My mother always said that the problem with my father, as a cook, was that he thought if a little bit was good, a lot was a lot better. Uh. Not always!
However, I sometimes suffer from the same characteristic. Compassion, Int'l. is very sneaky. They post photos of all the kids waiting for sponsors. The ones that tear my heart out are the ones that have been "waiting for more than six months."
So that's how it is that I decided to sponsor a second child.
Meet Pedro Henrique da Silva Torres, age 10.
While I chose Anjali because her photo spoke to me, as I read conversations on Compassion's message board and kept being drawn back to the photos, I realized that I really wanted to sponsor a child in Brasil.
They say that older kids have a more difficult time finding sponsors, so I was looking for someone who was "older" and who has been waiting a long time for a sponsor. And with those criteria, Pedro just leaped out at me. He could easily be a 10 year old version of any of a number of Brasilian men who have visited here. And I was drawn to the fact that he not only enjoys soccer (what Brasilian boy doesn't?) but he also likes art. Boy after my own heart.
So my little sponsor family is now complete, a 6 year old girl from India and a 10 year old boy from Brasil. Pedro lives in the state of Ceara which is kind of in the upper eastern corner of Brasil.
I guess I really had a "thing" yesterday. My intestinal disturbance pretty much lasted the whole next day. I went off to donate blood in the morning and, after being rejected about six times for low hematocrit over the past few months, this time I sailed through and they didn't even need to run blood through the centrifuge, which was nice. (Thinking of it after the fact, I remember that my temperature was elevated slightly, only 99, but high enough that she circled it on my form...maybe that was a clue too.)
I was feeling fine, gave bood. and then went to the snack table, as always. I had my donut and another snack, as I always do, and then started feeling upset again. When I walked home, it was in a cold sweat and I climbed into the recliner and fell asleep. I was never actually sick to my stomach all day, but I had a total of three naps and I was fine as long as I was sitting down but if I got up to walk, I'd break out in a cold sweat again and just feel very weak. And I couldn't eat anything. I ate 3 pieces of macaroni from the casserole I'd made the night before and knew that I'd be in trouble if I tried to eat any more! All I had all day, since the Blood Source snacks, was juice (I was going to have chicken broth, but we were out).
We went to see The Lion King at night. Remembering my potential problem from the night before, I packed a large zip-lock plastic bag in my purse, just in case!!! (My cynical friend Ron points out that one should always pack a plastic bag when going to see any of the Disney stage shows!)
Normally Walt leaves me off about a block and a half from the theatre and goes to park the car while I get the tickets, but the thought of that walk just seemed overwhelming, so he drove me almost to the door, which I very much appreciated.
Fortunately, I had no problems whatever through the show, but when I stood up afterwards, I had the cold sweat and weakness again, so he went and got the car and I sat and waited for him across from the theatre.
My journal entry for last night was kind of a cop-out, mainly because I just didn't feel like sitting up and writing a "real" entry...but I also thought the piece about Prop 8 was a very informative one that more people should read.
I did sit up and watch The Tonight Show (though since it ran slightly long, the DVR did not record the last part of it. Walt was watching it upstairs, so he let me know about all the kids that Leno brought on stage who were born as the result of the marriages among members of the staff of the show.)
I was going to sleep in the recliner, but the dogs really wanted me to go to the living room, so I did. They were wiser than I. I fell asleep almost instantly and woke up 7-1/2 hours later. I can't remember the last time I've slept that long without having to get up at least once.
I felt reborn in the morning. Nausea gone, cold sweats gone, and everything back to normal again.
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