Personal

Recently, my daughter came back home and asked about Terry Fox.

It’s been a long time since I watched a video on Terry. She wanted to see Terry Fox on YouTube because she learned about him at school. I never thought about that – watching him on YouTube that is, even though I watch YouTube all the time for my crypto news. Maybe because it happened when I was a kid when YouTube didn’t exist.

I have to say, watching the videos of Terry Fox with my daughter was so inspiring. It brought back so many memories of my Terry Fox runs we did at school and my 10k runs for charity. It’s amazing to hear schools still honour his incredible journey he started so long ago to run across Canada and raise money for cancer.

I still remember the images of him running along the road through rain with the cop cars right behind him. The images of throngs of people to cheer him on and honour him was so inspiring and motivating.

At least back then, society seemed more genuine and real. He got kids, teens, adults, and elders inspired, talking, celebrating, and cheering him on. Absolutely phenomenal.

Unlike today, I think society is a disaster. I feel bad for our children today. We have either super incompetent, terrible or corrupt leaders around the world leading us down a path of potentially the biggest financial disaster we’ll ever see.

And we even re-elected our Prime Minister for his handling of our vaccination yet he didn’t even want Pfizer or Moderna vaccines. He actually wanted the Chinese vaccine (which was the worst one) and didn’t get it because China just didn’t bother delivering it to us to punish us for holding Meng Wangzhou. Thank goodness they were being China 🙂 After that, then Trudeau tried the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. And then we voted him back. How hilarious is that?

Anyways, I shouldn’t ruin Terry’s story with corrupt politics.

I believe personal perseverance and pushing to better oneself is the greatest accomplishment we can do for ourselves and society. Greater than any amount of money making, technological advancements, or invention.

After watching further videos on Terry Fox, and reflecting on him again, I think he’s the most inspiring person I’ve come across.

So, here are some videos of Terry Fox that I compiled as a reminder and inspiration when I want to accomplish something personal.

I’ve also linked to his charitable website in case you want to make a donation.

I graduated in Health Studies from university. So, I’ve been all about staying healthy from early adulthood.

I always thought that I would never give my child junk food like all the candies and crap that is given to kids during halloween.

Unfortunately, there can be disagreements between my wife and I when it comes to this. She says it’s only once a year. But, for me, it’s not just once a year. There are birthdays, Chinese New Year, parties at daycare, school, and other events that makes it seem like children are always given junk food.

And why do adults make the kids think all this junk food is a treat? It makes no sense to me. The food is filled with so much artificial crap, some of it is not really food to me. Food is grown. This stuff is synthesized and made in a factory.

There is so much artificial colouring, flavouring, and preservatives in the “food” too. Why do adults make the kids think this stuff is a “treat”? And particularly at such a young age.

It’s such a huge systemic problem. Food manufacturers shouldn’t be allowed to create this stuff. It’s such garbage.

I looked up how to make chocolate and I discovered it only takes 3 or 4 ingredients! Can you believe that? I couldn’t. Because when you look at most chocolate treats they are filled with so much junk, it’s very scary. I can’t believe it’s allowed to be given to kids.

Take Kit Kat for example:

Milk chocolate (sugar, modified milk ingredients, cocoa butter, cocoa mass, whey powder, lactose, soya lecithin, polyglycerol polyricinoleate, natural flavour), wheat flour, sugar, modified palm oil, cocoa, sodium bicarbonate, soya lecithin, yeast, Natural Flavour.

Dark chocolate (sugar, unsweetened chocolate, cocoa butter, milk ingredients, soya lecithin, salt, artificial flavour), wheat flour, sugar, modified palm oil, unsweetened chocolate or cocoa powder, sodium bicarbonate, soya lecithin, artificial flavour. May contain salt and/or yeast.

At this one party, someone showed the ingredients to this cupcake. Take a look:

I looked at this and told my daughter if she skips this, I’ll give her as much of the healthy chocolate or homemade ice cream I have that day. Thankfully, she took my offer.

What was funny was that the person who was giving these out said if anyone is worried about peanuts, she has a nut-free version.

I was thinking to myself, I don’t care about the peanuts! Just look at all the crap in there. It makes Kit Kat look super healthy.

Seriously, reading the ingredients seems so ridiculous to me, I don’t really understand how this is legal.

It just doesn’t make sense to call this a treat. Why would giving this crap to a kid be a treat??? To degrade their bodies at a young age is giving them a treat??? For who, the graveyard?

If you haven’t looked up how to make chocolate already, this is really all you need:

• Cocoa
• Coconut oil
• Honey
• Vanilla

Just heat up the coconut oil, then pour in the cocoa, stir it until it’s smooth, add some honey and a teaspoon of vanilla, let it cool, and you’re done.

It’s done in about 5 minutes!

I couldn’t believe how easy it is. And my daughter loves it. I can give her as much as she wants. I don’t, because I need to use it as leverage, but, I won’t feel bad giving her much more than the crap treats that are made by Nestle and other “food” manufacturers.

Now, I don’t need to compromise with my wife either. My wife is happy that I’m giving her a treat and not “depriving” her of kids treats, and I feel fine even if I give my daughter as much as she wants, which I still don’t.

Anyways, if you want to give your child a treat, homemade chocolate like the one I mentioned above is so good. And it really is a treat. The health benefits of each ingredient I listed above is actually a treat to your body.

Take cocoa, the main ingredient, for example. It has huge amounts of polyphenols which are anti-oxidants and are good for lowering blood pressure, lowering blood cholesterol, and lowering inflammation.

It also may help reduce cancer, promote skin health, manage diabetes, and so many other health benefits.

Coconut oil is the second largest ingredient in making chocolate and it has health benefits such as potentially helping you manage weight, kill harmful bacteria and viruses, protect your skin and hair, increase your good cholesterol, promote healthy heart health, and possibly aid in reducing seizures and Alzheimer’s disease. Now, that’s a treat.

The third largest ingredient is honey. And honey has anti-oxidants that are good for your health including to help your blood cholesterol, heart health, healing wounds, and managing coughs. Once again, this is what I call a treat.

So, as you can see, giving homemade chocolate to your child can be a treat, especially compared to giving the popular treats like Kit Kat or Smarties.

Not only are you truly helping them grow and nourish their bodies, I do feel good about myself that I made the food for my daughter. And she does a happy dance everytime I give her my homemade chocolate.

Now, my next fatherly task is to look at how to make other junk foods myself so that she’s eating more healthy and I don’t have to “deprive” her.

I think it was in around 2012 that I had migraines lasting 3 to 5 days 24/7 that I finally gave in and asked my family doctor for migraine medication.

I don’t like taking medication, but, I couldn’t do anything for probably half of each month. You just can’t live like that.

I already tried Tylenol, Tylenol with Sinus, coffee, herbs such as rosemary, and combination of 3 natural products including quercetin. B vitamins, and something else. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the last one because this was so long ago.

Sometimes the coffee worked, sometimes it didn’t.

In any case, I needed a cure, not something that worked some of the times.

I caved in and asked for a prescription and I was given Eletriptan.

Boom! On the second dose, I had some crazy dermatitis like breakout. And I mean serious breakout.

It was a co-worker who finally said, you better go to the hospital because I had fluid coming out of my face and I was bright red I was told. Plus, I had eczema all over my body that was so bad, I had spots spontaneously bleeding on my thighs.

Special thanks to Ivan for making me go and he even walked me to the hospital to make sure I went!

There I got prescribed 7 days of 50 mg of prednisone. It worked even though I didn’t take the whole dose because I could feel the medication coursing through my body. Plus, my wife who is a pharmacist said that’s a crazy high dose and so I tapered it off with her guidance.

It made me not sleep for almost 3 weeks, so that’s almost 2 weeks after stopping the medication. Is that crazy or what! It was that, that made me say to myself, I’m not going for traditional medical treatments anymore for my migraine.

I have to say, my migraine did stop, the eletriptan worked, but, then I had to deal with a crazy reaction that made me end up in the hospital.

And after that, I had to deal with my insomnia caused by the medication to cure my reaction!

And of course, I could have tried another medication to deal with my insomnia. But, I think you sort of see where that’s going.

“Medicine” isn’t always that great. And to call some of these things “medicine” is giving these drugs a bit too much credit.

I had to break the cycle.

So, after 4 different “alternative” practitioners including a naturopath, acupuncturist, massage therapist, and chiropractor, I finally found a chiropractor / acupuncturist who just massaged out a muscle knot behind my ear and cured my migraine that I had for 7 years.

Seriously, that was it! I just couldn’t believe it. I suffered for years and had to deal with the reaction, hospital incident, and what I suspect my recurring extreme eczema that continues to this day, all because of taking this one medication.

I continued with the chiropractic treatment for about 6 months, maybe longer, because the muscle knot kept on recurring, but, I can say without a doubt, it was cured. I’m certain there’s no way I would have been cured if I kept on seeing medical doctors.

So, for those of you suffering from migraines and taking medications and who knows what other kinds of treatments from medical doctors, just be aware, it’s possible that you can get away from all that and be cured. It happened for me, and it might work for you.

Don’t be discouraged that the naturopath or chiropractor or whatever alternative practitioner you saw wasn’t able to help you. It doesn’t mean they can’t. You just have to find the right one.

It’s just like finding the right medical doctor. I don’t think most people discredit all doctors just because one or even two can’t help them. They keep searching.

I think the same needs to be done with alternative practitioners.

I know, it’s more expensive because the government doesn’t cover it, but, sometimes, you just have to keep searching because going back to medications and traditional medical treatments for certain health issues just doesn’t cut it.

In fact, because of this and other incidents similar to this, I am strongly considering to start a campaign to have some of these practitioners covered by the government.

Although I’m sure I’m not the only one who wants this to happen. Maybe someone has started that already. If so, please let me know. I’d love to help.