A GIFT REPAID
By Mars W. Mosqueda Jr.Everyday Heroes Section
Page 10, Reader's Digest
June 2005 Issue
Rosanna Angeles had every reason to celebrate when she gave birth to her baby son, Uno, on November 11, 2001, at the Manila Doctors Hospital. After five miscarriages, she had finally become a mother. She was especially looking forward to breastfeeding him.
Unfortunately, Uno arrived ten weeks premature and had no sucking reflex. “It was as if the world fell on me,” recalls Angeles. She tried to extract milk from her breast to feed Uno in the incubator, but her milk hadn’t come in yet. To add to her woes, tiny Uno had contracted a bacterial infection.
Angeles’s doctor told her that she needed to get breast milk from other mothers if she wanted Uno to survive. Her friend Carmela Lee, who had recently had a baby, agreed to help, and Uno was tube fed on her milk until his sucking reflex fully developed four weeks later.
While Angeles was feeding Uno the donated milk, a doctor asked if she could spare milk for another premature baby. “I was hesitant because I knew how hard it was to find mothers willing to give milk,” she says. But when she saw the baby girl, who weighed only 600 grams, Angeles knew she had to help. Without her knowing it, word of her good deed quickly spread throughout the maternity ward.
The next day, Angeles started getting calls from mothers willing to share their milk and from those who needed it. She began collecting the breast milk, storing it in plastic bags in her kitchen freezer, and distributing it to needy families.
Since 2001, Angeles has given free frozen breast milk to at least 50 patients, she says. She has lost count of the number of mothers who have donated milk.
Today, she receives almost one-and-a-half litres from each of her three donors each week. “I am doing this because I want to thank those true heroes who gave my son the gift of life. #
DOES YOUR MOBILE PHONE HAVE A VIRUS?
By Mars W. Mosqueda Jr.
RD Technology Section
Page 140, Reader's Digest
June 2005 Issue
With mobile phones functioning more and more like computers, it’s no surprise that virus writers have them in their sights.
The newest smart phones, especially those with Bluetooth, Microsoft and Symbian software, are the most likely targets of high tech viruses, says Ari Hypponen, chief technical officer of Helsinki-based computer security firm F-Secure.
“If a malicious piece of code gets control of your phone, it can do everything you can do. It can call toll numbers. It can record your passwords.”
Nick Hunn, chief technical office of Ezurio, a supplier of Bluetooth products, says the easiest and cheapest way to stop viruses from spreading is to take some simple precautions:
- Make Bluetooth invisible by going to the Bluetooh menu and setting it on “non-discoverable” or “hiding.” You can still make it visible when needed.
- Delete all unsolicited messages without opening them.
- Always say “no” if your phone asks to install a program that you are not familiar with.
