Are you sleeping, are you sleeping sister SD?

As the days have gotten longer my sleep has gotten shorter and so I resorted to taking some Ambien every couple weeks if I have a stretch of three hours or less of sleep each night. On one of those night I took 1/2 tab of Ambien, I curled up to sleep and as usual slipped my cell phone under my pillow. I woke up refreshed in the morning and went to work. It was a half day at work and I was going to enjoy the glorious afternoon by pampering myself with a hair dressers appointment.

I left work at midday and as I was walking out I checked my missed call and messages. I noticed that I picked up a call a little bit after midnight. I didn't remember talking to anyone so I texted messaged the caller to verify this fact. The text came back yes I talked to you last night but you sounded out of it. WT fudgecakes! I scrolled down to my text messages and I also had sent a couple text messages out while I was asleep. I freaked out and wondered what else I did while being medicated but thank God there wasn't anything else.

I promised myself I won't take those pills unless it is absolutely necessary. I can do certain things to help me get to sleep. Listening to Quran does it for me, working out and then taking a hot shower right before bed, drinking some warm cocoa and reading. I can also take away the distractions from my bed like my computer and phone. I don't believe in TV watching so I don't have one in my bedroom thank God. Hopefully all these measures will lead me to a sleep induced state that doesn't require a chemical cocktail in my body.

I wonder what other things people can do to fall asleep?

Perfect Private Parts

Thursday evening as I was catching up on my recorded shows, I noticed a program running on BBC America. The title intrigued me enough to postpone my DVR viewing. I snuggled into my blanket a little bit as I berated myself for cleaning up my dinner plate at BELLA. The show was a documentary about cosmetic surgery that women want performed on their private parts due to self esteem issues. The show was hosted by a middle aged lady with two children. She followed a young girl as she set out to have the surgery performed. Asked why the young girl felt a need to have the surgery performed she mentioned that her mates laughed at her and her sister telling her potential boyfriend that she was a little lippy down there. She felt that perhaps if she thinned out her labia she would be more confident. This young lady didn't even go to her doc to have pap smears due to her feelings of disgust for her private parts. The camera follows her into the one day surgery room whereby she is given a local numbing agent as she braces herself for the knife. The surgery takes a few minutes and the young lady leaves to tend to her wounds at home. The surgeon informs the host the he performs between 10-15 surgeries of the labia per month.

Next the lady goes to some sculptor who is casting women's private parts in order to show the variations. She is hoping that this helps dissuade young girls from going under the knife all to gain a 'designer p****' . The host gets her private parts cast. The host sends one of interviewees to get her private part cast in hopes that she will not decide to have surgery. It works with the woman and she realizes she is not in any need of surgery and she actually is overcome emotionally. The host then heads off to interview an alternative therapy practitioner. In therapy apparently women are made to look at themselves and perhaps have a one on one confrontation with their private parts. Its a bizarre session and almost borders on new agey to me. Another interviewee ends up going with the host to the alternative therapy session. This young woman seems to have some issues with how she looks like down there and is presumably at peace with herself at the end of the session.

The coup de grace for me was when the whole issue of hymenoplasty. This issue brought up the subject of religious as well as cultural beliefs that are close to home. Women in our culture are judge on the purity during the wedding night. In the documentary a muslim girl is frantic to get the surgery so to hide the fact that she is not a virgin from her parents as well as her bethroed. The host ask a young indian/paki man if he expects to marry a virgin and he adamantly said that there was no way he would marry anything other than a virgin even though he might not be expected to be a virgin himself. Its a double standard that most women have to deal with. The host is overcome with tears as she notes that western women pride themselves for their sexual liberation and here they were chopping their bits all because they felt inferior to images that men have of them.

"Its all about presentation ain't it. When I have a meal I wouldn't like it to look like its being slapped together would I?" exclaimed a painter. All in all I knew about hymenoplasty for a while and used to think women were dumb even to undergo that since the hymen is cartilaginous tissue that can break by the simple act of riding a bike/camel/horse. Women are made differently Mashallah and some women can be married and still have their hymen intact. Its an odd world when a woman worth is judged by things beyond her control.

Xcruciating pain

I once broke my wrist bones and refused categorically to take pain meds. I dealt with the pain. I strained ligaments in my ankle and hobbled my way up the gangplank of a ship and through an airport with a heavy backpack. I didn't whimper then, but now I did something to my MCL and every time I climb into my car I scream in pain. When someone bumped into me at work I laughed with pain.

It is unbearable, nerve raking pain. I take my anti-inflammatory tabs and ice my knee when I get home but I almost feel like hacking the goddamn leg off. The doc asked me if I wanted pain meds and I resolutely refused, now I wish I had taken them. Turning in my sleep makes my nerves ring out the alarm bells.

How do these athletes do this? I swear if someone intentionally tackled me at a football game and caused this much pain I would probably hunt them down and cause them as much pain. Instead my dislocated patella and subsequently MCL injury was caused by testing out a MATTRESS. Yea, I know dumb but it happened. I just wish this doc would hurry up and see me and give me an answer as to how I am to survive and heal. Gosh, my body is giving up on me already.

Be kind to your body parts you never know what it means to function without it. I miss stretching my leg languorously while reading my books.

World's AIDS day

December first marks the one day the world set aside for one of the deadliest epidemic; AIDS. I would like an opportunity to highlight a program that President Bush heralds as one of the success of his presidency Presidential Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief - commonly known as PEPFAR.

This program was launched in 2003 and its aim was to provide treatment to two million people (afflicted with HIV) in 15 focus countries. 13 out of the fifteen countries are in Africa.

....... In FY2007, PEPFAR-supported programs reached 57.6 million people with support for prevention of sexual transmission using the ABC approach (Abstain, Be faithful, correct and consistent use of Condoms). The U.S. Government (USG) has supplied nearly 1.9 billion condoms worldwide from 2004 through 2007 — as Dr. Peter Piot of UNAIDS has said, more than all other developed countries combined. From FY2004 through FY2007, PEPFAR has supported prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) for women during more than 10 million pregnancies. For PMTCT clients who have been found to be HIV-positive, antiretroviral prophylaxis has been provided in over 827,000 pregnancies, preventing an estimated 157,000 infant HIV infections. With Emergency Plan support, focus countries have scaled up their safe blood programs, and 11 of them can now meet more than half of their annual demand for safe blood — up from just four when PEPFAR started.

PEPFAR has supported HIV counseling and testing for over 33 million people to date, and supported care for more than 6.6 million people infected or affected by HIV/AIDS, including 2.7 million orphans and vulnerable children. Through September 2007, PEPFAR partnerships have supported antiretroviral treatment (ART) for approximately 1.45 million men, women, and children — approximately 1.36 million of whom live in 15 PEPFAR focus countries, and over 1.33 million of whom are in sub-Saharan Africa. Illustrating the broader effect of treatment, PEPFAR treatment support is estimated to save nearly 3.2 million adult years of life through September 2009, and many more beyond that time frame. These additional years of life are ones in which people can play their vital roles as parents, teachers, or caregivers......... (PEPFAR)

It is common place for people to make fun of Bush's presidency but with an initiative that has such results I will give credit where credit is due. Whether this program will continue to flourish and help in easing the burden of many AIDS/HIV afflicted families in the Africa is yet to be seen, but for now it seem to be accomplishing what it set out to do.

We can all do our part to commemorate World's AIDS day by increasing awareness of this deadly virus. More so in our culture where it is taboo to talk about anything sexual. Many of our teenagers and adults practice unprotected sex cocooned in the firm belief that none of us could be a carrier of the virus. It is a childish assumption and instead of sticking our head in the sand pretending that sexual encounters don't happen in our circles, we should instead seek to spread the ABCs of AIDS; encouraging abstinence, being faithful, and using condoms, with abstinence as the only sure way to avoid the sexual transmission of HIV/AIDS.