who knows anything about him to contact the surgery.

Whoever runs this site decided to hide all the posts I see. I just found out this. If you click on a monthly archive link, you will get this link, which brings you right back to this page. It looks like this:

http://saoirse.blogs.ie/?m=200509

If you take your cursor and delete the question mark and the ‘=m’, you can actually see the posts, the link will work.

Try it: http://saoirse.blogs.ie/200509

You Blogs.ie people are WEIRD.

This has been my blog for several years. I have many posts on it. I can see them from the editing standpoint. They come up. The text is there. I re-post, but nowhere does this blog display them–just these poor posts on the front page.

I go to the forum to ask why, but all that is there is spam. Tis like the whole place has been abandoned. It is shameful. I know that Blogs.ie is not totally defunct, but what is going on?

I will just go back and re-post all my entries. :-p

Click photo to visit site

Irish Examiner

By Neans McSweeney, South-East Correspondent
29 May 2006

A GREYHOUND which had its ears hacked off by brutes who wanted to hide her identity has become a celebrity of sorts.

Click photo to view and read ‘Waterford Today’ article

Two-year-old Aoife was found abandoned, terrified and with blood spilling from her head near Tramore, Co Waterford, in March. Her ears were cut off to remove tattoos which would identify her and her owners.

But with the love and care of Waterford Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (WSPCA) welfare officer Andrew Quinn, vets and his volunteers, Aoife has come along leaps and bounds.

Her progress, as mapped by the Irish Examiner, has touched the hearts of so many people that get well cards, many of them packed with money, have flooded in from well-wishers all over the country.

The ‘Aoife Fund’ at the WSPCA has now hit the €2,000 mark.

Mr Quinn said: “We had one particularly touching card from a playschool in Kerry. The children made the card and signed it.

“They also all brought in e1 each and sent us along €15 which has helped with Aoife’s care. We are hoping to be able to arrange to bring Aoife to the school soon so she can meet the children.

“The response from the public, from as far away as Dublin and Donegal, Galway and Cavan has been nothing short of amazing. We’ve never seen anything like it.”

Aoife is now up to her recommended weight and the scars where her ears were cut off are mending.

“Long-term, Aoife may need more surgery. But at the moment, the advice from our vets is that she is hearing and does not need more surgery.”

Mr Quinn said Aoife is “really happy” now.

Bord na gCon has taken DNA samples to narrow down the litter from which Aoife came. In the meantime, she remains in the care of WSPCA.

Mr Quinn said she is eligible for re-homing.

“We’ve have hundreds of offers, even from as far away as the UK. She will make a loving pet for someone and will enjoy long years lounging on their couch.”

Get well wishes can be sent to Aoife at the ISPCA office at Summerland Square, Yellow Road, Waterford. Alternatively people can ring (051) 841432.

BreakingNews.ie

13/05/2006 - 09:05:55

Some 42 sick youngsters from the south west were today heading to EuroDisney Paris on a trip organisers say is just what the doctor ordered.

The children from Kerry, Cork city and county and Tipperary, many of whom have spent time in hospital this year, will travel to France for the weekend.

Breda Chandler, chairwoman for the Cork city hospitals children’s club, revealed around 5,000 children are treated each year at Cork University Hospital.

“While their stay is usually relatively short – two-and-a-half-days on average – children are usually only brought to hospital when they are very sick,” she said.

“Going to EuroDisney is just what the doctor ordered for many of them, especially those who have had a particularly difficult year.

“A trip like this is a real boost for them, a chance to show them that although they’ve been sick, that they can still have lots of fun.”

The money for the break was raised by the children’s Club and the Kinsale & District Lion’s Club.

This annual EuroDisney trip will include not only sick children from Cork University Hospital, but also from the Cork Association for the Deaf, the Mercy University Hospital and the South Infirmary Victoria University Hospital.

“We’re delighted that this event is expanding to include more children than in previous years,” said event co-ordinator John Looney.

BN.ie

01/05/2006 - 14:49:05

The Empire State Building celebrates its 75th birthday today.

Click on the pic to take a virtual tour of the Empire State Building

The iconic skyscraper is New York’s tallest building, soaring more than a quarter of a mile above the heart of Manhattan.

Since opening in 1931 during America’s Great Depression after being constructed in just 13 months, it has seen almost 110 million visitors.

In all, it has 102 floors, but tourists stop at the 86th floor observation deck, at 1,050 feet, to marvel at the panoramic views across the city and beyond.

The tower, which was in the headlines last week after a stuntman attempted to parachute from it, has a total of 1,860 steps and is struck by lightning 100 times a year.

It has been immortalised on the big screen numerous times, famously being captured on celluloid in the 1933 King Kong film. The observation deck was also the location where Cary Grant waited in vain for Deborah Kerr in An Affair To Remember, and where Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan had their fateful meeting in Sleepless In Seattle.

It was the world’s tallest building for 40 years, until the World Trade Centre was built.

Since the destruction of the twin towers in the September 11 attacks, it is New York City’s highest structure again.

The Empire State Building’s construction provided jobs for more than 3,000 workers during a time of great unemployment, although 14 immigrant workers were killed during the operation.

Its spire was originally planned as a mooring point for airships, an idea which was swiftly branded dangerous and abandoned.

Different multicoloured lighting schemes are often used on the upper tier of the building to celebrate events such as Valentine’s Day and July 4.

Today the floodlights will be plain white in a recreation of the tower’s appearance on the day it first opened for business.

BBC

Ginger is well known for its health benefits

Ginger may help to fight ovarian cancer, US scientists believe.

University of Michigan researchers announced at the American Association of Cancer Research that tests show ginger kills cancer cells.

The study also found that the spice had the added benefit of stopping the cells from becoming resistant to treatment.

But UK cancer experts said that, while ginger may in the future form a basis of a new drug, more research was needed to corroborate the findings.

Ginger is already known to ease nausea and control inflammation, but the findings by the US team offer cancer patients new hope.

Researchers used ginger powder, similar to that sold in shops, which they dissolved in a solution and applied to ovarian cancer cells.

They found it caused the cells to die in all the tests done.

But it was the way in which the cells died which offered even more hope. The tests demonstrated two types of death - apoptosis, which is essentially cell suicide, and autophagy, a kind of self-digestion.

Report author Rebecca Liu said: “Most ovarian cancer patients develop recurrent disease that eventually becomes resistant to standard chemotherapy, which is associated with apoptosis.

“If ginger can cause autophagic cell death in addition to apoptosis, it may circumvent resistance to conventional chemotherapy.”

The researchers warned the results were very preliminary and they plan to test whether they can obtain similar results in animal studies.

Side-effects

But they added the appeal of ginger was that it would have virtually no side-effects and would be easy to administer as a capsule.

Henry Scowcroft, science information officer for Cancer Research UK, said previous research had shown that ginger extract can stop cancer cell growing so it was possible that ginger could form the basis of a new drug.

But more work was needed before firm conclusions could be drawn, he added.

“This study doesn’t mean that people should dash down to the supermarket and stockpile ginger.

“We still don’t know whether ginger, in any form, can prevent or treat cancers in animals or people.”

Belfast Telegraph

By Jeremy Laurance
28 March 2006

New research suggesting that vitamin C can be effective in curing cancer will renew interest in the “alternative” treatment for the terminal disease.

Three cancer patients who were given large intravenous doses over a period of several months had their lives extended and their tumours shrunk, doctors reported yesterday.

A 49-year-old man diagnosed with terminal bladder cancer in 1996 was still alive and cancer-free nine years later, having declined chemotherapy and radiotherapy in favour of regular infusions of vitamin C.

A 66-year-old woman with an aggressive lymphoma who had a “dismal prognosis” in 1995 was similarly treated and is still alive 10 years later. A 51-year-old woman with kidney cancer that spread to her lungs diagnosed in 1995 had a normal chest X-ray two years later. The findings were confirmed by pathologists. Although they do not prove the vitamin cured the cancer they do increase the “clinical plausibility” of the idea, the researchers say.

Vitamin C therapy was first promoted by Linus Pauling, the Nobel prize winner, 30 years ago. Dr Pauling’s claims sparked the continuing boom in sales of vitamin C, but attempts to confirm his findings failed and high-dose vitamin C became an “alternative” therapy.

The latest study, published in the Canadian Association’s Medical Journal, could trigger renewed interest in Dr Pauling’s claims. Studies show that vitamin C is toxic to some cancer cells but not to normal cells. The problem has been delivering a high enough dose.

The researchers say attempts to replicate Dr Pauling’s work failed because they used oral doses of the drug which is rapidly excreted. However, injections achieve blood levels 25 times higher that persist for longer. At these very high doses, the blood level of vitamin C is high enough to selectively kill cancer cells.

Several clinical trials of vitamin C therapy are about to start, including one at McGill University, Montreal, the authors say.

My ‘net mate’ from 20six, Al from The Alan Benefit Diaries (which you should definitely read if you appreciate fine writing talent - and start from >>the beginning) turned me on to this link from the Independent on the impact the internet has on people going through soul-shattering trials and crises. In this article, the writer gains solace from a group of parents experiencing the same ordeal with their children; however, the premise this story is based on applies and is pertinent to many different situations an individual goes through in this life. Whereas formerly we might have viewed ourselves as lost and lonely in a universe of indifference, the net has the tendency to globalise our experience and prove to us that we are not alone and that we don’t have to suffer by ourselves.

Click to view - Map of the Internet from The Opte Project

Internet ‘families’ provide support for parents with sick children

By Niki Shisler
14 March 2006
The Independent

Sometimes, when you’re least expecting it, life throws you a curve-ball. A little under eight years ago, after a period of peaceful stability, my own life somersaulted into chaos. I had been in recovery from alcoholism for a couple of years and, after great effort, had finally got my life back on to an even keel. My son Joey was 11; I was newly married to my soulmate, Danny; we had bought our first house together and, best of all, I had a new daughter, Evie, who was turning out to be a dream baby. My alcoholic rock bottom had been as grim as these things usually are, so having turned my life around so spectacularly felt like a real achievement. After years of misery and darkness I was, at last, standing in the sunlight.

Then, with Evie just three months old, I fell pregnant again - this time with twins. It is safe to say that the idea of having three babies in a year didn’t exactly fill me with delight. Suddenly this perfect little life that I’d struggled so hard to build was in danger of being shattered. I was still locked into the intense love affair with Evie that a mother has with her newborn; these two new babies felt like intruders, stealing me away from their sister before either of us was ready.

As the weeks passed I became increasingly alarmed by this sudden expansion of my family. How would my body cope? How would I be able to go out alone with three babies? Did they even make triple buggies? I worried about our finances, and I worried that my sweet little Evie would be permanently scarred by the inevitable battle for attention with her siblings. No matter how hard I tried to remain positive, nothing seemed to help.

In the end it was Danny who found the solution. He went online and signed me up for a support group, Twins List. That night, I sat and poured all the weight in my heart out into the ether.

I don’t know what I expected the result to be, but I woke to find dozens of e-mails from women all around the world telling me that they understood. I was astonished; letter after letter recounted experiences that paralleled my own. I learnt that my fears, misgivings, guilt and even anger were ” normal”; even some of those who had conceived after years of heartbreaking fertility treatment found themselves shocked by a wave of negative feelings. Most importantly, each letter, without exception, promised me that these fears would pass; and that, by the time my babies were born, I would be more than ready to love them.

I soon slipped into the daily banter of the group. Virtual communities are similar to physical ones in many ways; they have in-crowds and popularity queens, wise “elders”, try-hards, eccentrics and clowns; they also have rules, both explicit and implicit; in-jokes and, inevitably, conflict. There were also, I found, real parallels with the 12-step groups I had been involved in: the principle of anonymity in both kinds of groups allowed for a degree of intimacy to develop that was unmatched in most real-world communities. At a time when we are less likely to know our actual neighbours, these virtual communities have blossomed, as though fulfilling some fundamental need for casual friendships and group identity. As my pregnancy advanced and I became unimaginably vast, my anxieties about the twins melted away, just as I had been told they would, and I began to prepare for the birth with mounting excitement.

On 12 April 1999, Theo William Shisler and Felix Samuel Shisler arrived and suddenly everything changed. The twins were born with a mystery illness and, instead of the mountains of nappies and sleeplessness I was expecting, I found myself catapulted into the twilight zone of the neonatal intensive care unit. It is not unusual for twins to need a bit of extra help in the early days, usually due to prematurity (which was clearly not the issue for my full-term babies), and my virtual friends were quick to offer support and reassurance that we would all be home together soon enough. But, as days grew into weeks and then months, Felix and Theo looked no closer to being discharged. Danny and I were almost numb with shock; it felt as though we had been accidentally dropped into the wrong life, surreal.

To call the next few months a roller-coaster in no way does justice to the nausea-inducing highs and lows of the ride. The boys were ferried between University College Hospital (where they had been born) and Great Ormond Street, where they underwent a bewildering array of tests and treatments (including having feeding tubes inserted when it became apparent they were unable to swallow). I focused on putting one foot in front of the other, coping with one day at a time, and at night I would sit at the computer and pour out my frustration and fear to the mothers who, despite the fact that I had never met them, felt by now like dear and trusted friends. Around the world, thousands of strangers shared our triumphs, struggled with our setbacks, and did what friends do - they were there for us. Each day I would awake to find another batch of e-mails offering encouragement, reassurance and love; and each day I drew enormous strength from them. After one particularly rough patch, the group secretly clubbed together and bought me a rocking-chair “to rock the babies in” when I finally brought them home. I was overwhelmed with love and gratitude.

The babies themselves were gorgeous, though, and, despite my misgivings at the start of the pregnancy, I was utterly won over by their charm. Their physical similarity was startling - even I had difficulty telling them apart on occasions - but their personalities could not have been more different. Felix, the younger by two minutes, was a feisty little thing and incredibly sociable. He was also strong-willed, and you could see in his eyes that he was a fighter. Theo, on the other hand, was an altogether more peaceful soul. He had an air of serenity about him that everyone noticed and, while Felix liked to be in the thick of the action, Theo was happy to watch from the sidelines. Separately they were charming; together they were completely irresistible. They slept together in one big hospital cot, snuggled up and holding hands and I was glad that they had each other for the times when I couldn’t be with them.

Felix and Theo had been beset by chest infections and various bugs since day one but, seven months after their birth, both boys picked up a particularly vicious virus and Theo, always the weaker of the two, was finally beaten. He died at 5am one Saturday morning aged seven months and one day. At the hospital I held his still-warm, silent little body in my arms, trying to find a way to say goodbye to my son; and I felt, really felt, my heart break.

Back at home I sat at the computer and tried to find words to tell the world that Theo had gone. It had been so unexpected; we knew there was a problem with the twins, but we had never really considered the idea that they might not make it. Denial, I suppose, and probably not a bad thing either, but it all added to the sense of bewilderment.

The response to this terrible news was extraordinary: I received hundreds of e-mails within the space of a few hours. The shock was palpable. All around the world, people who had never met my son sat at their computers and wept. Felix and Theo’s story had unfolded so publicly; many told me that reading the daily update on the babies was the first thing they did each morning. Danny opened a condolences book online and, over the next few days, the messages poured in. Though nothing could ease the pain of our loss, knowing that Theo’s short life had touched so many people, that he had mattered in the world, made that pain a little easier to bear. As we held his funeral in London, my online community took their own children out and released white balloons into the sky, so that “Theo would have something to play with in heaven”.

I stayed around the twins list for a while. I felt so bonded to the group and, naturally, they were still keen to follow Felix’s progress. I promised that I would stay until we got him home, while silently praying that he would make it. At nine months he was diagnosed with a severe form of nemaline myopathy, a rare neuromuscular disorder. Though cognitively normal, Felix’s muscles were weak; swallowing, breathing, sitting and moving would be a struggle for him. He was given a tracheostomy in preparation for a life on a ventilator.

Once we had a diagnosis, we turned a corner and started to plan the system that would support Felix at home. He was finally discharged from hospital aged 18 months.

Leaving the group felt like another loss, another step away from Theo and ” the twins”. My virtual friends told me I was welcome to stay, but it was time to move on. I had, by now, connected with some other groups online for nemaline myopathy and disability parenting.

What I experienced on the twins list was almost miraculous. Everyone who was there was profoundly affected by it; the public unfolding of our story became a part of the story itself. There was an intimacy that was incredibly powerful even though very few of the participants had ever met. Despite the trauma Danny and I went through, there was something magnificent about the humanity we saw. People, strangers, reaching out with love and compassion; a thousand tiny lights, shining in the darkness.

Helpful sites

Twinslist.org

A discussion site covering all aspects of twins and multiple births, from pregnancy through to the realities of life as an adult twin. Includes information and mailing lists on multiple pregnancy and on bereavement after the loss of one or more twin.

Tamba.org.uk

The website of the Twins and Multiple Births Association and based in the UK (unlike Twins List). Support, resources, information and discussion, including an e-mail group for parents of children with special needs.

Angels4ever.com

A site for those who have lost a baby, with e-mail support groups (including one for loss in multiple birth), chat sessions, memorials and grief resources.

Childbereavement.org.uk

A UK-based site for families who have lost a child, including lots of advice and resources and also the invaluable Families’ Discussion Forum.

Our-kids.org

Covering all aspects of parenting a disabled child, offering advice and resources. Run by parents who, between them, have a wealth of experience and knowledge, it also has a very supportive e-mail group.

Nemaline.org

A support and resources website for anyone seeking information on nemaline myopathy, the rare neuromuscular disorder that affected Felix and Theo Shisler.

Fragile by Niki Shisler is published by Ebury Press, £14.99. To order your copy at the special price of £13.99 plus free p&p call Independent Books Direct on 08700 798 897, or order online at www.independentbooksdirect.co.uk