American history is longer, larger, with great variety; more beautiful, and definitely more terrible than histories of other nations….though, I have to say the UK is or was a close second around the turn of the last century. Remember the atrocities of the empire where the sun never set?? Remember Jalianwala Bagh in India?? Just google it please to know what happened there.

We have all seen the destructive and damaging way that this super power has single handedly alienated the native people of this land, and herded them into Reservations, and we have seen how tragic that is! Somewhere I read that no man consciously seeks evil because it is evil; he only thinks that he is grasping happiness as his ultimate goal….what mistakes we make! What crimes and sins we commit!!

The seed of terrorism grows in the soil of hopelessness, depression and fear; it grows in the soil of poverty, injustice and hunger, and it grows in the black hearts of prejudice! Killing innocent civilians, and occupying countries, exacerbate terrorism. We have seen this happening after the Iraq invasion. Remember the pictures of mothers lifting their hands up to the sky, their mouths open in agony, asking for retribution while the slain bodies of their sons or husbands resting in their laps?? `And you cried with them and for them while their silent screams on the paper went unheeded!

Imagine a world, where America stood for nothing else but humanitarianism, to help and provide for disaster relief… to help the underdogs of the earth…. and imagine, after helping, the Americans waved good bye and left a happy and satisfied country; imagine if that would happen: and then if ever a disaster with terrorism struck the shores of US, the love and support and help will be on our side; the rest of the world would help us and we wouldn’t have to defend ourselves. The rest of the world would do it for us.

What?? You say I am thinking with my heart and not with my brain??? Sure! I am naive.

We were all born with the same grain of humanity, of grace and love. Somewhere while growing up, our values changed. We became selfish and self-centered. We began to look about the differences of equality and oppression. We went against our grain. Look at Trump! What, tell me please, other than his wealth, makes Donald Trump the deity of vulgarity, worth being mentioned in a column of a respectable newspaper?? Does he have an iota of humanity in him? The mosque in Minnesota was bombed. Did we hear from him? Did he talk about living in peace, and loving neighbours and say he was sorry to the Muslims of that community for the prodigious calamity they faced? No he didn’t. At least not that I saw in any newspaper, condemning this act of terrorism and violence. Why? Because he has lost the finesse of the valued grain of humanity from his soul. That he is evil, I understand. But, I don’t believe that any man willingly and consciously chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for the happiness he seeks, and thinks that he can rejoice in the outcome.

And fools walk brazenly where angels fear to tread!

We cannot feel the pain and the anguish of a man who is being crushed. The man crushing the other, feels nothing. He is going after his goal of acquiring leadership. Unless one has placed oneself on the side of the oppressed, to feel with them, one cannot understand, the feeling of being terrorized, of being ridiculed, of being de-humanized, of being treated with prejudice.

Let’s hope that there is a better game than war…. Nuclear or not! Let’s hope that we do not terrorize each other so much that two foolish ego maniacs would think that playing a war game is good for their country and for their own plausible and credible morale, if they have any!!

I apologize for the length of this post. It had been a long time coming.

I know a lot of us think that nothing bad can happen to us. If anything bad happens, it happens to someone else. This thought process is an ongoing thread in everyone's mind. Physicians are worse. They think nothing can go wrong with them. If there is a slight problem, they think that they can take care of it with the super knowledge that they have.
I was in the same boat. Meh! Nothing will happen to me. I have taken care of thousands of patients in the 35 years that I practiced. I know all the signs and symptoms! Blah blah and more blah!

I needed to be put in my place. I needed to come down to ground zero! And boy did I ever!! When I passed out in London and found my face next to the floor, I was confused..."Why in God's name is my face so close to this floor?" Never suspected an MI. NEVER!

Shows how ignorant physicians can be sometimes!

Anyway, I had my angioplasty done on Monday. My original appointment was for 6:30 in the morning. I requested a later time, to allow us to drive down to St. Louis (a 2 hour drive without the hassle of traffic).I was given a 9 am time. We (Saadia and Sayeed) reached there at 8:15. The case that was being done at 6:30 got into complications, and it took them 5 hours to finish it. I did not have anything to eat since Sunday night. And that was okay, I just pretended that it was Ramadan and I was fasting!!

At 1 pm I was told that it would take them three and half to four hours for my case. That means it would be close to six before I get out of the catheterization lab, and then I would have to wait for two to three hours in a state of immobility, before I could have my head raised up to eat some food! I just resigned myself to that fact and tried to be cool with it.

I was wheeled in around 1:30, and was given all kinds of medications etc. It was really cool watching and hearing the surgeons conducting their procedure. Really cool. After about two hours I asked Dr. Lasala, how everything was going, and he said, "Oh Dr. Ali, we are almost done. You had more than one blockage. We have put stents and opened the vessels up, and dilated some narrowing elsewhere. He had a surgeon flown in from Chicago to do the tandem procedure, going through both the femoral arteries. One of them went through the patent collaterals on one side and the other went through the main vessels... anti and retro grade flow.

I saw the CD later, and where as there were blocks where the dye couldn't go before, now with the stents in the way my blood danced its way in the open artery; reminded me of a mountain stream. So alive and full of vigor.

I was exhausted, physically and emotionally the next day and slept almost the entire day. The children brought food and forced me to eat something, and then I was back in bed. Yesterday was a slightly better day. Today, I am able to stand straight, and walk all over the house. There are lots of restrictions as to what I can do and what I definitely can not do, for the next seven days, and I have been good about following those restrictions.

Finally, now that my saga is over, I humbly lower my head with my palms pressed together to thank you, each one of you for your thoughts, prayers and good wishes. All your positive vibes lifted my heart and my spirit. Without your help and support, this arduous emotional journey would have been impossible.

THANK YOU MY DEAREST FREINDS. BLESSINGS AND GOOD FORTUNE ATTEND YOU.

Just a quick note to say that the procedure will be on Monday the 7th, at 9 in the morning.

I am hoping that I will be fit as a fiddle afterwards and will be rearing to go with writing on Xanga and WP. Thank you all for your loving support.