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This is the case history of a woman who suffered CFS symptoms since childhood but was never believed – until at age 35 doctors decided something 'real' was wrong. It is excerpted from Dr. Bell's free e-book Faces of CFS – Case Histories of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome,* published in August, 2000, and downloadable at www.davidsbell.com. "Anna's Identity" illustrates one aspect of cases he has followed since the mid-1980's. And the detective work continues. See the video of Dr. Bell's recent 25-year follow-up on his patients.
Where does self end and illness begin? When we are ill for years, or for a lifetime, what part of our personality is really our own, and what part has been shaped or even created by disease?
These questions are probably nowhere more pressing than in the realm of brain disease, in which the foundation of the personality – the physical brain itself – is under siege.
CFS, of course, presents a particularly difficult challenge to its sufferers because, unlike many brain diseases, CFS leaves the brain intact enough to sense its own difficulties. As a result, people who have CFS are forced to cope not only with unceasing physical pain and exhaustion, but with sorting out their real selves from the demon that has attacked their faculties as well as their body.
Adults have an advantage over children with CFS.
Adults have accrued years of personal history; they have a sense of who they are, a personality, against which they may compare their new, unwell selves. Everyone around them may be snickering and laughing, but the adult with CFS knows he or she is unwell, and that what is happening is anything but normal. Children, on the other hand, lack the requisite life experience and sense of self against which to measure a sudden development like CFS.
I am a pediatrician by training, and I have learned to see the world through the eyes of my youngest patients; I also frequently look into their eyes and see the adult world reflected there. I do not believe I am being disproportionate to state that, for children, CFS is among the very most difficult, if not the most difficult, disease to survive into adulthood.
Perhaps the greatest tragedy of CFS in children is that poorly informed adults ascribe a false identity to the child, and that false perception of self is carried by the child into adulthood.
CFS has robbed far too many children of their identities, or more precisely, has robbed them of the chance to develop an identity – to grow into themselves. In the case of at least one patient I know, however, a true perception of self has emerged, despite the odds, but it took 35 years.
I am speaking of Anna, who became ill with CFS when she was probably four or five years old.
We often remember of our childhood that which was wonderful and beautiful, but when there has been little joy, memories are dimmer. Anna's memories are cloudy, but she recalls that by the time she was six or seven, she was unable to keep up with her playmates.
• She could not skip rope because her balance was poor and the slightest exertion left her breathless.
• The bright sunlight that poured onto the playground left her feeling blinded.
• She found herself on the sidelines, inexplicably exhausted. Other children seemed to shy away from her.
Anna went to school every day, but she felt sick all the time.
She found it difficult to learn skills like reading and math. It was humiliating. She couldn't remember her multiplication tables. Everyone else could, but Anna couldn't. Anna began to devise tricks to help her remember, tricks so complicated she could not have explained them to anyone. For example: eight times seven. Add a zero to a seven, subtract seven, then subtract another seven.
For Anna, visualization was easier than memorizing. She could see numbers in her mind, for instance, and in order to solve the problem, she would look at them. She knew she did not think like other children. The world was a very confusing place.
She had trouble following directions. Her teachers were harsh with her; they believed she was either deliberately ignoring them, or preoccupied with private thoughts. But Anna was simply puzzled and tired.
The simple noise of the classroom distracted and perplexed her. It made her ears hurt, too. She had trouble finding words to describe how she felt. She once told her teacher that her brain seemed to "ache" because of the noise, and her teacher dismissed it with a wave of her arm.
"Pooh," she said, "everything seems to bother you."
Perhaps Anna's greatest humiliation was the way her one of her legs would jump without warning, hitting the desk, or even kicking toward the child sitting next to her. Her classmates would burst into laughter, and her teacher would inevitably become angry, scolding her for being disruptive. Anna had no control over these muscle spasms, but her teacher never believed that.
Eventually, Anna learned that if she rested the legs of her desk on top of her feet during class, the weight of the furniture would diminish the force of her jerking legs. The desk was heavy, and hurt her feet, but the technique worked.
Anna wondered why her muscles behaved unlike anyone else's muscles, and why she was unable to memorize facts, and unable to remember what the
teacher said to the class from day to day. She wondered why she lacked the energy to run or play games. She struggled to hide these aspects of herself, her deficiencies, from the girls in her class, because like any child she desperately wanted friends.
Yet, even though Anna privately wondered every day what was wrong with her, no one believed Anna was sick.
She recalls that during her early adolescence, she was stricken with a remarkable number of sore throats, fevers, stomach aches, swollen glands, and headaches. As time passed, and she went from child to teenager, her doctor began voicing his opinion that Anna's "illnesses" were an obvious cry for attention.
Occasionally, she was hospitalized while a teenager, but the tests ordered by her doctor rarely showed any abnormalities. Her doctor, and eventually, her own parents, began to exhibit increasing frustration.
By the time she was 15, no one believed Anna was sick.
• Her parents' frustration turned to anger. They were poor people, and the medical bills caused by Anna's frequent trips to the doctor were beginning to overwhelm their resources.
• Eventually, the doctor her parents took her to simply patted her on her head and told her she had a headache every day because she felt badly about doing poorly in school. The doctor told Anna she needed to stop "playing those games."
Anna's response to the anger and disbelief was hardly surprising: she learned not to complain.
She recognized that articulation of her sensations of illness only increased her isolation and actually invited ridicule. She vowed she would hide her symptoms and her feelings however she could from her family, her friends, and her teachers. She even learned to hide these things from herself.
In time, there were two Annas: the one who was sick, and the one who cleaned her room, performed her chores, and attended school every day just like everyone else her age.
• The first Anna would look at the second with a kind of astonishment; the second Anna was ashamed of the first.
• Neither of the Annas found any comfort at school or at home, but they got by.
By the time she became an adult, Anna had hidden her secrets for so long that she barely acknowledged them herself. In fact, by then, she had persuaded herself that her doctors had been right all along: if she had some dreadful illness, she reasoned, her doctors would have identified it, or she would have died.
She embraced fully what she had been told throughout her adolescence: She had made up her symptoms, although her reasons for having done so continued to remain mysterious to herself.
Anna finished high school, married, and began working as an aid in a nursing home. She also had four children. Most of the time, she could keep her secrets hidden, from her husband and children, and even from herself. She was not even being dishonest, because she was in agreement that all the sensations she felt – the weakness, the fatigue, the mental cloudiness – signified nothing at all. There really wasn't anything wrong.
By then, the years of denial had worked their effect; her identity, her sense of herself, had been formed by the opinions of others. The part of her that felt and experienced was shut away from the part that reasoned. She was, she would tell herself, perfectly healthy, but in fact her identity was built on a foundation of silt, and had little to do with Anna's true experience, the reality she lived day-to-day.
By the time she was in her early 30's, Anna skills of self-deception and general deception were finely honed. She had become a master of covering up embarrassing intellectual gaffes with warm, genuine smiles that would put those around her at ease. No one could be expected to see through her smile to the memory loss, or the peculiar lapses in her speech, lapses in which she would jumble the order of her words in a sentence, or make bizarre mistakes in her choice of words.
She had learned to work despite her daily exhaustion and painful headaches. In fact, she felt weak all the time.
But if she had to help lift a patient at the nursing home, she found the strength, proving to herself and the other aids that she was as strong as any of them.
• Though she often experienced double vision, she never said a word about it to her co-workers.
• When she stood rapidly, she got lightheaded, and her hands and feet went numb.
• She developed a painful stomach condition – probably an ulcer, she decided. A doctor she consulted prescribed a drug for ulcers, but the pills did nothing to end the pain and Anna quit taking them.
She was disappointed in neither her doctor nor the drugs. Whatever the cause of this particular ailment, she reasoned, it was outside the doctor's reach because, as she knew already, there was really nothing wrong with her. She could get by, she reasoned, just as she had always gotten by.
Of course, she never discussed these problems with her fellow workers in the nursing home, and no one around her ever suspected them.
One harsh, upstate New York winter after another passed. Anna acknowledged to herself a certain loneliness, familiar to her from earliest childhood. She had never quite rid herself of that. But her routines were well-established, her coping mechanisms firmly in place, her secrets tucked so deep inside that she barely thought of them.
Anna's identity was a fragile construct, however, and vulnerable. One bitter day in March of 1988, it began to break up.
She suffered a seizure while working at the nursing home, an event witnessed by several people. She was taken to a local hospital. When the doctor informed Anna afterward that she had experienced a seizure, she found it extremely difficult to believe, despite the bite on her lip and the deep gash in her tongue.
In fact, she did not believe it – not really. After all, after a lifetime of feeling sick, this was the first doctor who had ever told her with any conviction that she actually was sick.
And so she fell back on the opinion of her condition that had been voiced by doctor after doctor from her earliest memories: she was just suffering from a little stress.
When the doctor prescribed medications for seizures, Anna nodded, as if accepting the diagnosis and the treatment. But she did not take the medication. Why should she? She knew there was nothing wrong. There never had been anything wrong.
For three decades, Anna had been able to secret away the ill woman she had been nearly all her life.
But things were starting to change. She continued to avoid the prescribed anti-seizure medication, and both her doctor and her husband insisted that she was having convulsions. Anna found their claims hard to believe. She was unconscious when these so-called seizures were reported to occur; how did she know they were really occurring?
It had been a life-long struggle, but Anna had achieved the ability to believe the medical profession, her parents, and her teachers, that nothing was wrong with her. Now her doctors and family were insisting something was wrong. In fact, her doctor arranged for her driver's license to be revoked. Anna couldn't even get to work.
The seizures were exposing the sick side of Anna to herself. They could not be hidden away or covered up with a charming smile and a little joke. The turmoil in her mind was like a hurricane. If she accepted that the seizures were real, she risked opening the long-hidden conflicts about everything concerning her poor health.
In short, if the seizures were real, maybe everything else – the exhaustion, the mental fogginess, the numbness in her hands and feet, the pain, the forgetfulness, the endless headache – were real, too.
The bedrock foundations of her assumed identity began to erode. For the first time in years, Anna began to allow herself to acknowledge her physical sensations of fatigue and pain. She realized that she felt awful. But experiencing the pain and exhaustion somehow seemed better than pretending it wasn't there. She answered one question that most people are unable to: Is it better to feel suffering than to feel nothing at all?
One day Anna saw a segment on television about CFS. Her mouth hung open as she heard about daily exhaustion, headaches, pain that no one would believe. It was Anna, not a doctor, who recognized at last that her symptoms were characteristic with CFS. In fact, with the exception of seizures, she was picture perfect for the symptom complex that defines the illness.
Anna read everything she could find on the subject. She felt as if she was waking up after lifetime spent cut off from her own feelings and perceptions.
She began to remember painful incidents from her childhood – how she had felt, and how she had learned to deny those sensations not only to those around her but to herself. They were disturbing memories, but Anna, by then 35, was at last beginning to experience her own reality and to recognize herself as she had always been. She was not the healthy, energetic woman she had pretended to be for so long; she was sick.
I met Anna during this period. We talked a lot about these matters in my clinic, and we talked over coffee sometimes in the Tiger's Den Cafe down the street. We both recognized that her identity was in crisis, because she was having trouble distinguishing real illness from false illness.
After so many years of believing herself to be "falsely" ill, how could she turn around and be herself? In this, she had no experience.
The perception of pain and illness is very simple from a physiologic standpoint. Primitive animals feel pain in their nerve endings, and struggle to avoid it. Electric probes of one-celled creatures like amoebae show that even these tiniest of organisms feel pain. But advanced creatures, specifically human beings, have learned mechanisms for denying some of the basics of biology.
Nevertheless, our denial hardly changes the mechanical impulses of our nervous systems; our nerve endings continue to be stimulated, and send messages to our brain that are registered as pain or discomfort. Our denial merely creates an emotionally confused response to the pain, or health identity confusion.
Anna's biggest problem, at 35, was her confusion over her health identity. Her confusion had logical origins, but her management of it – to deny her symptoms -put her at risk. She had lost what healthy people would call common sense. Her confusion had cost her the right to drive, and subsequently, her job. She could have controlled her seizures with medication, if only she had been able to believe they were real.
But because she had denied her illness for most of her life, she probably would have been hard pressed to believe she was injured if she had been run over by a truck.
As the years passed, Anna gradually began to learn how to feel. She said it was better to feel pain than to feel nothing at all. It was better to experience the reality of her life, in all its facets, than to deny all of its reality. After decades of pretending, she began to acknowledge to herself the truth of her own experiences, and the place of her identity within those experiences.
I marvel at Anna's courage. She has been one of my teachers in life. And I wonder if I will ever find the same courage to explore the hidden parts of my own soul.
– David S Bell, MD, Aug 15, 2000
* This article is excerpted with kind permission from Dr. Bell's classic book Faces of CFS – Case Histories of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome; © David S Bell, MD, 2000. It may be downloaded as a free eBook at Dr. Bell's website www.davidsbell.com. This information has not been evaluated by the FDA. It is general information only and is not meant to prevent, diagnose treat or cure any condition, illness or disease. It is very important that you make no change in your healthcare plan or health support regimen without researching and reviewing it in collaboration with your professional healthcare team.


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Viewers share sunrise photos
COLUMBIA- Viewers are sharing their photos from Tuesday morning from across the area.
What was your view this morning? Email pictures to firstname.lastname@example.com, and we may feature your photo on our show and our website.
More News
JEFFERSON CITY (AP) - Like actors rehearsing a script, Missouri lawmakers on Tuesday publicly read aloud the previously secret criminal... More >>
COLUMBIA- Missouri Lt. Gov. Mike Parson toured Columbia Tuesday afternoon to visit new business locations and talk about everything from... More >>
JEFFERSON CITY (AP) - A Missouri environmental group is suing to overturn a law that lengthens the process the Department... More >>
COLUMBIA - A jury trial in a wrongful death lawsuit in Carl DeBrodie's death is scheduled to begin March 2,... More >>
COLUMBIA - The Columbia City Council failed to pass the controversial Henderson Branch sewer project in a 3-3 vote Monday... More >>
JEFFERSON CITY (AP) — The Latest on allegations against Gov. Eric Greitens (all times local): 5:35 p.m. ... More >>
SPRINGFIELD (AP) — Springfield police say an 8-year-old girl who hadn't been seen since early Tuesday has been found... More >>
COLUMBIA - In the wake of the deadly Santa Fe High School shooting , the MU Police Department will be... More >>
BRUSSELS (AP) — Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg faces senior European Union lawmakers later Tuesday to answer questions about a... More >>
COLUMBIA - The Columbia Police Department said it found a missing teen around 1 a.m. Tuesday. Authorities said Brice... More >>
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KANSAS CITY (AP) — A Kansas City man who told authorities he was hearing "voices" when he wounded two... More >>
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Sangamon County Undersheriff Jack Campbell Friday released cover pages of his 2012 tax returns, and said he would also release his 2013 returns when available.
Campbell�s opponent in the March 18 primary for Sangamon County sheriff, retired Lt. Wes Barr, said later that he, too, would release his tax returns.
Barr also recently announced that if elected, he would have the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund suspend payments of his current pension, which he legally could collect even while being sheriff. He said that if elected, he would pay into the pension system. He would then take retirement pay only after leaving the sheriff�s office.
Campbell�s joint 2012 federal return with his wife, Laura, showed combined taxable wages of $172,922, and total income of $173,527. They paid $29,164 in federal income taxes, and $8,157 in Illinois income taxes.
Campbell is endorsed by Sheriff Neil Williamson, who is not seeking another term.
�I�d like to continue Sheriff Williamson�s tradition of disclosing tax returns in an effort to be transparent with the voters of this county,� Campbell said in a statement.
While not specified on the two pages each of federal and state returns that were released, Campbell said he and his wife made about $1,800 in charitable contributions, almost all to Illiopolis Christian Church.
Campbell said he makes many other contributions, including paying to participate in various charitable golf outings, but �I don�t keep track of it.�
He said the $1,800 amount is �a very conservative number.�
Campbell�s current salary is $104,851, and it was $98,023 in 2012. His reported taxable wages in 2012 were $91,224, because money going to his retirement was not taxable, said his accountant, Greg Langdon. Campbell also received $300 for that year�s work as an Illiopolis Township trustee.
Laura Campbell works at the Illinois Department of Transportation. Comptroller�s records show she was paid $94,356 in 2012. After deductions for deferred compensation and other pre-tax items including insurance, her taxable wages were $81,398.
Campbell said his family is covered by state health insurance.
Barr said when asked if he would also release his tax returns, �I�d be more than happy to do that. Obviously, I think transparency is important.�
In his recent statement about his own pension, Barr said it is �important for the sheriff to lead by example. Collecting just one paycheck should be the expectation for any public servant.�
�In my opinion, it wasn�t much of a decision,� Campbell said of Barr�s announcement, �because it was the only morally right thing to do.�
According to Beth Janicki Clark of the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund, Barr in 2014 is getting net pay of $52,752 annually, which is what is left after health insurance and federal withholding is removed from the gross amount of $61,548. He gets 80 percent of the average of his highest four years of pay over his last 10 years worked.
Barr had 28 years in law enforcement and also served in the U.S. Marines.
If he suspends his current payments and rejoins the system as sheriff, the amount he gets would be recalculated based on his updated salary, Janicki Clark said.
Sheriff�s pay without a state stipend is now $114,500 annually, Campbell said.
Campbell also said that when Williamson went to the county board last fall to obtain higher pay for captains � some of whom were making less than lieutenants they were overseeing � the sheriff also offered to raise Campell�s pay.
Campbell said he turned down the offer.
�It was the right thing for me to do � not accept that raise,� Campbell said. �I said, �Sheriff � I�m very happy with my salary. I don�t want that raise. Let�s just get the money to the captains, and I�ll be fine.� �
Contact Bernard Schoenburg: 788-1540, firstname.lastname@example.com, twitter.com/bschoenburg


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Minnesota Saints overcome obstacles to win their first PowerHockey Cup; most team members have a form of MD
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What's the difference between the European Solidarity Corps & the European Voluntary Service?
Are you a young person and passionate about helping integrate refugees and migrants? Feel like you need a one-stop shop that lists all the different opportunities across Europe?
Olga attended YO!Fest as a representative of Momentum World to promote the work of Eurodesk and also the newly created EuroPeers UK network. The entire Eurodesk delegation consisted of participants and multipliers from across Europe.
NHS England officially launched a brand new Youth Forum in 2014. Comprising 20 Young People recruited from across the country and linked in to a Facebook network of many more young people, the forum aims to provide a voice for young people.
The UK Youth Parliament provides opportunities for 11-18 year olds to use their elected voice to bring about social change through meaningful representation and campaigning.
What's happening in European politics? What impact do EU decisions have in Europe and the rest of the world? 'The European Sting' offers a broad overview of these topics.
Hundreds of events were organised in all 33 Erasmus+ programme countries in April and May 2015.
Oumeng.eu is a new platform that brings together information and tips on various topics of interest for Chinese speakers interested in the EU and its Member States, as part of an increasing EU-China cooperation.
The European Youth Parliament encourages you to take an interest in current affairs and the democratic process, practice independent thinking and take personal initiative. Do you want to take part?


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welp lets get em tomorrow.
Give us hope Cozart!
Reds fail today
welp get em tomorrow guys.
not even a whimper...just bent over and took the loss..
What a wasted day for the Reds. Tough one to drop.
Rounding third and heading for home...
Arroyo vs. Verlander...didn't expect to win it going in. We prolly should have tho.
Get em tomorrow.
Too many AAA hitters and automatic outs to win anything this season. Cleveland is gonna pound us
I think we're seeing the real reds. Pitching has been way better than we thought, now we're seeing what we have. The lineup is a joke. No one is getting on for Joey and teams are going to start walking the pants off him. BP isn't a cleanup hitter, Cozart isn't a leadoff hitter, and there isn't a cleanup.
Pitching is the name of the game. If we get the pitching we will win even with the holes in this offense. I wish Walt would go out and get a cheap left handed hitter though.
Didn't see the game but reviewing the unhappy recap, Marshall is paid to get left handed hitters like Fielder out. Even Bray was able to do that. Looks like that was the key.
On the other hand, you hold the Tigers to 3 runs in this ball park you should win.
Even against Verlander.
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The DigitalFilipino Web Awards aims to advocate the use of Internet and e-Commerce for business development, through the identification, promotion, and highlighting of best e-Commerce practices from various websites in the Philippines.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Judging: Blog - Personal category
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DigitalFilipino.com Club
Janette Toral
Janette Toral is the site owner of DigitalFilipino.com. At her highest value, she delivers independent insights through research, education, training, e-learning, consulting, public speaking.
She is a Fascinate Certified Advisor, Certified ScrumMaster, and Certified Scrum Product Owner.
She participated in the IVLP or International Visitors Leadership Program 2011 (individual program) sponsored by the U.S. Embassy. Featured as 1 of the 6 women innovator at the APEC Women and Economy Summit 2011, San Francisco, USA.
She got recognized as Champion of Philippine Internet and E-Commerce Hall of Fame Award given by Asian Institute of E-Commerce in 2010; Globe Tattoo Digital Elder Award 2009; E-Services E-Champion Awards 2008 - Policy and Legal Category by the Department of Trade and Industry / CITEM / Board of Investments; International Schools Cyberfair Ambassador Award 2004 and 2002 given by Global Schoolnet USA; World Summit for the Information Society (WSIS) Philippines Awards 2003 E-Learning Category for her E-Commerce Workshop Online.
Janette, as former technical consultant / executive director of the Congressional Oversight Committee for the E-Commerce Law, was instrumental for the creation of policies in the area of consumer protection (value added services, e-commerce, electronic banking), data privacy for the private sector, and acceptance of electronic payment in government.
As founding president of the Philippine Internet Commerce Society, she was instrumental for the passage of the Y2K Law and E-Commerce Law. She retired in 2002. Other organizations she served as board member in the past were the Philippine Computer Emergency Response Team (PH-CERT) and Internet and Mobile Marketing Association of the Philippines (IMMAP).
She is a distinguished expert for the 2nd Expert Committee of APEC E-Commerce Business Alliance.
More info at http://janettetoral.com
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This is my second effort in posting this review since my wife accidentally deleted my first draft!!! Sigh!!
Second week in a row, I spend part of the weekend trying out some of the better Dim Sum in the GTA. Last week was an early-bird gathering of chowfriends at Yang's whilst this week was a family affair at Dragon Dynasty.
For those of you who have not been, this restaurant is one of those rare breed that still retains the traditional 'cart service' augmented by 'special dishes' menu sheets. BTW, they have eliminated their phone reservation service for Dim Sum luncheon. So, its first come first serve basis! Arriving at 11.20 am, our wait time was 45 minutes. Reasonable, considering its an ultra-busy Good Friday weekend!
From the Cart Service, we ordered:
- Har Gow
- Steamed Chicken Feet and peanuts in house special sauce
- Braised beef innards and tripe with turnips
- Crispy seafood salad rolls
- Coconut and red beans pudding
- Egg custard tarts
- Molten egg yolk custard buns
- Fluffy 'Ma Lai' sponge cakes
From the Special menu, we ordered:
- Stirred fry rice roll 'Cheung Fun' with dried shrimp and scallions. Hoi sin and Sesame sauce accompaniment
- Fried Glutinous rice with eggs, dried shrimps and diced Chinese preserved meats and sausages.
- Stirred fry clams with black bean sauce.
First off, I am pleased to say that I have finally encountered Har Gow in Toronto that is worthy of praise! Taut and ultra-thin skin, the sweet and fresh tasting prawn filling was crunchy and juicy. IMHO, better than what Yang's, Casa's, Brilliant, Regal16..... have to offer!
Next on my praise list was the Fried glutinous rice. Super tasty and generous in the key ingredients, this huge portion at only $7.50 was excellent value for money!
Almost all of our ordered dishes were deliciously prepared especially the desserts. The hot, silky smooth egg custard tarts were better than most .
Though lacking in artful plate presentation, however, this deficiency was more than compensated by the taste! All in all a most enjoyable experience!
Lastly, this was also the first time I noticed someone bringing a bottle of red wine to a Dim Sum luncheon!! IMO, I doubt the pairing would work! Not when that patron ordered lobster noodle and shrimp dumplings!!


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MARSHFIELD � Police say one person is under arrest and one person is in the hospital after a home invasion at a Marshfield house where marijuana was being grown.
Police were called to the Acorn Street home at about 11:30 p.m. Tuesday where they found three men tied up inside. The men had been pistol whipped and apparently the gun had discharged, although no one was struck by a bullet. One resident was flown to a Boston hospital.
Officers say they found an ��elaborate�� marijuana growing operation in the house, two pounds of marijuana and several thousand dollars cash.
Police arrested 20-year-old Eddy Monteiro of Brockton and are looking for two other suspects. Monteiro is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday on charges of kidnapping, home invasion and assault with a deadly weapon.


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In 1999 Manchester United made history by becoming the only English team to win the treble of their domestic league and cup, together with the Champions League.
Every fan must remember where they were when United famously came back from a goal down to beat Bayern Munich in the Nou Camp in the dying seconds of the '99 Champions League final, in what remains one of the most exciting finishes to a match ever.
But what happened to the team afterwards? Let's take a look.
Peter Schmeichel | Age: 49
Schmeichel, one of the greatest 'keepers of all time, left the Red Devils at the end of that glorious season, moving to Sporting Lisbon in Portugal.
He returned to England, playing for Aston Villa and arch-rivals Manchester City, retiring in 2003. Since then the big Dane has appeared many times as a pundit on English TV and even hosted a quiz show in Denmark, as well as Dirty Jobs on the Discovery Channel.
Gary Neville | Age: 38
As most people will know, Neville remained a one-club man, retiring in 2011 after making over 600 appearances for United. He is now a regular analyst on Sky Sports and part of Roy Hodgson's England coaching staff.
Denis Irwin | Age: 47
Irwin left United in 2002 after 368 games and went on to play for Wolves until 2004. Irwin now works as a presenter at United's TV channel MUTV and even gives tours of the ground on special occasions.
Ronny Johnsen | Age: 43
Johnsen left United in 2002 after an injury-prone career limited his appearances at United. He then went on to play for Aston Villa, Newcastle and Norwegian's Valerenga, retiring in 2008.
Jaap Stam | Age: 40
Stam controversially fell out with Sir Alex Ferguson after revelations in the Dutchman's book that he had been approached by United before permission had been given by his club PSV.
The fall out was the end for Stam, and Fergie showed him the door in 2002 shortly afterwards, arguably whilst the Dutchman was still in his prime. He went on to play for Lazio, AC Milan and Ajax, before quitting in 2007. However, Fergie did not hold grudges and Stam returned to the club as a scout in 2008.
Jesper Blomqvist | Age: 39
Blomqvist went on to play for Everton, Charlton, Djurgarden, Enkoping and Hammarby, where he was also assistant manager, only retiring as recently as 2010.
The Swede only made 25 league appearances for United and was mainly used as back-up to Ryan Giggs during an injury blighted stay until leaving in 2001, but did play in the Champions League final due to the suspension of Paul Scholes and Roy Keane.
Ryan Giggs | Age: 39
Giggs is one of the few members of the squad still playing. With 654 league appearances since his 1990 debut, the Welsh legend is still a big part of Fergie's squad and it looks like that will continue for at least another season.
David Beckham | Age: 37
Beckham obviously needs no introduction. After appearing to fall out with Ferguson over the infamous boot-kicking incident, Becks left the club in 2003 for Real Madrid.
After going on to play for LA Galaxy and AC Milan, Becks is now at Paris Saint Germain. With 265 league games for United he remains a legend and favourite at the club.
Nicky Butt | Age: 38
Butt left United in 2004 after 12 years and 269 league appearances. He then went to Newcastle until 2010 before a brief loan spell at Birmingham. Butt then played in South China before calling it a day in 2011. In October 2012 he returned to United as a reserve team coach.
Andrew Cole | Age: 41
Cole now works at United's TV channel MUTV along with Denis Irwin and other former favourites, Gary Pallister, Lou Macari and Paddy Crerand.
Cole left United in 2001 after 93 goals in 195 appearances. He went on to play for Blackburn, Fulham, Manchester City, Portsmouth, Birmingham, Sunderland, Burnley and Nottingham Forest. Cole has also been involved in charity work and even released a single, which failed to make the Top 40.
Dwight Yorke | Age: 41
Yorke often drove Fergie mad with his love of the highlife, but his partnership with Cole was undoubtedly one of the best of all time.
After leaving United with 48 goals in 96 games, Yorke played for Blackburn, Birmingham, Sydney FC, Sunderland and Tobago United. The chirpy character is no stranger to the showbiz life, being linked with numerous ladies, and has a child with Page 3 model, Jordan. He has run the London Marathon and also works as a pundit on Sky Sports.
Roy Keane | Age: 41
Keane famously fell out with Fergie, amongst many other people, during a controversial but magnificent career. He missed the 1999 Champions League final through suspension, but played a huge part in getting United there, especially in the semi-final against Juventus.
Keane left United suddenly in November 2005, after criticising some of his team-mates on United TV channel MUTV following a 4-1 defeat to Middlesbrough, which proved to be the final straw for Sir Alex.
After leaving Keane only played 10 more league games for Celtic before retiring. He went on to manage Sunderland and Ipswich, who he left in 2011 and has since been working as a pundit for ITV recently.
Paul Scholes | Age: 38
Scholes is another still playing, but perhaps not for much longer as it is rumoured this may be his last season. Scholes did retire in May 2011 but was lured out of retirement in January 2012.
The ginger magician has played 497 times for United in the Premier League, scoring 107 goals and his status as a United legend is assured. Barcelona legend, Xavi, even rated Scholes as the best midfielder of the past two decades. High praise indeed.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer | Age: 40
Solskjaer was United's super-sub and stayed at the club until 2007 when he retired after playing 235 league games and scoring 91 goals. The Norwegian then managed United's reserve team for three years and success with this led to him being appointed Molde manager back in his home country.
Solskjaer has been hugely successful with Molde taking them to their first ever title win and is touted as a possible successor to Sir Alex Ferguson himself one day.
Teddy Sheringham | Age: 47
Sheringham carried on playing until 2008 after leaving United in 2001. He went on to play for Tottenham, Portsmouth, West Ham and Colchester.
After only joining United at age 31 many thought he was too old to make an impact, but he went on to make score 31 goals in 147 league games for United, even scoring in the Champions League final and FA Cup final to prove his detractors wrong. Sheringham has often appeared as a pundit since quitting the game.
Wes Brown | Age: 33
Brown is currently at Sunderland after leaving United in 2011. The defender made 233 league appearances for United in his 15 year stay.
David May | Age: 42
May left United in 2003 after a loan spell at Huddersfield, joining Burnley. He then joined amateurs Bacup Borough, retiring in 2006. Since retirement he has run his own wine importing company and also done some media work for MUTV.
Phil Neville | Age: 36
Phil Neville went to Everton from United in 2005 and has gone on to have a highly successful time there, becoming a fans favourite - no mean feat after playing for Manchester United.
Neville played 263 league games for United and has played 242 for Everton. He recently announced that he will leave Everton at the end of the season, but has not revealed his plans yet, despite being linked with the England Under-20s' managers job.
What these players achieved is never likely to be matched again in English football.
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"Peeloff the partisan war paint," said President Barack Obama a few days ago, and I couldn't agree more. The last thing we need is division when it is quite obvious that the opposite is required for the good of all and quite possibly is the point of all of the disasters of late.
I never fit into the black and whiteness of the blue or red parties anyway. I guess I'm part of a purple political party. A patriotic peace activist, I support veterans and military spending, but prefer it be spent on servicemen and women's salaries, so we don't have enlisted families who earn so little they are eligible for welfare. At the same time, yes, I wish for the return of all troops, for the end of war, and for the National Guard to be here doing what it was created to do for our country.
I have hippie-ish qualities such as a passion for socially responsible living, but I usually wear makeup and sometimes high heels while I am burning incense and sage. I also enjoy being barefoot on the beach listening to drumming with a hula hoop spinning around me, which does not make me a vegetarian, as was assumed recently. I love pigs and also bacon; I love deer and also quite a few hunters.
I strongly believe in the separation of church and state, and religious freedom without taboos of unorganized practices such as Paganism, an earth-based religion that does not worship Satan. I am in favor of the legalization of marijuana and feel that most pharmaceutical drugs should be illegal.
I tried to wrap my head around the Sandy Hook massacre this week and here's what I came up with: After an altercation at a school, a 20-year-old, mentally ill man was denied a rifle in Danbury, Conn., due to gun control laws that required a 14-day waiting period and background check. This did not stop him from having several guns in his possession and using them to kill 20 innocent children and 6 adults in that same school. Why then, is gun control the loudest discussion I hear?
Yes, control over the hands an assault weapon lands in makes sense, but many laws already exist and are not enforced, or simply do not work for criminals who, by definition, do not usually obey the law or apply for a permit or license. In some communities, heightened gun control has led to more than a 30-percent increase in gun violence, as well as a rise in smuggling of cheap machine guns.
I was a pre-kindergarten teacher in what seems like another life, and I cannot begin to imagine the horror of a gunman in a school. In another former career, I worked with those who had mental illness, among them a friendly man with pyromania who told me he felt like burning the building down. I have also known those who struggle with mental illness, and studied psychology as a concentration in college. This is the issue I would like to hear more about.
With skyrocketing rates of suicide among both civilians and military members, stigmas need to be removed and resources found to identify and help those who desperately need it. Domestic incidents reported to the police and school psychologists are a great starting point. With some told by police that their mentally ill family member must be charged with a crime in order to receive "assistance," it's clear that programs and support for families are a necessity too.
Obama Care should address mental well-being, especially personality disorders, which afflict about half of all psychiatric patients and are characterized by deviant social behavior, ineffective coping skills, extreme anxiety, distress, or depression, usually traced to childhood or early adulthood.
It should be as easy to see a psychiatrist as it is to buy a gun. I have heard too many stories of suicidal people, including military members with post-traumatic stress disorder, who had to wait over a month for a visit.
Law-abiding citizens who use guns responsibly shouldn't suffer, but they should exercise common sense. First off and most important, keep them locked up, whether there are kids in the house or not.
As for school security, the "American Legion Creed" preamble almost reads as a job description, and many other former military members of all ages would qualify and appreciate the job.
Carrie Ann Salvi is a reporter for The Star.


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Tiger Woods will play for the first time at the $6.1 million US PGA Greenbrier Classic as a July tuneup for the British Open, Woods and the tournament announced on Monday.
The July 5-8 event will be staged on the Old White TPC course where Australian Stuart Appleby fired a final-round 59 to win in 2010 and marks the third unusual event on Woods' schedule in nine months.
Woods, a 14-time major champion chasing the all-time record of 18 majors won by Jack Nicklaus, played the Frys.com Open last October coming off an injury as a tuneup for the Presidents Cup in Australia.
Last March, 36-year-old Woods played the Honda Classic for the first time since his teenage years. Three weeks later, Woods ended a 17-month win drought by capturing the Arnold Palmer Classic at Bay Hill.
Woods has won 72 career US PGA titles, 10 shy of matching the record held by Sam Snead.
Since then, Woods has struggled, missing the cut at Quail Hollow two weeks ago and sharing 40th at the Players Championship last week. He also finished joint 40th last month at the Masters, a major event he has won four times.
Woods is scheduled to return to PGA play on May 31 in the first round of the Memorial as a tuneup for the US Open two weeks later at The Olympic Course in San Francisco.
Woods will play at the National in the first week of July then play at the Greenbrier before heading to the British Open at Royal Lytham.
The Greenbrier field also features Phil Mickelson, who has praised the event for the vacation-style resort atmosphere's offerings for family members which conjures up a relaxed atmosphere.


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Newly-defined factors may prevent postpartum smoking relapse
August 27, 2008 — Although many women quit smoking during pregnancy to protect their unborn children from the effects of cigarettes, half of them resume the habit within a few months of giving birth.
By shedding light on the factors that enable the other half to put down that cigarette for good, a study by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill could lead to programs designed to help women quit and stay quit.
According to the study, women with a live-in partner who shared some of the burden of child-rearing were more likely to remain smoke free, while women who were single mothers or who lacked the social and financial resources to deal with being a new parent were more likely to relapse.
"In the future we can look at these and other factors in women who quit smoking during pregnancy to assess who is at low or high risk of relapse," said Carol E. Ripley-Moffitt, MDiv, research associate in UNC's department of family medicine and the study's lead author. "We can then offer more intensive interventions for those at higher risk to address the physical, behavioral and social issues related to relapse."
Smoking during pregnancy increases the risks of pregnancy complications, decreased birth weight and SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), Ripley-Moffitt said. She noted that the past 15 years have seen a steady decrease in the number of women who smoke while pregnant, in part because of an overall decline in smoking rates among all women of childbearing age and in part because of interventions targeting women during the prenatal period.
"But more needs to be done because over 50 percent of women who quit the habit during pregnancy are smoking again at six months postpartum," Ripley-Moffitt said.
The UNC study, which appears in the August issue of the journal Nicotine and Tobacco Research, is the first to examine not only the factors leading to relapse but also those leading to a smoke-free life after pregnancy. Ripley-Moffitt and colleagues interviewed pregnant women attending prenatal clinics in central North Carolina who had quit smoking before 30 weeks gestation. Of the 94 women enrolled in the study, 43 had remained smoke-free and 51 had relapsed when interviewed at 4 months postpartum.
Researchers asked all women about their decision to quit during pregnancy, how they quit, and what they would do in the future.
Women who had remained smoke-free were asked about the benefits they had experienced, how they would handle temptations to smoke, how they had rewarded themselves for not smoking, and what support they might need to remain smoke-free.
Women who had relapsed were asked to describe specific situations that caused them to return to smoking, their feelings about smoking again, perceptions about the dangers of secondhand smoke, and what would need to be different in their lives in order to stop smoking again.
Several factors emerged to differentiate the two groups of women. Those who remained smoke-free postpartum were bolstered by strong social support, strong internal belief systems, strong beliefs in postpartum health benefits of not smoking, negative experiences with a return to smoking and concrete strategies for dealing with temptations.
Women who relapsed postpartum were undermined by easy access to cigarettes, reliance on cigarettes to deal with stress, lack of financial resources, lack of resources for childrearing and low self-esteem.
The findings may enable researchers and clinicians to distinguish between pregnant women who will ultimately relapse from those that remain smoke free postpartum, Ripley-Moffitt said. The findings also suggest that any new programs aimed at improving quit rates must be comprehensive in nature – they must give women the tools to acquire new skills, deal with addiction and improve life circumstances, socially and financially.
"Many of the women who relapsed were already trying to quit again when we interviewed them," Ripley-Moffitt said. "While there is no simple solution, we recommend directly addressing the social and financial stresses that lead to relapse. We hope that our study will encourage creative interventions to help mothers sustain a smoke-free lifestyle after pregnancy, improving overall health for women and their families."
This research was supported by a grant from the Smoke-Free Families Program of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. UNC Study co-authors include Dr. Adam O. Goldstein, professor of family medicine and Dr. Jacob A. Lohr, professor of pediatrics. Lohr is also affiliated with the Governor's Institute on Alcohol and Substance Abuse, which collaborated on the study.
Note: Ripley-Moffitt can be reached at (919) 843-1521 or email@example.com.
School of Medicine contacts: Les Lang, (919) 966-9360 or email@example.com or Stephanie Crayton, (919) 966-2860, firstname.lastname@example.com


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HAVING spent a long 35 years without the sweet taste of a grand final victory, the holy grail of the Heathcote District Football League is finally in sight of North Bendigo.
The Bulldogs will tomorrow take on Lockington-Bamawm United in the HDFL grand final at Huntly's Hy-Line Australia Oval.
It will be the Bulldogs' first grand final appearance since 1998 – when they lost to Colbinabbin by 58 points – but their premiership drought extends more than 20 years further back.
Not since 1977 when John Plim coached North Bendigo to the second of back-to-back flags in the now defunct Golden City Football League have the Bulldogs lifted a senior premiership cup.
They get the opportunity to do so tomorrow if they're good enough, with the jubilation such a long-awaited grand final victory would provide the players and supporters of North Bendigo difficult to put into words for club president Jamie Campbell.
"The euphoria around it would be something special… they'd probably shut North Bendigo down for a week," Campbell said this week.
"You look at people like Francis Boyd, who has been at the club since basically he was a kid. For us to get a flag for a bloke like that, and all the other people who are there every Saturday watching us win, lose or draw... it's about doing it for the people who put their heart and soul into the club.
"Hopefully, we can repay that faith with a win on Saturday."
North Bendigo has hit peak form at the right time of the year. The Bulldogs ended the home and away season fifth on the ladder, but have since won three cut-throat finals against Huntly, Colbinabbin and Heathcote to reach the grand final.
Such is the roll the Bulldogs are on, they are the first club since the HDFL introduced a top five in 2001 to make the grand final from outside the top three.
"It feels like a pot of boiling water with a lid on it… eventually that lid is going to blow off because the pressure is getting bigger," Campbell said.
The Bulldogs have been in the HDFL since 1996 after making the switch from the Bendigo Football League, where they had competed since 1983 for 60 wins in their 239 games.
Somewhat of an ugly duckling since joining the HDFL, not only is tomorrow a chance to end the premiership drought, but for Campbell, it's a golden opportunity for the Bulldogs to earn the respect of the competition.
"My first year as president was all about getting respect, and it just felt like at the end of that year that no matter how hard we worked, the only way we were going to get respect was by winning a senior premiership, and hopefully, we can do that on Saturday," Campbell said.
"We know how hard we've worked. All the people involved at the club have put in a power of work."
Campbell – with the support of his partner of 28 years Belinda – has led the off-field band of workers in what is his third season as president.
A win tomorrow would be a fairytale end to what has been an emotional season for Campbell after his mother, Joan, passed away in July.
"It has been a hard year. I've been thinking a lot about mum over the past three weeks and what it would mean to her that we've got to this weekend," Campbell said.
At the helm of the club as coach for the second season is Damien Lock, who tomorrow will be hoping to take over the mantle as the Bulldogs' most recent premiership coach from John Plim.
Plim coached the Bulldogs to their back-to-back premierships of 1976-77 in the GCFL.
The 1977 team that defeated Northern United by 31 points in the grand final – 15.11 (101) to 9.16 (70) – was a powerful combination that went through the year undefeated.
The '77 grand final win was the Bulldogs' 30th victory in a row.
"I took them over in 1976 after they had missed the finals in 1975," Plim said yesterday.
"When I looked at clubs to coach, I always looked for a team that had improvement in them and just needed a bit of polish to go the next level, and that's where North Bendigo was at when I came in.
"We pulled together some very good players... I remember we got Brendan Keane from the Bendigo league, Ron Lake came with me, Dale Alford was coming through the ranks, and there were the two stars in the Roulston brothers, Doug and Russell.
"What I put the success of those couple of years in '76 and '77 down to is the local content that was already there and a couple of experienced players we added to it. But as well as a good group of players, we also had a lot of discipline instilled in the club."
Plim – who addressed the North Bendigo players last night – has no doubt the 1977 team would have held its own in the Bendigo Football League that season.
"A lot of the players in that side went on to be very good Bendigo league players," said Plim, who also coached premierships at Wedderburn (two) and Yarrawalla.
"I remember the next year that Brian Brown went to Eaglehawk, Gary Smith went to Sandhurst, Brendan Keane went back to Eaglehawk, Russell Roulston went to Golden Square... I've not no doubt we could have competed in the Bendigo league in 1977."
Plim was voted best on ground in the '77 grand final playing as a ruck-rover, while in attack, star forward Doug Roulston was unstoppable, kicking nine goals.
A year earlier, Roulston had booted 11 goals in the Bulldogs' 63-point grand final win, also against Northern United.
Terry Mangles was the coach of the losing 1977 Northern United grand final team, and recalls the Bulldogs were a respected opposition that had experienced players on every line.
"They were a class above the rest of the competition that year," Mangles said.
"I remember in that grand final we had to try to do things out of the ordinary to catch them off guard, but it didn't work for us.
"Sides like the North Bendigo one that year don't come around too often."
Since the 1977 premiership, the Bulldogs have played in three losing grand finals.
In 1980 they had been undefeated going into the grand final, but lost to White Hills by 24 points.
Two years later in 1982 when they were again red-hot favourites, they lost to YCW by five points when YCW's Colin Grenfell was awarded a controversial free kick and goal with 45 seconds left on the clock.
And in 1998 in their third season in the HDFL, they kicked just four goals in their 58-point grand final loss to Colbinabbin.
● North Bendigo's last premiership team:
B: N. Trigger, B. Holland, I. Vorbach
Hb: G. Milroy, G. Smith, J. Evans
C: B. Keane, T. Day, G. Alley
Hf: D. Alford, R. Roulston, K. Robertson
F: C. O'Hara, D. Roulston, G. Ford
Foll: R. Lowther, J. Plim, B. Brown
19th: R. Wood 20th: G. Miller


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Did you read today's front page stories & breaking news?
From the Wires
Chicago Retirement Specialist Launches New Website: DoctorsRetireTaxFree.com
By: PR Newswire
Nov. 7, 2012 09:04 AM
CHICAGO, Nov. 7, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Allen Thomas, founder of Autumn Financial in Chicago and surrounding areas, launched his latest informational website for physicians across the nation, DoctorsRetireTaxFree.com.
With almost two decades of retirement planning experience, Allen Thomas helps businesses, families, and medical professionals secure a tax-free retirement through strategic solutions and safe planning options. Allen dedicates himself to a safe money approach that works hard to keep his clients' hard-earned nest eggs.
His extensive work with physicians and medical professionals led Allen to develop the website DoctorsRetireTaxFree.com. Allen knows that these individuals have high earning potential, but often can't find the resources to invest their funds safely.
"The information is just not out there and available in an easy-to-understand, simple format. My new site is a means to get tax-free retirement information to doctors, dentists, dermatologists, and really anyone who's looking to retire without the burden of unnecessary taxes," says Allen.
Visitors to the site have the opportunity to download a free report entitled, "The Retirement Cure: your Tax-Free Future."
Best-selling author and retirement planning expert Patrick Kelly believes Allen is on the right track to providing useful and needed information to medical professionals in the Chicago area and beyond. "It's great that Allen is making these strategies better known throughout the medical communities. He's utilizing proven strategies that I talk about in my book Tax-Free Retirement. We know they work. We just have to spread the word to help people save their retirement accounts."
Established by Allen Thomas in 1996, Autumn Financial serves businesses and families in Chicago, Illinois and the surrounding area. Focusing on tax elimination for individuals, families, and businesses, Autumn Financial helps you plan for your financial future with smart, innovative strategies that save you money and time. Contact Allen Thomas at (708) 513-1146 or email him at email@example.com.
SOURCE Autumn Financial
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(CNN) -- Erick Muñoz tried to keep hope alive, but he knew his wife was dead.
"Many a night, I asked God to take me instead," he said in an exclusive interview with CNN's "AC360" on Wednesday. "But you can't turn off that knowledge, that you know how bad it was. ... And I promised her, I told her I will honor her wishes."
On Sunday, someone switched off the machines inside a Texas hospital that kept Marlise Muñoz's heart and lungs working.
Her family spoke to CNN on Wednesday in their first national television interview since they won their battle to disconnect the ventilator from the pregnant woman's body.
Brain-dead woman off life support
Attorney on judge's order: We are relieved
Their wrenching court fight drew national attention and sparked debate over who's alive, who's dead and whether the presence of a fetus changes the equation. Now, they say they want their story to be heard in order to save other families from going through the same nightmare.
Marlise was 33 years old and 14 weeks pregnant with the couple's second child when her husband found her unconscious on their kitchen floor November 26. Though doctors had pronounced her brain dead and her family had said she did not want to have machines keep her body alive, officials at John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth, Texas, argued state law required them to maintain life-sustaining treatment for a pregnant patient.
Marlise didn't leave any written directives regarding end-of-life care. But long before she was hospitalized, her family said, they had made Marlise a promise to honor her wishes, and they were determined to keep it.
"We looked her in the eye and told her," Erick Muñoz said, his voice cracking as he spoke to CNN's Anderson Cooper. "And for the state of Texas, to not let us do that, was hard. You know, you want to keep your word to your loved one."
'They're using my wife'
Erick Muñoz had no doubt about what his wife wanted. They were both paramedics, and it was something they'd talked about many times as they discussed their days.
In their line of work, Erick Muñoz said, they became all too aware of families who held on to loved ones long after they'd gone. And of how fleeting life can be.
"You work on a freeway or a busy road," he said. "That driver just accidentally hits you, and you could be gone."
Now that Marlise is gone, her family is pushing for others to have those same conversations.
"We were together on the same page from the very beginning, which we feel is very important for families that have to go through something like this, that there isn't any in-house fighting," said Marlise's mother, Lynne Machado.
It should be a family's decision, they said, not a political issue.
They've heard protesters and politicians pointing to the case and claiming laws should be rewritten to make sure someone like Marlise can't be disconnected from life support. Those people, they said, are missing the point.
"I feel that's unfair on their part. They're not the family. I can't take the right away from you to do something with your loved ones. I don't feel they should, either," Erick Muñoz said. "I feel they're using my wife, unfortunately, as a stepping stone, as an argument for their debates. They want votes. And I tell them, 'That's wrong.' ... They are using her as a political argument."
Mom: 'We needed to do this for her'
Marlise's family members were preparing to say their final goodbyes in the ICU the day in November when doctors showed them that her heart kept stopping and that her brain was swelling.
But then suddenly, the situation changed: a doctor told them they couldn't disconnect the machines.
The family says they were shocked, and that even the doctors seemed surprised.
"I thought, there must have been a miscommunication in some way. We said 'No, no, no. That's not what she wanted. She wanted never to be on life support.' They said, 'Well, but she's pregnant.' And then, you know, it went from there," Machado said. "We knew we weren't going to let this rest, because it wasn't right. It was not honoring her wishes."
That's why the family went to court and kept fighting, she said, even as the going got tough.
Even as it became clearer every day that the woman they loved had slipped away.
Even as her skin texture changed -- becoming like a mannequin's, cool and rubbery.
Even as the air in her hospital room started to smell more like death than life.
"There would be times I'd feel frustrated by the process we were having to go through. And I could just feel Marlise say, 'Mom, don't give up, keep going, keep fighting.' And for many days, that's what I held onto," Machado said. "We tried to raise our children to stand up for what's right, even if you're the only one standing up. And this is what Marlise would have done had the situation been different. She would have stood up for what's right, so we needed to do this for her."
A judge in Fort Worth sided with the family on Friday, ordering the hospital to remove any artificial means of life support from Marlise by 5 p.m. Monday.
The devices were shut off Sunday morning and her body was released to her husband.
"The Muñoz and Machado families will now proceed with the somber task of laying Marlise Muñoz's body to rest, and grieving over the great loss that has been suffered," the family's attorneys said in a statement at the time. "May Marlise Muñoz finally rest in peace, and her family find the strength to complete what has been an unbearably long and arduous journey."
Now, the family says they know that Marlise and the baby girl she carried, who they named Nicole, are in heaven.
But even the legal victory, which gave them a chance to say their final goodbyes, wasn't a moment for celebration.
"It wasn't happy for anybody. There was not a happy ending," Machado said. "We were pleased that the judge ruled in our favor, and that he realized that Marlise was not a patient, as the hospital was saying. That she was, in fact, legally dead."
Attorneys: Fetus was 'distinctly abnormal'
What happens next?
The hospital acknowledged Friday that Marlise had been brain dead since November 28 and that the fetus she carried was not viable.
"The past eight weeks have been difficult for the Muñoz family, the caregivers and the entire Tarrant County community, which found itself involved in a sad situation," a hospital statement said over the weekend. "JPS Health Network has followed what we believed were the demands of a state statute."
Since the ventilator shut off, Machado said she's finally started to do something she wasn't able to do for months after she knew her daughter was gone: grieve.
"For me, closure began after she was disconnected. I was able to get a sense of closure. ... It was hard to start the grieving process when we still had this body that we knew was an empty shell in front of us," she said. "We really couldn't start grieving, but now we can."
Erick Muñoz said he doesn't know whether he'll pursue legal action against the hospital. He said he's angry, arguing that the hospital misinterpreted the Texas law and kept his wife's heart beating long after she'd died.
And he said if hospital officials send him a bill for her time on a ventilator, there's no way he'll pay it.
But it's too soon to say what steps are next.
Right now, he's focused on their 15-month-old son.
"One of her wishes also was to raise a good man out of my son, and that's what continues to drive me, and what I will use as my driving point for the rest of my life," he said. "Because that's my job now, to raise a good man, because I promised her."


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CARBON HILL — The Carbon Hill School Museum invites one and all to learn about the historic fire that destroyed the town of Carbon Hill 100 years ago.
During the week of Carbon Hill Homecoming week, June 19-23, visitors can see a map of the fire and read eye witness accounts and newspaper feature stories of the fire. Visitors can also browse the many displays in the classroom and the village room.
The museum will be open 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday, June 19 through Saturday, June 22. The museum will be open Sunday, June 23, from noon until the parade starts, and it will then reopen after the parade until the fireworks show. At 4 p.m, the museum will celebrate Bob Novy as Grand Marshall with a program and refreshments.
Old timers in Carbon Hill spoke often of the disastrous fire of 1913, voices filled with both excitement and sadness. Fire was common in that era of wooden buildings and fire was no stranger to Carbon Hill. Various saloons, houses, businesses and barns had burned over the years, one by one; other homes or businesses were literally moved out of town when the people left.
Following the April, 1912 tornado and the closing of the tipple, the town lost its vitality and miners had to move on for work. Some took their houses with them while others abandoned their little homes, not seeing any value in paying for the move.
They often let a neighbor take the house, connect it to his home both to increase living space and garden space. The 50-foot lot that each house sat on was more valuable than the house with no heat, electricity or plumbing. At any rate, business really slowed down in Carbon Hill after that tornado, making it no surprise that the little company town's insured wooden buildings would be destined for a serious fire.
And sure enough on Friday, June 13, 1913, on a dry, windy, hot summer day, a fire broke out in a vacant storeroom of Gallo's Hall — the two story opera hall which was vacant at the time, making it easy for a tossed cigar to get a good start with little notice. The fire spread north from Gallo's up 3rd Street to take out Isaac Bull's butcher shop, the post office, a dry goods store and a confectionary, leaving only the brick coal company store at the north end of the block. All of the businesses on the block were lost to the fire except for the brick company store.
The fire also spread south and east. Gallo's Hall sat on the northeast corner of 3rd and Lacey at the center of Carbon Hill's business district. From where the fire started on the Lacey Street side of Gallo's Hall to the south was the two story hotel with 25 bedrooms housing mostly Elgin, Joliet and Eastern railroad workers. The hotel had a kitchen, a dining hall and the office where miners and railroad men collected their pay.
The hotel burnt to the ground. The fire moved south to Squire Henderson's little Justice of the Peace office, and it also went up in flames.
One block east of the hotel at the corner of 2nd and Lacey Street was the Methodist church on one corner and the Knights of Pythias Hall on the other. They both burned to the ground.
The fire moved rapidly. A volunteer bucket brigade could not halt it in spite of the work of David Wharrie, an expert with pumps, who worked the system for the volunteer firefighters.Top priority was to save the schoolhouse on 2nd street. The volunteers salted the schoolhouse roof and this building lived to tell the tale.
Directly west of Gallo's Hall was the village park and the water tower. At Trotter's Store, south of the water tower on Lacey St, people shoveled loads of salt on the roof of the store to prevent the fire from spreading any further. This act saved Trotter's, the cigar and candy store next door and the barber shop next to that.
Young Frances Veronda was in charge of the post office that day because her father was out of town. She was quick enough to rescue everything there. Despite these heroic efforts, the scene on the street was in a shambles.
Annie Martinec and her young friends were working at the clothing factory in Suffernville that day and were just eating lunch outside, sitting under the trees, trying not to think about the heat, when they saw smoke to the west. Running home breathless, they arrived to find their town was gone!
Trotter's stayed open into the 1920s. A second post office was built next door to Trotter's and also lasted into the 20s. A new Knights of Pythias Hall was built and served as the village social center until about 1940, when it was sold for $401, torn down by its new owner and its lumber used to build a little home in Coal City.
The well cared for park remains the town's treasure and the scene of weekly social events. The schoolhouse was modified to a one-story building in the WPA years and still stands today as a public museum dedicated to the coal miners, their immigrant families and all the children who came to school in Carbon Hill.
For more information, call Michele at (815) 634-4213.


text: Shravana Purnima is the full moon day in the month of Shravana (July-August), according to Hindu calendar. Shravana is the most sanctified month of the year and corresponds with the monsoon season of the country, hence various important rituals and fasts are observed on this day of the month (Purnima also being a very sacred day in itself). Festivals like Avani Avittam, Nariyal Purnima, brings religious fervor in South Indian states whereas festivals like Rakshabandhan and Kajari Purnima are associated with happiness in North Indian states.


text: Ok, to start this out i'm giving a easier one. I do not have to be the only one to give out trivia. Lets say someone gets it right, and im not here to post another question, anyone else can post a question. But please only 1 at a time. Who hold the record for longest NBA championship title Run?


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MRL was honored earlier this year by Railway Age as it's 2013 Regional Railroad of the Year.
As a critical part of the BNSF route network, MRL connects with BNSF mainlines at Huntley, Mont., and Sandpoint, Idaho. MRL has been handling record volumes of "overhead" traffic in 2013 through a 2012 agreement that ensures adequate capacity on the MRL route to meet future demand.
"MRL is an important BNSF business partner committed to enhance service to customers by focusing on network and terminal velocity initiatives, responding to changes in traffic volume and investing in infrastructure while always emphasizing the safety of employees," said Dean Wise, vice president of network strategy for BNSF.
In Montana, Idaho and Washington, MRL operates a 957-mile rail system. Across the tri-state region, it serves three oil refineries, an electric utility, a large woodchip facility, intermodal and automotive terminals and producers of agriculture, talc, finished lumber, particleboard lime and cement.
"Our vision is to be the 'Best of the Best' in safety, customer satisfaction and ingenuity," said Tom Walsh, MRL president. "On behalf of our nearly 1,100 employees, we are honored to receive this prestigious award from our valued partner, BNSF."
BNSF selected BDW for the Special Recognition Award because of its commitment to growth, customer service and efficiency. BDW interchanges with BNSF at Bonneville and Bishop, Wyo., and has provided great customer service and aggressively invested in capacity for new customers. BDW has grown at an annual growth rate of 14 percent over the past 10 years, nearly quadrupling its volume since 2003.
BNSF created the awards to honor shortlines that exceed the railway's expectations for innovation, determination, vision and entrepreneurial spirit.


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Monday, February 06, 2012
NYRA NOTES: Sunday, February 5, 2012
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Sporting a brand-new New York Giants cap in honor of their appearance in tonight's Super Bowl XLVI, trainer Kiaran McLaughlin reported this morning that Alpha returned from his Withers CXXXII victory in good order and would likely take the next step to the Kentucky Derby in New York.
"We'll look at the Gotham/Wood, talk to [Godolphin racing manager] Simon Crisford and see if we want to run him two more times, or one more time," said McLaughlin, referring to Aqueduct Racetrack's Grade 3, $400,000 Gotham on March 3 and the Grade 1, $1 million Resorts World New York City Casino Wood Memorial on April 7. "We like having him here in New York."
The decision to run Alpha in the January 7 Count Fleet and the Withers was made initially to keep him and another Godolphin son of Bernardini on divergent paths to the Triple Crown, said the trainer.
"We thought Consortium was equally good, and we wanted to split them up," said McLaughlin. "Then he ran terrible in the slop, [last of six] in the Holy Bull at Gulfstream. We still think he's a good colt, but we're not sure which way we are going to go with him."
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Calibrachoa – winner of four Grade 3 stakes at Aqueduct, including Saturday's Toboggan – will aim for a fifth as the 5-year-old has been pointed toward the $200,000 Tom Fool Handicap on March 3, the Todd Pletcher stable has said.
Owned by Mike Repole, Calibrachoa won the Toboggan for the second straight year, improving his inner-track record to 4-for-4. The son of Southern Image prefers having ample time between starts, but the Pletcher stable believes the four weeks between the Toboggan and the Tom Fool will provide sufficient rest. Like with the Toboggan, Calibrachoa won the Tom Fool in 2011.
"I'm telling you what, he looked great yesterday," said Whit Beckman, assistant to Pletcher. "With the way Todd explained it, the [Tom Fool] would be the plan."
Caixa Eletronica, who finished third in the Toboggan for Pletcher and Repole, exited the race in good shape and remains on target for a start in the Grade 2 General George Handicap on February 20 at Laurel Park, Beckman said.
"The horse has showed in the past that he doesn't need much space between races," the assistant explained.
Beckman said the barn discovered How Do I Win, fourth in the Grade 3 Withers, grabbed a quarter at some point on Saturday.
"He looked good this morning," said Beckman. "He must have grabbed a quarter on the outside of his right front foot, either before or after the race, maybe when he dropped [jockey] Cornelio [Velasquez] in the post parade."
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The morning after her dominant win in Aqueduct's $100,000 Correction Stakes, Nicole H was showing no signs of fatigue.
"She's very good," said trainer Mike Hushion. "Full of herself this morning. She came out of the race really bright."
In her start prior to the Correction, Aqueduct's January 7 Interborough, Nicole H prevailed by a neck over Winning Image, idling slightly after making the lead in deep stretch. Both races are run at six furlongs, and Nicole H rolled home a 2 ½-length winner in Saturday's Correction, improving her inner-track record to a perfect 4-for-4.
"We weren't sure why she kind of hung a little bit the last couple of jumps in her last race, maybe it was something mental," said Hushion. "Ramon [Dominguez] said he just loose-reined her [yesterday] the last sixteenth of a mile and she did it all on her own. The time wasn't very fast, but basically she was at three-quarters to the eighth pole and sprinted to the wire."
After Saturday's race, Hushion mentioned that Nicole H might reappear to defend her title in Aqueduct's Grade 2, $200,000 Distaff Handicap run over the main track at seven furlongs on April 14. As of Sunday morning, no plans for the 5-year-old daughter of Mr. Greeley had been finalized.
"I'm not sure where we're going to go next; we'll have that conversation pretty soon. I thought she was exceptionally bright this morning and yesterday in the spitbox. [The race] was almost like a sturdy three-quarter of a mile work, that was the way you'd like one to work."
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Withers runner-up Speightscity is likely to make his next appearance in the Gotham on March 3, according to Marcelo Arenas, assistant to trainer Gary Contessa. The son of Speightstown proved the best of the rest in Saturday's race, finishing 1 ¾ lengths ahead of Tiger Walk.
"He had a very bad trip [when fifth in the Count Fleet]," Arenas said. "But he's a nice horse, and we really think he's the best horse we have in the barn. We believed in him, and he showed us yesterday he can do it. He ran a big race."
Speightscity checked in fifth behind Alpha in the Count Fleet after a stumbling start and a wide trip. A maiden winner closing weekend at Saratoga going 1 1/8 miles, he finished ninth in the Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Juvenile and eighth in the Grade 2 Remsen at Aqueduct before winning an inner-track optional claimer on December 15 to cap his 2-year-old season.
Read more articles in the Aqueduct category.


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Dear Editor: The following is an open letter to the citizens of Hoboken.
Citizens of Hoboken:
On the November 5 ballot will be Hoboken Public Question No. 1 ("HPQ1"), which asks the voters to approve an ordinance which will decontrol all rental units on vacancy, allowing landlords to charge new tenants whatever they want, and in effect it could encourage them to evict current tenants. If the yes vote wins, many renters will be forced out of their homes.
This may seem familiar to you since the exact same Hoboken Public Question ("HPQ2") was on the ballot in November, 2012. More votes (16,444) were cast on HPQ2 than on any local question or for any local candidate in the 35 years I've lived in Hoboken. The no vote won by 52 votes: a majority of Hoboken's citizens voted to defend renters by keeping their rent control protections. So why is the same question on the November 5 ballot?
The answer is very disturbing: after losing the election, the developer/real estate interests who put HPQ2 on the ballot went to court to overturn the election result, based on their claim that 114 provisional voters displaced by Hurricane Sandy were prevented from voting on HPQ2. Despite the fact that there is hard evidence (including "Affirmation Statements" attached to all provisional ballots) that proves that at most 36 of the 114 voters were disenfranchised Hoboken voters (which is not enough to reverse the 52 vote election victory, as required by law to overturn an election result), the election officials charged with defending the election and the presiding judge failed to look at the evidence, and the court overturned the HPQ2 election result, requiring a revote this November. Tenant leader Cheryl Fallick was denied the right to intervene in the lawsuit, so that the winning no vote had no representation in the lawsuit. Only after the court overturned the election was Fallick able to obtain the Affirmation Statements which showed that the 114 voter list was false evidence. She appealed the court's wrongful ruling, but was denied the right to supplement the court record with the proof that the 114 voter list was false evidence, and the appeals court affirmed the overturning of the election!
Bottom line: a valid election result, representing the will of 16,444 voters, was overturned based on false evidence, and those charged with defending the election failed to scrutinize the evidence or to consider proof that it was false. A precedent has been set which allows those who lose an election and who have the money to go to court to overturn a valid democratic election result based on false evidence. Democratic elections have been undermined!
We now have no choice but to vote again to send a message that we will not allow a democratic election to be overturned. The HPQ1 ordinance will destroy rent control protections and force many tenants out of their homes. But no matter what you think about rent control or how you voted last November, we must send the message that the Democratic will of the voters must be respected by voting no on HPQ1 on November 5!
Daniel Tumpson


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Chipley – The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) is providing an update on road and bridge closures and restrictions in Northwest Florida due to heavy rainfall. All airport and seaport facilities are functioning as normal.
Bay County
· State Road (S.R.) 20 at the Econfina Creek Bridge is closed.
Escambia County
· Northbound I-110 at mile marker (MM) 6 is restricted.
· Northbound I-110 on ramp at Airport Boulevard is restricted.
· Scenic Highway (U.S. 90) 150 feet north of Baywalk Circle is closed.
· Scenic Highway (U.S. 90) south of Scenic Highway Circle is closed.
· Scenic Highway (U.S. 90) north of Wimbledon Drive is closed.
· Scenic Highway (U.S. 90) at Summit Boulevard is closed.
· Scenic Highway (U.S. 90) at Pelican Lane is closed.
· S.R. 296 (Bayou Boulevard) between Tronjo Road and DuPont Drive is restricted.
· U.S. 90 1/2 mile west of eastbound I-10 is restricted.
· S.R. 297 (Pine Forest Road) 3/4 miles south of I-10 is restricted.
· Southbound U.S. 29 to westbound I-10 ramp is closed.
· U.S. 98 (Lilian Highway) at Trout Road is restricted.
· U.S. 98 at S.R. 295 (Navy Boulevard) is restricted.
Okaloosa County
· U.S. 98 east of the Brooks Bridge is restricted.
Santa Rosa County
· S.R. 281 (Avalon Boulevard) from U.S. 90 to Carroll Road is restricted.
FDOT has opened a call center to assist motorists in Northwest Florida toll-free at (888) 638-0250 extension 1199 or dial direct at (850) 330-1199.
Motorists are reminded to be watchful of other drivers and road conditions and to be on the lookout for flooded roads. If the road ahead is flooded, turn around and find an alternate route. Flooded roads may hide the fact that the roadway is washed out underneath and as little as six inches of rushing water can force your car off the road.
For the latest closures and updates from the Florida Department of Transportation District Three follow us on twitter at @myfdot_nwfl or visit FL511.com.