Orphan #8 by Kim van Alkemade

Orphan #8

by

Kim van Alkemade

     My local library daytime book group has selected Orphan #8 for their February book to read.  I listened to it on audio.  It is a fiction story based on factual events.  A young girl named Rachel,  and her brother Sam, are placed in the NYC orphanage system about 1920.  Experimental X-rays are done on Rachel causing her to lose her hair and her eyebrows etc.  She suffers a childhood of being ridiculed.  Then as an adult nurse Rachel suddenly finds herself face to face with the doctor who did the experiments.  The doctor is dying and the doctor is a patient on Rachel's unit.  This historical fiction novel deals with a lot of issues.  It will be a good book to discuss at book club this month.  The history of medical experiments on children is very real.  Please read THIS article.  This book does have some graphic homosexual love scenes in its pages. It also raises ethical issues regarding not only medical experimentation but also questions about euthanasia. There will be no shortage of directions the discussion at book group can go this month!   Please click on the book title and author's name above to follow the links to learn more.  And for those who are wanting even more background information, the lengthy lecture on the video that follows is a tragic picture of how institutionalized children been been used, over and over, as subjects in medical experiments.  

Cinnamon

     As a child growing up, my great grandmother would spend Christmas Eve night at our house.  On Christmas morning we would wake up to the smell of what we called "sticky buns" baking.  They were pecan rolls and they contained cinnamon.  The smell of cinnamon is one that has holiday memories for many of us.  But did you know that cinnamon has many medicinal purposes as well?  It should not be a surprise that many of our spices are also distilled as oils and used not only in their powder form for culinary uses but also for medical reasons in their oil form.  I have cinnamon bark essential oil  at times in my diffuser and I use it in a form called vitality that is ingestible.  It is one that I rotate through, using a drop in my bedtime tea for a week and then rotating to another one of several for another week.  To name a few of many, Cinnamon Bark Essential Oil is used by those that believe it helps them as a   anti-microbial,   an anti-inflammatory,  for blood sugar stabilizing and for weight loss.  I am interested in its use as an anti-inflammatory.  Read more about the medicinal uses of cinnamon HERE in everyday language and for a more scientific article read THIS.  Be aware that cheaper fragrant oils that are sold are not the same as the essential oils which cost more.  Fragrant oils  smell just as nice but are synthetically created and do not have the same plant medicinal value.  I use Young Living essential oils because I am comfortable with the product being a high quality oil due to their seed to seal guarantee.  

     Please follow the links in the above paragraphs to learn more about the uses of cinnamon.  And enjoy the informative video that follows.  If you are ready to obtain the essential oils that I use please click HERE.