Sunday, April 6, 2014

Asbestos Awareness Week


Heather Von St. James is a remarkable woman who works to promote awareness of the dangers of asbestos which causes mesothelioma.  Heather was diagnosed with this disease at the age of 36, just after the birth of her baby (her daughter was only 3 1/2 months old.) You might be surprised to find out that asbestos is not banned in the USA. (It certainly came as a shock to me!)
 

April 1-7 is Asbestos Awareness Week.  Won't you please take a few moments and see and hear the story about Heather Von St. James?  You may find it  just here.  Once there, be sure to click on her lovely photo to watch the video.

 She has such a positive attitude that it reminded me of a story that I have had on my blog before...

Lots of starfish are washed up high and dry on a beach and a woman  begins to throw them back into the ocean. A man sees her and says, "What are you doing, are you crazy, there must be hundreds! You can't make any difference, there are too many!"

She picks one up and throws it into the deep water and said, " I made a difference to THAT one!"


Heather, may God bless you for sharing your story and I wish you the best of everything!
 

Looking at life through rose colored glasses, the best way to view it, I believe!

9 comments:

  1. Thank you-I read about Heather somewhere else, too. She is remarkable...and yes...if posting this can only save ONE it will be more than worth it. God bless you, Kay. xo Diana

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  2. On the way over now to hear Heather's story. Thank you for sharing Kay.

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  3. Asbestos is banned here. I'm very surprised that it's not banned in the US! How odd! How wrong!

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  4. Asbestos has long been banned in Germany, but it wasn't yet banned when I was a kid. The brand new sports hall that had just been erected when I started school (in 1974) had inuslation tiles lined with it, and we had PE (school sports) there for all the years I spent at that school. A little after I left that school, in the mid-1980s, they closed the sports hall and removed all the asbestos lining. Well, generations of school kids like myself, plus their teachers, spent many hours in there, breathing LOTS with the exertions of PE - so I would not be surprised to hear from some of my former class mates that they suffer the effects.

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  5. Our old public library building that is being torn down had asbestos. In fact, during the demolition, they kept finding more! It was all intact, and hadn't deteriorated, but still, we are all glad it's gone.

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  6. I had no idea it wasn't banned! I once worked in a school that had to go through asbestos removal.

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  7. Asbestos, lead water pipes, smog from coal fires, exhaust fumes from cars: there are so many things with which we polluted our immediate environment. We are far more aware these days but it doesn't stop us. When I travel away from my relatively unpolluted Island home in Scotland, for example, I can actually smell the traffic fumes on the motorways and in the cities. Most people who live with them are not even aware of them.

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  8. I taught in a school that had it.... Worried me... Michelle

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