Help the victims of Typhoon Ondoy in the Philippines

Typhoon Ondoy Brought huge disaster in the Philippines last September 26 2009. Many families were displaced and many lives were loss. Around 250 were dead and expected to increase because many were still missing.

The government and NGO are doing its best to help but its not enough. Many were still in need and they are hoping that they can get donations. They are very helpless and they need your help. Please help the victims of the typhoon Ondoy. The basic needs of human(food shelter and clothing) were none to many families. Lets support them and donate something like canned goods, noodles, and other things that they needed. If you want to donate click the website below.

http://www.redcross.org.ph/
http://www.kapusofoundation.com/
Your help will be very much appreciated.Give them HOPE to start again God bless you.

Story of Hope

My cousin's cancer experience has brought me much hope since I was diagnosed in 1993. I hope this story will bring all who read it as much hope as it has brought me.

"A STORY OF HOPE"

by Lila Jane Givens Miller

"Hope is a thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops at all."-Emily Dickinson

When you are diagnosed with cancer, you go through a myriad of feelings, am I going to live, how long will I live, how bad is it and the list goes on and on. A year before I was diagnosed my mother-in-law had succumbed to breast cancer after battling it for a year. My aunt on my mother's side had been diagnosed a few years before but suffered no ill effects and succumbed from Parkinson's disease and not cancer.

I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1993, then my mother's other sister was diagnosed and then my brother's wife was diagnosed. It was like breast cancer had invaded every aspect of my life. So many thoughts went through my head. I also wondered how could this be, was there any more of it in our family that I did not know about.

Yes, there was, I found out as I began talking with my mother. My maternal great-grandmother had died of breast cancer in the late 1800's before there was much known about cancer at all, much less breast cancer. I found out about other cousins on my mother's side of the family that had also been through the breast cancer experience, one of which was 16 years old at the time but it did not defeat her as she is in her seventies now. But there is one cousin whose story has brought me more hope and inspiration than I can ever imagine for hers is truly what I call a "story of hope". Emma was diagnosed with breast cancer when she was 33 years old. The cancer was in one of her lymph glands, which resulted in a very radical mastectomy. "There was no chemotherapy back then, only the knife," she said. Talking about her cancer is not something that comes easily for her.

"A long time ago people were ashamed," she says. Which is why she said most people died because they "waited too late." Emma said, "I can remember when I went into surgery, there were so many young doctors there to watch the operation." The doctors told her that she was cut so terribly that she was in the hospital for six weeks.

After she had the surgery, there were no follow-up treatments, only a few x-rays. "I didn't heal for eight months and I finally had to go to New Orleans. I could not do anything with my arm. I had it strapped down to my side but it didn't bother me," she says. Emma would not believe the doctors when they told her she would not be able to use her arm again,so she began to exercise the arm herself (and this was long before we had Reach to Recovery volunteers to tell us to exercise our arms).

Her husband helped her to raise her arm every day and she eventually regained use of it. After Emma had the first cancer, another cancer was found in her remaining breast, and she had to have a second mastectomy. So then she had to go through all the fears of cancer again. Some years later her husband died and she was left to raise their sons all alone. Emma has done a little bit of everything from working in the fields, helping run the dairy farm that they owned and finally teaching 4th grade for 40 years. Cancer never got in her way. Emma says that she had an aunt die of cancer and credits that for saving her own life. The aunt that she speaks of is my great-grandmother whom I spoke of earlier in this article. There have been other cancer survivors in her immediate family since. Her granddaughter was a survivor of over 20 years and also two great-granddaughters who have survived melanoma and Hodgkins disease. I am sure her story has given them much hope too. "I know science will find a cure someday" she has said.

Emma is the one that keeps me hopeful year after year since my diagnosis. For what I have saved till now is truly the best part of the story for Emma was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 33 in 1928 and today in 2001, Emma is 106 years of age and a 73-year Breast Cancer Survivor.

A story of hope? Yes, I would say so, wouldn't you?

UPDATE TO MY STORY OF HOPE: On September 17, 2001, Emma died at the age of 106 and 4 1/2 months. She was ready to go and did not suffer, she just slipped quietly away. Yes, Emma is gone now, but she will continue to be my hope for the future for all my days. Emma has now become an Angel of Hope for all breast cancer survivors. May she rest in eternal peace.

source: http://www.nfcr.org/TakeAction/TellUsYourStory/AStoryofHope/tabid/160/Default.aspx

HOPE QUOTES

We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope. -- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Never talk defeat. Use words like hope, belief, faith, victory. -- Norman Vincent Peale

Practice hope. As hopefulness becomes a habit, you can achieve a permanently happy spirit. -- Norman Vincent Peale

Hope is always available to us. When we feel defeated, we need only take a deep breath and say, "Yes," and hope will reappear. -- Monroe Forester

We live by admiration, hope and love. -- William Wordsworth

We judge of man's wisdom by his hope. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Man is a creature of hope and invention, both of which belie the idea that things cannot be changed.-- Tom Clancy

The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof. -- Barbara Kingsolver

Hope is the last thing that dies in man; and though it be exceedingly deceitful, yet it is of this good use to us, that while we are traveling through life it conducts us in an easier and more pleasant way to our journey's end. -- François de la Rochefoucauld

He who does not hope to win has already lost. -- Jose Joaquin Olmedo

When you do nothing, you feel overwhelmed and powerless. But when you get involved, you feel the sense of hope and accomplishment that comes from knowing you are working to make things better.--Pauline R. Kezer

"Hope" is the thing with feathers-- That perches in the soul-- And sings the tune without the words-- And never stops--at all-- Emily Dickenson