Ultimate Blog Challenge - Resources List

Welcome to Day 7 of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. today's assignment is to list my handy resources. Coincidence has it that I already did this in November, and my list remains unchanged:

Among my favorite free tools are Canva that I use to create anything that combines pictures and text. 

Sometimes pictures have backgrounds I want to get rid off. In that case I refer to Remove. 

If I don't have my own pictures for a post, I often find fantastic photographs on Unsplash. 

For my YouTube videos I can find uplifting music on Bensound and Purple Planet. 

If I need help translating, I quite like Deepl.

With this out of the way, I have an opportunity to give you an update on my Godfather. I reached out to his wife, and this is what she said:

Thank you! You don't have to be frightened, He is fine and it was not a heart attack or an emergency. Angina pectoris has slowly manifested itself and is now fixed with the stents, just as many years ago your Dad's bypasses brought widening and flow. Thanks to heart surgery  ❤️👨 ⚕️🍀 

That's good to hear. I did not know it wasn't an emergency. He didn't tell me he had a procedure scheduled when I called on his birthday. 

May imagination may have ran wild, but I imagined he collapsed, and she had to call an ambulance. 

So he's expected to be released from the hosptial tomorrow and will hopefully recover and carry on enjoying his life.

He's my Dad's (the one on the left) younger brother. 

They have two younger sisters. When my Dad was 12 (and the youngest sister 6) their mother died of congestive heart failure, which was devastating for the young children - and the widow. 

The kids were temporarily placed with family and friends until an in-house houskeeper / nanny was hired. She stayed there many years, basically until the last of the grown-up kids moved out. To me she was sort of my paternal Grandma I otherwise would not have had. Like my "real" materinal Grandma she shared her exact birthday with me. How special is this?

My Dad's Mom's early death triggered a medical investigation, and they found out that the entire family suffered from high cholesterol, so the kids grew up watching their diet, no - or reduced amounts of - butter, cheese, eggs, bacon, sausages, french fries, cakes or cookies, and that's also how my brother and I, as well as our cousins were raised. 

My Mom may have turned a blind eye to when it came to pastry.

When my Dad was in his early 50s, he experienced shortness of breath, chest pain and other typical symptoms, and it wasn't hard to guess what was going on. Several of his coronary arteries were severely blocked and required not stents but bypasses, six of them, if I remember correctly. 

I'll spare you the gruesome medical details of the surgery, recovery and rehabilitation. 

Fact is that the doctors told him they'd probably see him again in 10 - 15 years' time. See, even though he was watching his diet, being physically active and taking his meds vicariously, they fully expected to repeat the entire operation a decade or so later.

Well! My Dad turns 80 later this year, and while he has a few medical challanges regarding his back, he's doing just fine. Apart from routine check-ups, he has not been seeing anybody within the cardiology department ever since.

Here's to hoping that my Godfather, who is carved from the same wood after all, will push through equally well!

I want to thank everybody who's been sending positive vibes his way! Much appreciated.

By the way they found out that the kind of cholesterol that our bodies produce in abundance, does not come from food. While we're not going crazy and stuffing our faces with meat and dairy products, we don't have to feel bad about enjoying a nice pizza either. I recently found a new GP who suggested to try a "natural" cholesterol-lowering drug. I wrote about it here. My bloodwork will be done next week. Wouldn't it be great to go without chemicals?

Wrapping up the original subject: What's on your resources list?