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Remember that you are alive and out of harm's way, in command of your own destiny.
By David Lord - February 2005
During this New Year and all that it may bring your way, sad or happy, always remember that you are alive and out of harm's way, in command of your own destiny, and then remember the thousands of men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces.
University of Texas (UT) Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas researchers have uncovered damage in a specific, primitive portion of the nervous systems of veterans suffering from Gulf War Syndrome. UT Southwestern researchers reported that damage to the parasympathetic nervous system may account for nearly half of the typical symptoms - including gallbladder disease, unrefreshing sleep, depression, joint pain, chronic diarrhea and sexual dysfunction - that afflict those with Gulf War syndrome. Their findings are published in the October 2004 issue of the American Journal of Medicine. The parasympathetic system regulates primitive, automatic bodily functions such as digestion and sleep, while the sympathetic nervous system controls the «fight or flight» instinct. Previously, isolating purely parasympathetic brain function was difficult. In the new study, Haley and his colleagues used a technique that monitors changes in approximately 100,000 heartbeats over 24 hours, and measures changes in high-frequency heart rate variability - a function solely regulated by the parasympathetic nervous system. After plotting the subtle changes in heart function using a mathematical technique called spectral analysis, researchers found that parasympathetic brain function, which usually peaks during sleep, barely changed in veterans with Gulf War Syndrome - even though they appeared to be sleeping. In a group of well veterans tested for comparison, the brain functions increased normally.
Useful Stuff
Stroke and Heart Attack LIFESAVING Actions - This might be a lifesaver if you can remember these three questions!
Is It a Stroke? Sometimes symptoms of a stroke are difficult to identify. Unfortunately, the lack of awareness spells disaster. The stroke victim may suffer brain damage when people nearby fail to recognize the symptoms of a stroke. Now doctors say a bystander can recognize a stroke by asking three simple questions:
*Ask the individual to smile.
*Ask him or her to raise both arms.
*Ask the person to speak a simple sentence.
If he or she has trouble with any of these tasks, call for help immediately and describe the symptoms to the doctor.
After discovering that a group of non-medical volunteers could identify facial weakness, arm weakness and speech problems, researchers urged the general public to learn the three questions.
Heart Attack Self Help
Let's say it's 6:15 p.m. and you're driving home (alone, of course) after an unusually hard day on vacation. You're really tired, upset and frustrated at not having been invited to that special party. Suddenly you start experiencing severe pain in your chest that starts to radiate out into your arm and up into your jaw.
How To Survive a Heart Attack
Since many people are alone when they suffer a heart attack, without help, the person whose heart is beating improperly and who begins to feel faint, has only about 10 seconds left before losing consciousness. However, these victims can help themselves by coughing repeatedly and very vigorously. A deep breath should be taken before each cough, and the cough must be deep and prolonged, as when producing sputum from deep inside the chest. A breath and a cough must be repeated about every two seconds without let-up until help arrives, or until the heart is felt to be beating normally again. Deep breaths get oxygen into the lungs and coughing movements squeeze the heart and keep the blood circulating. The squeezing pressure on the heart also helps it regain normal rhythm. In this way, heart attack victims can get to a hospital.
By Popular Demand
An easy guide to singing the favorite Christmas Carols of the P.T.S.D. Veterans:
Step1. Simply repeat the line next to your favorite condition(s) while singing off key.
Schizophrenic - Do You Hear What I Hear?
Multiple Personality Disorder - We Three Kings Disoriented Are
Amnesiac - I Don't Know if I'll be Home for Christmas
Narcissistic - Hark the Herald Angels Sing About Me
Manic - Deck the Halls and Walls and House and Lawn and Streets and Stores and Office and Town and Cars and Buses and Trucks and Trees and Fire Hydrants and.
Paranoid - Santa Claus is Coming to Get Me
Borderline Personality Disorder - Thoughts of Roasting on an Open Fire
Personality Disorder - You Better Watch Out, I'm Gonna Cry, I'm Gonna Pout, Maybe I'll tell You Why
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder - Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells ...
Agoraphobia - I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day But Wouldn't leave My House
Senile Dementia - Walking in a Winter Wonderland Miles from My House in My Slippers and Robe
Social Anxiety Disorder - Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas While I Sit Here and Hyperventilate
The above is a forwarded email from Pamela Thompson, I only modified the Title for Veterans.
David Lord
David Lord served in Vietnam as combat Marine for 1st Battalion 26th Marines, during which time he was severely wounded. He received the Purple Heart and the Presidential
Unit Citation for his actions during the war in Vietnam .
In Mexico , David now represents all veterans south of the U.S. border all the way to Panama , before the V.A. and the Board of Veterans Appeals. He is Department of Mexico/Latin America Service Officer, and Commander Puerto Vallarta / Bay of Banderas (new post #14). He was also elected to a one-year term (2004-05) as 1st Vice Commander for the American Legion's Department of Mexico/Latin America. He is the only Accredited Department of Veterans Affairs Service Officer in Mexico/Latin America, and the Regional Coordinator for the American Consul, Guadalajara, - Medical Program to assist veterans with medical needs & benefits processing, using the Mexican doctors and hospitals/clinics in Vallarta to have treatments paid by V.A. Insurance directly to the doctors or hospitals with U.S. Treasury checks.
David Lord provides service to veterans at no fee. In order to do this he works at Bayside Properties, 160 Francisca Rodriguez St. on the South Side. Tel.: 223-4424. Veterans are welcome to drop in and discuss claims / benefits to which they are entitled by law. David would appreciate the opportunity to serve veterans with any real estate sales or purchase decisions. Veterans always come first for benefits, so why not for business too?
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Veterans Talk
What will you do?
By David Lord
Weeks ago, I took a trip to the Veterans Administration Regional Office and the headquarters of the Military of the Purple Heart Office in Waco , Texas at the request of a Veteran's widow, unable to receive or restore benefits due to her as a surviving spouse. The sudden death of her husband from heart attack had left this widow not only stunned by her veteran husband's death, but without any funds to live on for two years.
The story is the same, time and again, for women married to U.S. Veterans living in Mexico . The Americans love them and clearly would want them to have their earned benefits as their surviving spouse, but like most of us, they do not take the time to inform, defend and protect them in the event of our sudden death.
This widow had spent many months traveling to the Guadalajara Consulate, trying to gain information on Veterans' widows' benefits. The Consul has an excellent record on providing information on Social Security benefits and quickly established what her rights were when she reaches age sixty-five. The Consul helped to inform the V.A. of his death, but knew much less regarding laws on U.S. Veterans benefits. Finally, after several trips to the Consul, her rights to death pension where established, then her application was sent and the benefit gained. Then, after waiting many months, she received her first support check. Then one month, not long after the first check, benefits stopped for no apparent reason, and the Consul had no answers nor had they received any from the V.A. The eight months waiting was an ordeal, forcing her and her two sons to move into a low-income apartment, and all to work, to make their meager lives bearable. She worked ten-hour days, six days a week, at 48 pesos a day, the boys doing all they could to help at home by adding their small amount of pesos to the family fund.
I met this widow after a fellow veteran referred her to me. The women had little hope of being helped, but left work early at the risk of losing her job, just to attend my American Legion meeting at Bill's Grill in Puerto Vallarta . Over the course of the next weeks, I learned how frustrating and desperate life can be for the surviving widow. The Veteran had a bank account in the U.S.A. with money in the bank, but had not been able to set up a joint account because the wife was not with him in the U.S. to sign on to the account. We knew that, even without the survivor benefits checks, the funds were sufficient to care of the family for at least a year, and give her time to save money from her own work.
The problem was that even with an American visa and Mexican passport, she could not afford the cost of going to the U.S.A. to access the account, or even the phone calls to speak with the bank. If she could have spoken to the bank, how would they communicate clearly when Spanish was all she knew? Would they have someone to help? She was frustrated and desperate. For my part, I hoped that by presenting death and marriage certificates, and V.A. documents showing survivor benefits, I may help her to convince the bank of her just right of possession and to give her use of the funds left in the bank account.
So began the six-day trip, driving six thousand five hundred kilometers, in a borrowed car (at fifty dollars a day, thank God a Canadian cared enough to help), a risk of no replaced funds .and what would happen at the border? Immigration (Homeland Security) does not favor the crossing of a Mexican National with 120 pesos to her name, even if she was a widow of a U.S. Veteran, being escorted by the National Veterans Service Officer for Mexico 's American Legion and Order of the Purple Heart.
I prepared for this effort over some weeks, by contacting the bank in question, and establishing that the account existed, and that the funds were available to her with the proper documents. Learning what documents was not enough, there was the possibility of a needing a court order, said the Bank's service representative. Even though most banks have a toll free phone number, you cannot access them from here in Mexico , without the cost of the phone calls. I devoted many hours to the task (the automated answering systems are frustrating and time consuming). I hate those systems, they waste so much time selecting menu items, hearing all new instructions with each push of the button.
The risk involved was such that I had to decide if my money from my service-connected disability was enough to cover the expense of the trip. If she were unable to access her deceased husband's funds, it would be a long trip home, back to Puerto Vallarta . I figured I would take the risk for her and her surviving children, as this Veteran had spent many hours in service to fellow Veterans living in Vallarta. In fact, he was the reason many veterans had established their claims for benefits while living here in Puerto Vallarta .
You can make San Antonio in 23 hours, if you drive straight through, which we did, stayed at the Military Base there, and over the next few days were fortunate to secure the funds.
So, how do you, Mr. Veteran, intend to take care for the loved ones you leave behind? Will it be left for me to risk the trip for your widow, or will you take the time, show the love, and do what is right? Leave a notarized will and designate who has your survivorship rights on your bank account.
I need volunteers and hotel sponsors for the American Legion 87th Department of Mexico Convention to be held June 14 through the 16th , 2005. Please contact me at mophmx@yahoo.com. I also need your support - by using me for real estate sales or purchases.
David Lord
David Lord served in Vietnam as combat Marine for 1st Battalion 26th Marines, during which time he was severely wounded. He received the Purple Heart and the Presidential
Unit Citation for his actions during the war in Vietnam .
In Mexico , David now represents all veterans south of the U.S. border all the way to Panama , before the V.A. and the Board of Veterans Appeals. He is Department of Mexico/Latin America Service Officer, and Commander Puerto Vallarta / Bay of Banderas (new post #14). He was also elected to a one-year term (2004-05) as 1st Vice Commander for the American Legion's Department of Mexico/Latin America. He is the only Accredited Department of Veterans Affairs Service Officer in Mexico/Latin America, and the Regional Coordinator for the American Consul, Guadalajara, - Medical Program to assist veterans with medical needs & benefits processing, using the Mexican doctors and hospitals/clinics in Vallarta to have treatments paid by V.A. Insurance directly to the doctors or hospitals with U.S. Treasury checks.
David Lord provides service to veterans at no fee. In order to do this he works at Bayside Properties, 160 Francisca Rodriguez St. on the South Side. Tel.: 223-4424. Veterans are welcome to drop in and discuss claims / benefits to which they are entitled by law. David would appreciate the opportunity to serve veterans with any real estate sales or purchase decisions. Veterans always come first for benefits, so why not for business too?
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