Wednesday, December 10, 2008
this semester is about to end....
Well the end of the semester is near, and yes (if you ask) I will miss Mr. Jolly. These last 4 months have helped me to realize that I am capable of doing “unthinkable” things, like taking 17 units and having a full time job I believe that unthinkable is the right name. I did enjoy my time at school this semester; I do look forward for my next one. It is great to know that I am only two classes away from getting my Associates degree and also to put my name on the list for Nuclear Medicine Tech, yet I also know that the wait is long, and who knows for how long will I have to wait, but I am happy that this chapter of school is about to end. I am sure that I will see some of you guys on other classes so Good luck to everybody and my best wishes for next year!
Are we really destroying our planet?
Are we really destroying our planet? It is a strange but necessary question. Today while in class I got a nice surprise, I found out that most of my classmates share the same concern that I have about the destruction of our planet. Global warming, animal extinction, and animal cruelties were among the principal subjects for presentations. I strongly believe that we are doing all humanly possible to destroy our ecosystem, it may sound ironic but it is true.
The issue of global warming has been of public knowledge since the 1960’s yet nothing serious has been done to deal with the problem other than emotional talks on the meetings of world leaders. Animal extinction is not a risk anymore, it is a reality, sadly there are more than 1200 animal species that disappear every year, and seems like we humans are doing “honors” to increase that number; but the issue does not end in there, not only we killed them for fun, also we tortured them, and as with the sharks, we take their fins off and through the rest to the ocean so they can have the most painful death possible. I have a question in my mind since many years ago and I hope I will get an answer soon. Are we really the smartest animal species on the world today? Or are we the stupidest animal species that ever lived in the world?
The issue of global warming has been of public knowledge since the 1960’s yet nothing serious has been done to deal with the problem other than emotional talks on the meetings of world leaders. Animal extinction is not a risk anymore, it is a reality, sadly there are more than 1200 animal species that disappear every year, and seems like we humans are doing “honors” to increase that number; but the issue does not end in there, not only we killed them for fun, also we tortured them, and as with the sharks, we take their fins off and through the rest to the ocean so they can have the most painful death possible. I have a question in my mind since many years ago and I hope I will get an answer soon. Are we really the smartest animal species on the world today? Or are we the stupidest animal species that ever lived in the world?
Proposition 201
Home Owners Bill of Rights “Proposition 201”
Nov 4, 2008 is the date when Arizona State citizens will go to the polls and exercise their right to vote. This year there is 8 propositions that plan to change mayor laws that are currently in place, and give voters in Arizona an opportunity to vote to either keep the current laws, or change them for new ones. As a Real estate licensee, I have been working in Arizona for over 3 years, and the proposition 201 “The homeowners bill of rights” is the one that got my attention, not only because this new law could affect some of my family members and clients, but also because I am a homeowner myself, and as with many other people, I bought a new house from a homebuilder. This new proposition that was crafted and financed by the Sheet Metal Workers International Association, in one of the key arguments, plans to give new homeowners the peace of mind that their new home will be safe and secure for years to come, with a home warranty for 10 years; moreover, proposition 201 bundles together 12 arguments that if approved, will significantly change the laws that are currently in place. In order to better understand and have a clear vision of what is this proposal trying to achieve; first we have to have a basic knowledge of what is the law now, vs. what will be if the bill passes, how it will affect the current market, and finally how to be prepared for the new changes.
The proposition 201 plans to change the current laws about Home warranties. Some of the key points on this proposition are the facts that after approval of the ballot, the new law will actually require new home builders to provide a 10 year warranty on all new homes; the current law now states that builders are only required to provide 1 year of limited warranty; the 10 year warranty proposal will have the same coverage as the one for 1 year. If approved, a homebuyer can get any repairs that the house may need covered by the warranty during those 10 years, with the only exception of appliances, normal wear and tear, natural causes and or disasters. As a Homeowner I strongly agreed with this point, because most if not all of the new houses start to have problems after the second year, for example what builders call the “settling” that builders claimed starts two or three months after construction, in reality starts between the 10th and the 20th month after construction this is according to the National Association of constructors. Home page. October 2008 www.NAC.gov.Home builders will not mention the statistics showed above, they will only limit themselves to disclose certain things, like this paragraph taken from an actual contract made by Company X, where they state that “ settling may cause that patios, concrete, walks, and drives will be subject to cracking due to the expansion and contraction of the concrete and/ or soil”.( Company X, 2006) so if that is the case, there should not be any reason of why all the new home builders “ trap” the eye of potential home buyers with tile or wood floors on their model homes, and encourages them to buy and immediately install all of these products, adding them to the price of the house for huge profits. I asked myself why would any responsible builder that proud themselves on delivering houses with slogans like “build to last” as they state on their cheap propaganda do something like that, knowing that the floor on most of these new houses will eventually crack, and therefore destroy all the new tile or wood floors?.New home builders actually cover themselves with a paragraph written on fine printing on their contracts that states “Buyer releases seller of any and all liability or responsibility to replace or repair the tile or grout should they crack or otherwise became dislodged” taken from a Company X Contract (Company X 2006) No wonder they are aggressively fighting together with all of the other home builders against this bill, and this specific issue, because if they were to lose, this will mean huge losses on “extras” that they sell together with the new house. Another key argument on this new proposal is that Home owners will get to decide who fixes the house, the actual warranty law states that the home builders will use their own subcontractors to fix the houses. In this case new home builders cover themselves with an article that all of them have on their contracts that states “Seller will not cover any repairs made by an outside contractor” (Company X, 2007). As a Realtor I was able to see that many of this subcontractors will only fix the repairs for a “temporary” time frame, sometimes during my career, I saw jobs that usually will take a professional some hours, be done in minutes; on one occasion, I decided to ask one of this subcontractors that worked for the builder, and was doing a repair on a home that I was listing for sale, why they were always on a hurry? He replied stating that builders have a “Time per work” sheet of guidelines, where builders have already determine how long a repair should take, meaning that if a repair take the subcontractor 10 hours, and on the builders sheet that work should only take 5 hours, the subcontractor will only get paid for the 5 hours according to their contract with the builder. I strongly agreed with this initiative as well, because homeowners should be allowed to have their home fixed by who they think will do a good and lasting job for them, there are hundreds of subcontractors that won sign up with the builders because of these “guidelines” that only destroys the reputation of the subcontractor business.
The expectations that this bill is rising are huge among potential buyers, but also trial lawyers, because according to the current law, “Arbitration” should be the way of solving disputes between home owners and home builders, the new law proposes that “Litigation” should be the way of solving these disputes if the bill is approved. This proposal is raising many questions to whether litigation will make things better or not. With the current law, if a homeowner takes a homebuilder to court and loses the case, he or she will be liable for all the court cost, that in many cases are hugely substantial because of the complex process that this type of cases required, and also because homebuilders, usually have complete teams of lawyers working for them, and they all want to get paid for their time; Most of the time if not all the time buyers never get to this point, because the chances of winning are very slim, and in many cases none. In the other hand, the new proposal will directly force homeowners and homebuilders to go and solve their disputes in front of a judge, and also will not require that the loser whoever ends to be, to pay the court costs for the winner; what this will cause is that litigation will be a thing of every day, with trial lawyers taking homebuilders to court for almost any reason they can find. I strongly disagree with this initiative, because it will create a “chaos” between the populations; on one side we will have homebuilders rising prices of homes and services to cover possible lawsuits, and in the other hungry trial lawyers that will find any reason to take homebuilders to court, This type of situation will cost our judicial system thousands of dollars on extra hours for judges, and court people, and also will mean huge expenses coming from both sides of the coin, homebuilders and homebuyers. According to an article written for the AZ Central newspaper “This new law will make unscrupulous trial lawyers to get rich using homeowners money” John Stamos. “Litigation.” The Arizona Central 15 august 2008. I believe that this will actually be the case, an unprecedented over abuse of the system, based on personal enrichment.
Our country is actually going thru a financial meltdown, the housing market continues to go down, and seems like it will stay like that for years. Most of this crisis is attributed to fraudulent mortgages and loans, and what proposition 201 will try to do is to fix some of the “cracks” on the system that allowed unscrupulous people to get rich overnight. Among many great arguments that this bill proposes, proposition 201 will require homebuilders to disclose the relationships with financial institutions, because with the actual law, they are not required to disclose such information. This requirement will be greatly beneficial to avoid fraud, in my years as a Realtor, when a buyer used to go to a builders office and submit an application to buy a house, builder always will state that if their lending institution was not going to be able to approve them, they will immediately look for another lender, without disclosing their names, what this caused was that few days after the application was submitted, in almost all cases, the bank that they advertise on their windows usually was a well know institution, will deny the application, but builders had “other institutions” that were ready to approved them; After many of these cases, what I found out from a Realtor that worked for Company X, was that the builders gets a percentage per every customer that they send to these other institutions, meaning that they were not only profiting with overpriced houses, but also they were knowingly committing fraud by having these lenders approved cases that were unapprovable by well know lending institutions. I strongly support this point on the ballot because it is time to stop this activity; also this new proposition prohibits the builder’s agent form filling up mortgage applications, whereas with the actual law, realtors working for builders can actually make the paper look “good”. In other words Realtors working for builders have the ability of filling buyers applications, in order to make unqualified buyers look good in paper, sometimes “ increasing, erasing, changing” facts that otherwise will be rejected by banks. Both of these great changes will absolutely help prevent more fraud that has already destroyed the housing market.
Proposition 201 looks to change the current laws that helped destroy Arizona promising housing market. What once was the fire of the west is now only ashes that struggle to survive; changes are urgently in need in order to save Arizona from a mayor crisis. The upcoming elections on November will be perhaps the opportunity that all of us were waiting for to have our voices to be listen by the government, the current laws are not only destroying everyone’s American dream, but they are also threatening to expand and destroy the dreams of our children; action must be taken now in order to have the change that we all need, I strongly support this proposition, because I had seen what unscrupulous institutions, and people can do to take advantage of hard working people, and I think that this is our chance to help our Arizona recover from its ashes and be once more the state that we all love and proudly live on.
*The name of home builders was replaced by company X*
Nov 4, 2008 is the date when Arizona State citizens will go to the polls and exercise their right to vote. This year there is 8 propositions that plan to change mayor laws that are currently in place, and give voters in Arizona an opportunity to vote to either keep the current laws, or change them for new ones. As a Real estate licensee, I have been working in Arizona for over 3 years, and the proposition 201 “The homeowners bill of rights” is the one that got my attention, not only because this new law could affect some of my family members and clients, but also because I am a homeowner myself, and as with many other people, I bought a new house from a homebuilder. This new proposition that was crafted and financed by the Sheet Metal Workers International Association, in one of the key arguments, plans to give new homeowners the peace of mind that their new home will be safe and secure for years to come, with a home warranty for 10 years; moreover, proposition 201 bundles together 12 arguments that if approved, will significantly change the laws that are currently in place. In order to better understand and have a clear vision of what is this proposal trying to achieve; first we have to have a basic knowledge of what is the law now, vs. what will be if the bill passes, how it will affect the current market, and finally how to be prepared for the new changes.
The proposition 201 plans to change the current laws about Home warranties. Some of the key points on this proposition are the facts that after approval of the ballot, the new law will actually require new home builders to provide a 10 year warranty on all new homes; the current law now states that builders are only required to provide 1 year of limited warranty; the 10 year warranty proposal will have the same coverage as the one for 1 year. If approved, a homebuyer can get any repairs that the house may need covered by the warranty during those 10 years, with the only exception of appliances, normal wear and tear, natural causes and or disasters. As a Homeowner I strongly agreed with this point, because most if not all of the new houses start to have problems after the second year, for example what builders call the “settling” that builders claimed starts two or three months after construction, in reality starts between the 10th and the 20th month after construction this is according to the National Association of constructors. Home page. October 2008 www.NAC.gov.Home builders will not mention the statistics showed above, they will only limit themselves to disclose certain things, like this paragraph taken from an actual contract made by Company X, where they state that “ settling may cause that patios, concrete, walks, and drives will be subject to cracking due to the expansion and contraction of the concrete and/ or soil”.( Company X, 2006) so if that is the case, there should not be any reason of why all the new home builders “ trap” the eye of potential home buyers with tile or wood floors on their model homes, and encourages them to buy and immediately install all of these products, adding them to the price of the house for huge profits. I asked myself why would any responsible builder that proud themselves on delivering houses with slogans like “build to last” as they state on their cheap propaganda do something like that, knowing that the floor on most of these new houses will eventually crack, and therefore destroy all the new tile or wood floors?.New home builders actually cover themselves with a paragraph written on fine printing on their contracts that states “Buyer releases seller of any and all liability or responsibility to replace or repair the tile or grout should they crack or otherwise became dislodged” taken from a Company X Contract (Company X 2006) No wonder they are aggressively fighting together with all of the other home builders against this bill, and this specific issue, because if they were to lose, this will mean huge losses on “extras” that they sell together with the new house. Another key argument on this new proposal is that Home owners will get to decide who fixes the house, the actual warranty law states that the home builders will use their own subcontractors to fix the houses. In this case new home builders cover themselves with an article that all of them have on their contracts that states “Seller will not cover any repairs made by an outside contractor” (Company X, 2007). As a Realtor I was able to see that many of this subcontractors will only fix the repairs for a “temporary” time frame, sometimes during my career, I saw jobs that usually will take a professional some hours, be done in minutes; on one occasion, I decided to ask one of this subcontractors that worked for the builder, and was doing a repair on a home that I was listing for sale, why they were always on a hurry? He replied stating that builders have a “Time per work” sheet of guidelines, where builders have already determine how long a repair should take, meaning that if a repair take the subcontractor 10 hours, and on the builders sheet that work should only take 5 hours, the subcontractor will only get paid for the 5 hours according to their contract with the builder. I strongly agreed with this initiative as well, because homeowners should be allowed to have their home fixed by who they think will do a good and lasting job for them, there are hundreds of subcontractors that won sign up with the builders because of these “guidelines” that only destroys the reputation of the subcontractor business.
The expectations that this bill is rising are huge among potential buyers, but also trial lawyers, because according to the current law, “Arbitration” should be the way of solving disputes between home owners and home builders, the new law proposes that “Litigation” should be the way of solving these disputes if the bill is approved. This proposal is raising many questions to whether litigation will make things better or not. With the current law, if a homeowner takes a homebuilder to court and loses the case, he or she will be liable for all the court cost, that in many cases are hugely substantial because of the complex process that this type of cases required, and also because homebuilders, usually have complete teams of lawyers working for them, and they all want to get paid for their time; Most of the time if not all the time buyers never get to this point, because the chances of winning are very slim, and in many cases none. In the other hand, the new proposal will directly force homeowners and homebuilders to go and solve their disputes in front of a judge, and also will not require that the loser whoever ends to be, to pay the court costs for the winner; what this will cause is that litigation will be a thing of every day, with trial lawyers taking homebuilders to court for almost any reason they can find. I strongly disagree with this initiative, because it will create a “chaos” between the populations; on one side we will have homebuilders rising prices of homes and services to cover possible lawsuits, and in the other hungry trial lawyers that will find any reason to take homebuilders to court, This type of situation will cost our judicial system thousands of dollars on extra hours for judges, and court people, and also will mean huge expenses coming from both sides of the coin, homebuilders and homebuyers. According to an article written for the AZ Central newspaper “This new law will make unscrupulous trial lawyers to get rich using homeowners money” John Stamos. “Litigation.” The Arizona Central 15 august 2008. I believe that this will actually be the case, an unprecedented over abuse of the system, based on personal enrichment.
Our country is actually going thru a financial meltdown, the housing market continues to go down, and seems like it will stay like that for years. Most of this crisis is attributed to fraudulent mortgages and loans, and what proposition 201 will try to do is to fix some of the “cracks” on the system that allowed unscrupulous people to get rich overnight. Among many great arguments that this bill proposes, proposition 201 will require homebuilders to disclose the relationships with financial institutions, because with the actual law, they are not required to disclose such information. This requirement will be greatly beneficial to avoid fraud, in my years as a Realtor, when a buyer used to go to a builders office and submit an application to buy a house, builder always will state that if their lending institution was not going to be able to approve them, they will immediately look for another lender, without disclosing their names, what this caused was that few days after the application was submitted, in almost all cases, the bank that they advertise on their windows usually was a well know institution, will deny the application, but builders had “other institutions” that were ready to approved them; After many of these cases, what I found out from a Realtor that worked for Company X, was that the builders gets a percentage per every customer that they send to these other institutions, meaning that they were not only profiting with overpriced houses, but also they were knowingly committing fraud by having these lenders approved cases that were unapprovable by well know lending institutions. I strongly support this point on the ballot because it is time to stop this activity; also this new proposition prohibits the builder’s agent form filling up mortgage applications, whereas with the actual law, realtors working for builders can actually make the paper look “good”. In other words Realtors working for builders have the ability of filling buyers applications, in order to make unqualified buyers look good in paper, sometimes “ increasing, erasing, changing” facts that otherwise will be rejected by banks. Both of these great changes will absolutely help prevent more fraud that has already destroyed the housing market.
Proposition 201 looks to change the current laws that helped destroy Arizona promising housing market. What once was the fire of the west is now only ashes that struggle to survive; changes are urgently in need in order to save Arizona from a mayor crisis. The upcoming elections on November will be perhaps the opportunity that all of us were waiting for to have our voices to be listen by the government, the current laws are not only destroying everyone’s American dream, but they are also threatening to expand and destroy the dreams of our children; action must be taken now in order to have the change that we all need, I strongly support this proposition, because I had seen what unscrupulous institutions, and people can do to take advantage of hard working people, and I think that this is our chance to help our Arizona recover from its ashes and be once more the state that we all love and proudly live on.
*The name of home builders was replaced by company X*
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Animals lover.....
Once more I had to see the extremes of humans cruelty towards animals, seems estrange but every time that I turn on the TV and scroll down the list of programs, there is always one that talks about, criminal killing, poaching, hunting, etc. Our society seems to be numb already to all of these programs, because as far as I know nobody is doing anything. I just wanted to take the opportunity to post the letter that I wrote to the editor of National Geographic Magazine about the indiscriminate killing of elephants in Africa, this was an English assignment only, but I did actually send the letter to them, and I hope that the editor picks mine and my letter gets publish, if not I am sure that lots of people believe that these criminal activities are wrong, and they must be stop. Here is my letter:
Thank you for writing about the importance and direct effects of indiscriminate animal killing. Illegal poaching has become the biggest threat to a variety of animal species. I personally consider myself to be an animal lover, and after reading your article, I found myself in a situation where I don’t understand the human nature anymore. There is so many animal protection organizations around the world, that are constantly warning people about the terrible consequences of illegal poaching and specially the serious risk of extinction on most of the affected animals. Elephants have been chased for many years because of their tusks, and it is sad to see that many of these magnificent animals get killed just for few dollars. The constant and almost criminal hunts for these animals, are not only putting them on the path of extinction, but also are affecting the whole ecosystem that lives and survives around them. How many more articles need to be written, or how many more of these animals need to die, in order for governments, organizations, and more importantly people to realize that if nothing is done to stop this criminal activity, not only these beautiful animals will disappear, but also many other species too. Maybe then, humans will stop their constant and infinite race towards eliminating every single animal species over the face of the world; perhaps then people will realize how much damage we had made to our planet. I just hope that it won be too late. Thank you for speaking up for them.
Thank you for writing about the importance and direct effects of indiscriminate animal killing. Illegal poaching has become the biggest threat to a variety of animal species. I personally consider myself to be an animal lover, and after reading your article, I found myself in a situation where I don’t understand the human nature anymore. There is so many animal protection organizations around the world, that are constantly warning people about the terrible consequences of illegal poaching and specially the serious risk of extinction on most of the affected animals. Elephants have been chased for many years because of their tusks, and it is sad to see that many of these magnificent animals get killed just for few dollars. The constant and almost criminal hunts for these animals, are not only putting them on the path of extinction, but also are affecting the whole ecosystem that lives and survives around them. How many more articles need to be written, or how many more of these animals need to die, in order for governments, organizations, and more importantly people to realize that if nothing is done to stop this criminal activity, not only these beautiful animals will disappear, but also many other species too. Maybe then, humans will stop their constant and infinite race towards eliminating every single animal species over the face of the world; perhaps then people will realize how much damage we had made to our planet. I just hope that it won be too late. Thank you for speaking up for them.
Prop 202....Homeowners
With all of these propositions requesting (Begging) for votes, who has time to actually read (15 pages each) and actually know what they are voting for, well I decided to write about prop 202 Homeowners bill of rights, here is “The good & The ugly” about this proposition, and the key points hope it helps.
I had been in the real estate market working as a Realtor, and investor for over 5 years, so I can see the issue from both sides of the coin. Right now the law states that builder are required to only give homeowners up to one year in warranties for any construction defects on new houses, the new law will require builders to provide a 10 year warranty. I purchased a new home on 2006, and as a homeowner I was able to experience the “ugly” about dealing with builders. Houses usually start to break down on the second or third year, however in my case the house I bought started to give trouble on the last six months of the first year, getting the house fix by the builders subcontractors was just a nightmare, not only because of the tons of paperwork, but also the “things” that were not covered by the insurance, and off course the hourly fee of plumbers and carpenters, that if the fix takes longer that what they had estimated will have to came up from your already poor pocket. The previous law also stated that arbitration should be used before going to court, in order to settle disputes with builders, the new law states that litigation should be the way to settle thing now. In this subject, I will speak as a Realtor that actually had to experience one of his customers getting “bust” by the builder’s lawyers. The scenario was that the buyer bought new house, and on the month 12 after the purchase, a huge crack on the ceiling appeared, when buyer contacted the insurance, they denied the claim stating that the coverage was over, my client decided to take them to court ( big mistake) hired a lawyer, and proceeded with the lawsuit, the day of the trial, I was able to see my client and his brave lawyer, and in the other side, no kidding six lawyers that were defending the homebuilder, well to make the story short, my client lost, and on top of him dealing with a crack on the ceiling he end up paying the court costs for the homebuilder. Big lesson!
I had been in the real estate market working as a Realtor, and investor for over 5 years, so I can see the issue from both sides of the coin. Right now the law states that builder are required to only give homeowners up to one year in warranties for any construction defects on new houses, the new law will require builders to provide a 10 year warranty. I purchased a new home on 2006, and as a homeowner I was able to experience the “ugly” about dealing with builders. Houses usually start to break down on the second or third year, however in my case the house I bought started to give trouble on the last six months of the first year, getting the house fix by the builders subcontractors was just a nightmare, not only because of the tons of paperwork, but also the “things” that were not covered by the insurance, and off course the hourly fee of plumbers and carpenters, that if the fix takes longer that what they had estimated will have to came up from your already poor pocket. The previous law also stated that arbitration should be used before going to court, in order to settle disputes with builders, the new law states that litigation should be the way to settle thing now. In this subject, I will speak as a Realtor that actually had to experience one of his customers getting “bust” by the builder’s lawyers. The scenario was that the buyer bought new house, and on the month 12 after the purchase, a huge crack on the ceiling appeared, when buyer contacted the insurance, they denied the claim stating that the coverage was over, my client decided to take them to court ( big mistake) hired a lawyer, and proceeded with the lawsuit, the day of the trial, I was able to see my client and his brave lawyer, and in the other side, no kidding six lawyers that were defending the homebuilder, well to make the story short, my client lost, and on top of him dealing with a crack on the ceiling he end up paying the court costs for the homebuilder. Big lesson!
Doing HW while sharing a story...
Few days ago I had the oportunity to read an amazing article about "dengue fever" made by a reporter from CNN that was doing an investigation in South America. some years ago I lost a family member due to this Virus, preventing and being ready sometimes makes all difference;
Oct 12th 1990, I was about 16 years old, and at that time I was living in Bolivia. I clearly remember that date until today, because it was the Columbus Day celebration in my country. My family had planned a trip for this holiday, since there was no school, and my parents got the week off. Our destination was a place called Yungas (La Paz- Bolivia) we had some family there, and also the place is well known for being a tropical paradise; as we drove towards our destination thousands of trees and green vegetation gave us a warm welcome. The temperature was hot, and the air humid, but the place was just spectacular; as we stopped and got off the car, we started noticing a lot of mosquitoes, and they were just getting all over us, local people told us that they were harmless, and not to worry about them; little did we know about what was going to happen after few days. As the days passed by, mosquitoes were a thing of every day, and our relatives living on that place did not seem to care about them, they will just ignore them, as if they were not there, even dough I could see the mosquitoes having a feast on their arms. On the fourth day in the village, we decided to go hiking since it was the last day of our vacation, and we got deep into the jungle, what a surprise!, more and bigger mosquitoes were thriving in there, we decided to continue, and the place was just gorgeous, the only drawback was that all these mosquitoes were just eating us alive. Later on that day we made our return to the village, since we needed to rest for the trip back to the city. Few days had passed since we returned, and Henry one of my brothers, suddenly started to have nausea, and started vomiting, it did not seem serious at the beginning, but later on that day, he started to feel even worse, now fever was part of his symptoms, and he just kept vomiting, we decided to take him to the hospital, and as we drove towards the hospital, Mario my uncle called us to let us know that he was also on his way from the village because Marta his daughter had the same symptoms like my brother. We arrived to the hospital and the doctors immediately seemed to know what was going on, Henry was just pale, and he had a severe rash on his legs, the doctors asked us if we had gone to the tropics, and immediately took blood samples to simply confirm their worst fears, Henry had contracted “Dengue” after a brief explanation from the doctor about what it is, and what could happen, we just looked at each other and the nightmare begun. We were in shock, and as we sat down my uncle arrived, his daughter had the same symptoms, and later on was also diagnosed with “Dengue fever”. The nightmare lasted for over two months. There were so many things that we could have done in order to prevent that, but lack of information, and little or no knowledge about these types of diseases, and what transmits them were a major factor that contributed to this problem. Dengue can kill, People should be aware at all times , especially if going out of the country, being prepared could make the difference.As with my family case Henry had a level 3, and he was able to recover in the hospital, and took him about a month, but unfortunately Marta had a level 4, “Dengue hemorrhagic” little or nothing the doctors were able to do to save her, she died few days after contracting the disease, her body could not resist the extreme pain that this disease causes, the agony lasted five days, were bleeding and constant shocks took away all the energy that she had.
Oct 12th 1990, I was about 16 years old, and at that time I was living in Bolivia. I clearly remember that date until today, because it was the Columbus Day celebration in my country. My family had planned a trip for this holiday, since there was no school, and my parents got the week off. Our destination was a place called Yungas (La Paz- Bolivia) we had some family there, and also the place is well known for being a tropical paradise; as we drove towards our destination thousands of trees and green vegetation gave us a warm welcome. The temperature was hot, and the air humid, but the place was just spectacular; as we stopped and got off the car, we started noticing a lot of mosquitoes, and they were just getting all over us, local people told us that they were harmless, and not to worry about them; little did we know about what was going to happen after few days. As the days passed by, mosquitoes were a thing of every day, and our relatives living on that place did not seem to care about them, they will just ignore them, as if they were not there, even dough I could see the mosquitoes having a feast on their arms. On the fourth day in the village, we decided to go hiking since it was the last day of our vacation, and we got deep into the jungle, what a surprise!, more and bigger mosquitoes were thriving in there, we decided to continue, and the place was just gorgeous, the only drawback was that all these mosquitoes were just eating us alive. Later on that day we made our return to the village, since we needed to rest for the trip back to the city. Few days had passed since we returned, and Henry one of my brothers, suddenly started to have nausea, and started vomiting, it did not seem serious at the beginning, but later on that day, he started to feel even worse, now fever was part of his symptoms, and he just kept vomiting, we decided to take him to the hospital, and as we drove towards the hospital, Mario my uncle called us to let us know that he was also on his way from the village because Marta his daughter had the same symptoms like my brother. We arrived to the hospital and the doctors immediately seemed to know what was going on, Henry was just pale, and he had a severe rash on his legs, the doctors asked us if we had gone to the tropics, and immediately took blood samples to simply confirm their worst fears, Henry had contracted “Dengue” after a brief explanation from the doctor about what it is, and what could happen, we just looked at each other and the nightmare begun. We were in shock, and as we sat down my uncle arrived, his daughter had the same symptoms, and later on was also diagnosed with “Dengue fever”. The nightmare lasted for over two months. There were so many things that we could have done in order to prevent that, but lack of information, and little or no knowledge about these types of diseases, and what transmits them were a major factor that contributed to this problem. Dengue can kill, People should be aware at all times , especially if going out of the country, being prepared could make the difference.As with my family case Henry had a level 3, and he was able to recover in the hospital, and took him about a month, but unfortunately Marta had a level 4, “Dengue hemorrhagic” little or nothing the doctors were able to do to save her, she died few days after contracting the disease, her body could not resist the extreme pain that this disease causes, the agony lasted five days, were bleeding and constant shocks took away all the energy that she had.
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