Chances are you don’t know Ibrahim Essandoh. I don’t know him either; not personally anyway.

I only heard of him this weekend – Mr. Essandoh is a soft spoken 42 year old immigrant from Ghana who lives in Vancouver, BC with his wife and three children.

I imagine the Essandohs were a happy family once, and at one time Mr Essandoh considered his life, family, blessings, magnificent views, his great friends,� neighbours and his new country, he even believed a little that he lived in the “best place on earth”

These days Mr. Essandoh is very sick, his liver is failing and is on frequent kidney dialysis, but what Mr. Essandoh needs most is a new kidney.

His would have been a standard medical story (although medical stories are hardly standard), had it not been for his potential kidney donor. Mr. Essandoh’s brother, Thomas lives in Ghana, is a match and is willing to give his brother a kidney. The only set back is that the Canadian Embassy in Ghana has rejected Thomas’ application for entry into Canada – where his brother Ibrahim resides and needs the kidney.

This is where the details get a little sketchy; all we know for now is that the kind officials at the Canadian Embassy in Accra are “skeptical” of whom Thomas says he is, which confuses me a little because… how the heck then did the hospital determine he was a match? His doctor was on tv confirming his brother is a match, he even wrote letters to support his application. Is the Dr. in cohorts with Thomas to swindle the Canadian government?

They seem to be also concerned about Thomas’ “motives” – I’m not exactly sure what that means (possibly because I’m not trained in the art of weeding out fake visa applicants) but here’s a logical way out, since this is an established matter of life and death, how about we grant him the visa and let CIC take it from there (when he gets here), if Thomas has some maniacal motives to prey on his dying brother for a free trip and entry into Canada and squanders off with his kidneys intact, then let’s have the branch of government that deals with that handle it. But please, please do not deny Mr. Essandoh his life because we’re skeptical of Thomas’ motives. Mr. Essandoh could die.

Personally, I think Thomas is a hero and I commend him, I doubt that any of my brothers (I have three very healthy ones) will give up a kidney for me. He should be given an award not shut out of the country while his brother possibly dies.

It’s also imperative that we address this now, it’s vital that this doesn’t set a precedent. Canada is a multicultural nation, we’re a country of immigrants with family scattered all over the world. If my mom needed a bone marrow transplant tomorrow, and her only brother happened to be a match, I would hate for him to be denied entry into Canada because no one said anything when the first, second or third would-be donor from a developing country was denied entry into Canada — to help save a Canadian’s life.

Isn’t Ibrahim Essandoh’s life worth saving, isn’t he Canadian enough? The man has lived here for 25 years; he’s paid taxes and has been a model citizen.

Let his brother help him.

Links:

• CTV Article – 22-May-09
• CTV Video News Report
• Facebook group to help Ibrahim Essandoh get a kidney
• CTV follow up article – 25-May-09

I always assumed only strong-willed people did cleanses/detoxes/fasts or any activity that involves not eating for a long period of time.

I convinced myself I could not go for more than 12hrs without food, that was until I decided to try the Arden’s Garden 2 Day Detox on a whim. Ok, so I didn’t really decide on a whim, I gave it some thought and even picked the date but I approached it with a little unease.

Since there aren’t any Arden’s Garden locations in my area; I used the recipe on their website.

On Friday, I went to the new Whole Foods on Cambie and 8^th and loaded up on grapefruit juice, orange juice, lemon juice and distilled water.

I trusted that I could at least make it through a day; I’ve tried fasting before, although my most memorable foray was a disaster and possibly the reason why my parents aren’t still together.

When my sister and I were kids, two very pious Christian women, friends of my mom visited from Ghana. They insisted that we pray together every morning before starting our day. So” morning devotion” (as we called it) became a routine in our household for the duration of their visit.

My parents were fighting a lot around this time; my dad had been brazenly carrying on with his affair and my mom was just angry and hurtful. I guess the women were on my mom’s side, they decided one morning that we would all fast and pray for one whole day. The purpose was to get the devil to leave my dad and bring him to his senses. For a moment, the adults seemed hopeful; I guess they believed it was going to work. On the day of the fast, I went to school without breakfast and didn’t take lunch with me – no one asked me if I wanted to join in this fast. We were going to break the fast at 6pm with prayer and praises but it turned out I couldn’t wait that long, I don’t remember exactly how it happened but my BFF Deborah ended up sharing her lunch with me, and then I went home with her after school and her stepmom fed me. I came home and pretended I had fasted all day just like the rest of them.

And… back to the present: I woke up Saturday morning ready to go! The thought of not eating for the next two days made me hungry.� I mixed my first jug and realized that it didn’t taste as bad as I’d imagined – it didn’t taste great either. It tasted like watered down lemonade, like something I wouldn’t drink under normal circumstances. The thought of drinking this solely for the next two days made me even hungrier.

Because I wasn’t sure what to expect I took things a little easy, I lounged around and watched tv, – there’s a lot of food on tv… at one point I thought to myself “even Serena and Blair are eating, shouldn’t this be a sign that I should eat?” granted they had three grapes between them (yes, I counted!)

I had a glass of the juice every hour on the hour. By mid afternoon I’d resigned myself to my fate, if only I could say the same for the frequent bathroom trips. I peed so much; I actually checked my blood sugar levels just to make sure that I don’t suddenly have diabetes.

I took a nap, woke up and realized that unless I doubled my efforts I wouldn’t get through all 128oz (16cups) in that day. I felt little hungry, I rushed to the bathroom to pee and drank two glasses more.

I spent the rest of the evening trying to finish off the jug. By 10pm I had drank it all! I went to bed feeling a little accomplished and dreading going through it all over again.

I woke up at 11am the next morning, Whoa… I’d slept like a log! I actually felt refreshed, not hungry at all and little energetic. I mixed my second jug and started chugging…

I had this sudden urge to do stuff, I tackled tasks I’d been putting off for month, I made a batch of my awesome ‘shea lotion’, made bread (in the bread machine), and helped my mom select pictures to send to her nieces (she’s been on me to do this for months!).

By evening I found myself hoping I could do this for a couple more days, I actually felt good.

I finished drinking my second jug by 6pm, I ran around for a few more hours getting ready for work tomorrow. I got ready for bed and put stuff in the slow cooker for breakfast.

I had another amazing night; I woke up rested, refreshed and surprisingly not hungry. I felt light and breezy on my walk to work, had meeting in the morning and didn’t eat my first solid breakfast until after 10am. It felt good to eat again, except a few minutes later I felt a little sluggish, I had some tea later and felt much better.

I had a big lunch, had more tea and I feel amazing! It’s incredible; I think I’ll go for a long walk tonight if it doesn’t rain.

In all, it wasn’t an unpleasant experience, would I do it again? Yes, probably in a few months, I like that feeling of lightness that comes with it. A plus, I lost 5.6lbs – probably water weight but it’s quite amazing looking at a scale that said I was 5.6lbs heavier on Saturday morning.