Yes…I’ve been negligent in dumping out my normal plethora of pieces of wit and wisdom, but I have a note from home.
I have been on the injured reserve list due to a religious problem.
As you can see, I am typing with a handicap.
Technically, it was ganglion cyst that took me down.
But in the vernacular of an older generation,
I was possessed with a Bible Bump.
The exorcism was preformed as an outpatient procedure at a local medical facility by an international crew: my admitting nurse from Scotland; my O.R. nurse from Mexico; and my anesthesiologist from Cape Town, South Africa.
The gas-man asked me, “Do you want to be awake or asleep during the procedure?”
Are you kidding…I wanted to be higher than a kite and not feel a thing…
“Knock me out, doc!” I answered.
So, if you can excuse my strenuously slow typing, I shall attempt to carry on.
Apparently some travelers are shopping for more than cheap souvenirs while visiting certain foreign countries.
In the Philippines, you just might find an eBay listing:
“Wanted–kidney,
Will pay top piso.”
Organ transplantations–both voluntary and otherwise–have long been a staple of travelers myths where someone has a drink spiked in some back-street dive bar and wakes up later in a dirty, ice-filled bathtub in some back-street dive motel to find a fresh scar about the mid-section.
The story locations and particulars change but the conclusion remains the same:
The victim is sans an internal organ, typically a kidney.
Tales of organ marketing have not been limited to pulp fiction stories and urban myths but fodder for legitimate medical discussion.
The topic has resurfaced once again as the Philippine Health Secretary has recently issued an order that directs foreign travelers to quit shopping for Filipino organ donors.
“A new order aimed at eradicating a thriving black market in kidney sales by desperately poor Filipinos would restrict foreigners traveling to the Philippines in search of donors, the health secretary said Wednesday.”
“We don’t want to be known as the kidney capital of the world.”
That this desperate behavior is further exploiting extremely destitute citizens of a foreign country–again–and the fact that it is characterized as “thriving,” I find simultaneously disturbing and somewhat astonishing.
Beyond the medical conditions in some countries–given the language barrier, you better know the difference in how to say “I’ve got a bad cut” and not make it come out “I’ve got a sore butt.”
And then there’s that damn exchange rate with the weak dollar.
Better to limit your purchases to those cheap trinkets and T-shirts.
