Pamela Q. Fernandes's Blog, page 16

Pics from Prospect Park

It’s been a whole month since I’ve posted. I was sick and was on antibiotics for two weeks. Additionally, August 1 is also my dad’s death anniversary and I’m usually not up to snuff in the weeks leading to and after. So, I’ve done little reading, no writing, hardly any editing and barely any posting.

What I have done is gone on walks to Prospect Park. Since it’s barely nine short blocks away, it’s great for some reflective time. We’re usually out here after dinner everyday if we can. Or on the weekends I usually end up walking here in the evenings.

Prospect Park

Prospect Park was designed by the very same people (Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux) who did Central Park. I’m not sure why but I like Prospect Park better, maybe because it isn’t as noisy or crowded. Even on a popular day, except for the BBQ areas, the rest of the park is quiet enough for you to listen to the sounds of nature; the cooing of birds, the stridulation of crickets, the shiver of the tree leaves as the breeze rustles past them.

I also like the Park better because of the wide open spaces. Of course, I like the tree lined areas as well, but somehow the airy park feels less claustrophobic to me.

Lefrak Lakeside

Brooklyn’s only lake is nestled inside Prospect Park. I didn’t even know it had one until I stumbled on it by accident. One of those walks where my friend and I were gossiping and got lost.

Dealing with Anti-microbial Resistance

When it comes to dealing with Anti-microbial resistance (AMR), here are some shocking facts. 490, 000 people developed multi-drug resistant TB globally, in 2016.

The CDC lists urgent and serious threats from:

Urgent Threats

Clostridioides difficile Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE)Drug-resistant Neisseria gonorrhoeae

Serious Threats

Multidrug-resistant AcinetobacterDrug-resistant CampylobacterFluconazole-resistant CandidaDrug-resistant SalmonellaSerotype TyphiExtended-spectrum Beta-lactamase producing EnterobacteriaceaeVancomycin-resistant Enterococcus (VRE)Multidrug-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosaDrug-resistant non-typhoidal SalmonellaDrug-resistant ShigellaMethicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus(MRSA)Drug-resistantStreptococcus pneumoniaeDrug-resistant Tuberculosis

Concerning Threats

Vancomycin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus(VRSA)Erythromycin-Resistant Group A StreptococcusClindamycin-resistant Group B Streptococcus

If you need more data about the above, including the number of cases the read here. Additionally, 15,000 people died from drug resistant C difficile. That’s no small number

Anti-microbial Resistance Not Just Doctor’s Problem

Today so many people are handing out antibiotics.

Healthcare providers Veterinarians Agricultural farmers Livestock breeders Universities Scientists and researchers Patients themselves

And therefore, it makes no sense to curb the way only healthcare providers dispense antibiotics if we want to solve this problem.

Anti-microbial resistance is not a big deal

No. Anti-microbial resistance is bigger than that. Last year, in Pakistan, 850 people died from drug resistant typhoid. Typhoid! Can you imagine that? In some areas XDR has reached almost 30%. At this rate by 2020, all cases will be resistant. The same is happening in malaria and HIV. Along the Cambodia-Thailand border, P. falciparum has become resistant to most of the antimalarial medicines. This should have been a wake up call in the medical world. As always, it’s not a problem unless it “comes to a theater near you.” Then it’s a problem.

WHO Prescription for AMR

The WHO has been leading the efforts to reduce antimicrobial resistance. They have a prescription.

Doctors, nurses, veterinarians and other health workers

They say health practitioners shouldn’t prescribe or dispense antibiotics unless they are truly necessary. And they may do so only after they’ve made all efforts to test and confirm which antibiotic your human patient or the animal you are treating should have. For instance, it is estimated that in half of all cases, antibiotics are prescribed for viral conditions. They emphasize prevent infections in the first place by ensuring hands, instruments and environment are clean, and employing vaccines where appropriate.

People using healthcare

Patients must take antibiotics only when prescribed by a certified health professional. If they take an antibiotic, they must always complete the full prescription, even if they feel better, because stopping treatment early promotes the growth of drug-resistant bacteria.

Farmers and others in the agriculture sector

Antibiotics given to animals must be used only to control or treat infectious diseases and under veterinary supervision. Misuse of antibiotics in livestock, aquaculture and crops is one of the biggest contributors to antibiotic resistance and its spread into the environment, food chain and humans. Alternatively, clean and uncrowded conditions and vaccination of animals can reduce the need for antibiotics.

Governments

Robust national action plans have to be made to tackle antibiotic resistance. These include improved surveillance of antibiotic-resistant infections, regulation of the appropriate use of medicines. Also, we must educate people about the dangers of overuse.

Industry

The pharmaceutical industry needs to move faster and more aggressively to research and develop new antibiotics. There’s an antibiotic “discovery void” since the late 1980s. There’s an ongoing race between drug development and bacterial evolution. Surprisingly, the EU, the UK, the US and Canada have directly funded basic and clinical research by scientists; working with pharmaceutical companies; and offered monetary prizes for new diagnostics needed to use antibiotics more responsibly.

However, a new, more global approach is needed. The WHO global action plan on antimicrobial resistance is underway but it might be a while before concrete steps are taken.

Your AMR Prevention

Tell us how you’re tackling anti-microbial resistance. Do you have a specific example of how deal with this. Personally, I find many of the resistant bacteria tend to be sensitive to the older antibiotics like Bactrim. It’s like gaming the bacteria, I guess. It’s worked for many of my cases. How about yours? I’d love to know. In the meantime, check out some other posts.

The post Dealing with Anti-microbial Resistance appeared first on PAMELA Q. FERNANDES.

52 Why is Sharing the Good News so Important?

Sharing the Good News is important because you have this amazing Jesus who gives everyone abundant life.

Cameron O’Hearn

Who is Cameron O’Hearn



Cameron O’Hearn

Cameron spent seven years in full time ministry, evangelizing High School and college students through relational ministry with NET Ministries and Saint Paul’s Outreach. Now he is living the dream as a husband and father of three. He studied Divinity at Maryvale Institute in England and now owns a video production company in Dayton, OH. Sacred Stories creates inspiring videos for ministries to help them get noticed online and raise more money at events.

In this episode, Cameron O’Hearn talks about Why Sharing the Good News is so important. He explains:
-Why is sharing the gospel important?
-3 steps on sharing this Good News
-What are some practical ways we can share
-How important is our own life as a gospel message and why is it important for us to live it before preaching it.

Sharing the Gospel







You Begin, God finishes

I reached out to Cameron about doing a podcast as soon as I came back from Montreal. I knew summer was going to be busy and we recorded really early in the morning. Cameron shared very profound ideas during our conversation. One of them was, “You begin and God finishes.”

He says if you don’t know what to say simply open your mouth like Peter and Paul did and God will finish the rest. Cameron recommends using the words, “In my life, God has…. and automatically you’ll be able to finish.

One of the major takeaways from today’s podcast, is “Pray for the opportunity to share the Good News. Just the words, “Come Holy Spirit” before you begin a conversation will work wonders, says O’Hearn.

Three Steps to Share the Good News



Ask questionsBe YourselfShare what makes you passionate

And Cameron’s best advice, if you don’t know what to say, simply share the same of Jesus. He says, “the name of Jesus is the only word that contains the presence it signifies!” Wow!

What I loved about this podcast, is that despite Cameron being a trained evangelist, he shares his own moments where he thinks he’s failed to be faithful to God. But through those moments, God is probably teaching so many of us. The fear is common to all. And Cameron says, “Don’t overthink it.” I’m grateful for the advice he shared because through his own honest confession and personal life, he’s demonstrated how we can evangelize. That in itself takes a lot of courage.

And so while a shy introvert myself, I have avoided this form of one to one evangelization. I pray that I may have more courage to share the Good News with other people. What about you? How do you go about doing sharing the Good News?

ENJOYED THIS PODCAST?

We hope you enjoyed this podcast. Check out our podcasts on  Fellowship and Mother Teresa. If you liked this podcast, like us, leave us a comment and share our episodes on social media with those who may benefit from it. Additionally, if there is a particular saint that you would like to hear about us, tell us and we’ll add him or her to our future episodes.

We are on iheartradio, Stitcher, Itunes, and tunein.com.We’d love to hear from you. If you hear us on Itunes, please rate and review us.

ANNIVERSARY GIVEAWAY

As mentioned, for our 50th episode anniversary we’re giving away a free Christian Book Bundle until 15th July. One of the books is Charles Johnston’s book, the Beauty of the Mass. 

SIGN UP



50th Episode Celebration Giveaway

The post 52 Why is Sharing the Good News so Important? appeared first on PAMELA Q. FERNANDES.

My Interview on The Creative Writer’s Toolbelt Podcast

My interview on the Creative Writer’s Toolbelt Podcast!

Pictures from Montreal

Here are my pics from Montreal. If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you know by now I was in Montreal for a few days. For starters, Montreal is the cradle of Canadian history. It was ruled by the French and its representatives, namely the priests until they surrendered to the British.

Quebec and its city, Montreal is very proud of its French heritage. So much so, everyone speaks French, the cuisine is very rich and the place has retained if not preserved it’s French identity. I was pretty chuffed with being called, “Madame” everywhere. If you know French, at least some of it, it will go a long way in Montreal!

From Montreal, With Love

So I’ll jump in with my pictures. I never do these posts as travel guides, but for some reason, every time I do them, people always write back with questions. How do you travel, what’s the fare and you know stuff like that. So I’m going to add that in advance.

I had my visa processed in New York in two days. Yes.

Pics from Montreal

Here are my pics from Montreal. If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you know by now I was in Montreal for a few days. For starters, Montreal is the cradle of Canadian history. It was ruled by the French and its representatives, namely the priests until they surrendered to the British.

Quebec and its city, Montreal is very proud of its French heritage. So much so, everyone speaks French, the cuisine is very rich and the place has retained if not preserved it’s French identity. I was pretty chuffed with being called, “Madame” everywhere. If you know French, at least some of it, it will go a long way in Montreal!

From Montreal, With Love

So I’ll jump in with my pictures. I never do these posts as travel guides, but for some reason, every time I do them, people always write back with questions. How do you travel, what’s the fare and you know stuff like that. So I’m going to add that in advance.

I had my visa processed in New York in two days. Yes.

51 Seven Tips To Help us Forgive

Christ called us to a radical forgiveness, even towards our enemies, which is unique to Christianity.

Celia Wolf Devine on Tips to Help us Forgive

Who is Celia Wolf Devine



Celia Wolf Devine

Celia Wolf-Devine is a retired philosophy professor, author and lecturer. Her philosophical work has been in Early Modern Philosophy (Descartes) and social philosophy. Her first and most complete book on prayer is The Heart Transformed: Prayer of Desire (Alba House, St. Paul). She wrote “A New Companion to Prayer: Meeting God Where You Are” for a distinctively Catholic readership. She is just winding up work on an anthology: Naming God: Selected Readings Representing Differing Perspectives.” However, her workshops focus mostly on prayer- related topics. These are usually for diocesan in service programs to train catechists in Providence, Boston and Portland Maine. Her most popular workshops have been “Prayer of the Heart” and forgiveness based “Setting up a Morning Prayer Routine.” Additionally, she was recently interviewed about her conversion by Marcus Grodi on the Coming Home network. You can find more about her and her work see www.celiawolfdevine.com.

In this episode, I talk to Celia Wold Devine about why forgiveness is important and how to forgive better. She talks about:
-What Jesus teaches us about forgiveness
-Seven steps to forgiveness.
-How to forgive ourselves?
-How to truly do our penance without thinking of it as ritual?

Seven Tips To Help us Forgive

I first came across Celia through her post on forgiveness. Surprisingly, she had no idea her post had been syndicated and so widely shared and commented upon. It was hard to track her down. When I reached out to her, she said “I’d love to do it. I’m happy to use my talents for God’s work.” We finally managed to get our dates in order despite my traveling and her own personal work.

Celia’s tips about forgiveness are relatively simple. Since she’s a philosophy professor, everything she says is backed by data and proof. Simple things like why it’s not a good idea to vent or why an apology is necessary are explained. She even talks about setting up a forgiveness ritual with whoever you live with.

What I loved about this podcast is her suggestion to look at people the way God looks at them. It ties in very well with our previous podcast where Karl Ericksen talked about every person being someone whom Jesus died for.

It is hard to forgive

I agree forgiveness is hard. Especially when you’ve been betrayed and hurt. Even moreso when those betrayals have forced you to change drastically. But as Celia says forgiveness is a process, sometimes a very long process. And who are we to hold a grudge or judgement. Contrarily, forgiveness is not ours to give. The only way you can forgive is by asking God to give you His grace to help you. Therefore, prayer becomes important. You have to pray for God’s grace to forgive.

ENJOYED THIS PODCAST?

We hope you enjoyed this podcast. Check out our podcasts on Confession and Mother Teresa. If you liked this podcast, like us, leave us a comment and share our episodes on social media with those who may benefit from it. Additionally, if there is a particular saint that you would like to hear about us, tell us and we’ll add him or her to our future episodes.

We are on iheartradio, Stitcher, Itunes, and tunein.com.We’d love to hear from you. If you hear us on Itunes, please rate and review us.

ANNIVERSARY GIVEAWAY

As mentioned, for our 50th episode anniversary we’re giving away a free Christian Book Bundle until 15th July. One of the books is Charles Johnston’s book, the Beauty of the Mass. 

SIGN UP



50th Episode Celebration Giveaway

The post 51 Seven Tips To Help us Forgive appeared first on PAMELA Q. FERNANDES.

15 Best Sweet Contemporary Sports Romances

Here’s my list of the 15 Best Sweet Contemporary Sports Romances currently available. Touchpoint Press recently released the first book BOWLED in my Contemporary Sports Romance Series, “To Love A Sporstman.” And I wanted to do a post on the same genre.

While writing my own series, I frequently looked at other contemporary sports romances. There were plenty of sizzling reads and I had to skip pages since the sports was only a footnote. My own book also features cricket, a rare sport discussed in books despite the fact that it is watched my over 1 billion people.

Recently India played Pakistan in the World Cup and I watched the fall of Pakistan’s wickets. As Kapil Dev says, “Scintillating cricket!” Did I ever tell you I’ve seen Kapil Dev in real life???? He’s such a gentleman and I couldn’t stop staring when I saw him. Yes, even at 60, the former Indian captain is swoon-worthy!!!!

50 Mass Etiquette and Reverence for Church Services

While there is a social dimension, that should not be our main reason for being there. Mass is sacred and sadly there’s too much casualness towards the faith which is why mass etiquette is important.

Karl Erickson

Karl Erickson

Karl Erickson has called Monmouth, Oregon home since 2016. He lives there with his wife, two young adult children, and a large Newfoundland who goes by Chesterton. A state employee for over two decades, Karl identifies himself primarily in the role of an author and essayist. He’s the writer of two lighthearted children’s books: Toupee Mice and Tristan’s Travels. Both are published by Rafka Press. His wife, Kimberly Erickson is their wonderful illustrator. He is also the writer of a new mystery, The Blood Cries Out. His articles have appeared in a wide variety of publications—from America, The National Catholic Weekly and Seattle Pacific University’s Response to a guest opinion writer for both the Portland Tribune and the Statesman Journal. Karl also enjoys nature and travel photography. You can find out more about him at http://www.karlerickson.com/publications.html

In this episode, we talk to Karl Erickson about why Mass is sacred. He talks about:
-The do’s and don’t at Mass
-Why we need to be reverent?
-15 things we shouldn’t do during Mass
-How we can gently correct people with a casual attitude towards the Church.

Mass Etiquette and Reverence for Church Services







OUR 50th EPISODE

This is our 50th episode. And we’re having a big giveaway at the end of the month with our Christian Book Bundle. For our 50th, we managed to track down Karl Erickson who wrote this comprehensive post on Mass Etiquette.

When I wrote to Karl, he was actually out hiking in the mountains. Lucky him! And he responded right away. Within a day we had the episode recorded and ready. What I heard when I talked to Karl, is his burning zeal to love the Lord and love Him with our very best.

At times, as Catholics we take our faith and the Eucharist for granted and Karl reminded me by teaching mass etiquette, what a great gift we have.

TEACHING MASS ETIQUETTE TO OTHERS

I agree with Karl when he says there needs to be ongoing catechesis of the lay faithful. Whether that is at Pre-Cana or baptism courses, the lay faithful need to be taught and re-taught basic theology of mass etiquette and why we do what we do.

He also recommends Scott Hahn’s book which I’ll list down here.

My favorite part of our 50th podcast is where Karl says we have to remember that every person is someone whom Jesus died for. We need to remember that in every person we meet everyday. And often I forget that, especially at the end of a frustrating day, or when you’re on the crowded subway or just having a bad day. I forget that! And his statement is so profound. If only I could remember that, I wouldn’t be half as mean as I sometimes am.

ENJOYED THIS PODCAST?

We hope you enjoyed this podcast. Check out our podcasts on St Augustine and Mother Teresa. If you liked this podcast, like us, leave us a comment and share our episodes on social media with those who may benefit from it. If there is a particular saint that you would like to hear about us, tell us and we’ll add him or her to our future episodes.

We are on iheartradio, Stitcher, Itunes, and tunein.com.We’d love to hear from you. If you hear us on Itunes, please rate and review us.

ANNIVERSARY GIVEAWAY

As mentioned, for our 50th episode anniversary we’re giving away a free Christian Book Bundle. One of the books is Charles book, the Beauty of the Mass. For our anniversary event, we’ll announce our celebration plans along with a book giveaway.

SIGN UP



50th Episode Celebration Giveaway

The post 50 Mass Etiquette and Reverence for Church Services appeared first on PAMELA Q. FERNANDES.

Cover Reveal: In Other Words

I realize I haven’t done any writing posts in a while. It’s because I’ve been swamped with editing. I’ve spent almost all of May editing. Just when I think it’s ready and send the manuscript out to my fellow author friends, I get more feedback and it feels incomplete. Also, the first two quarters of the year didn’t go as planned. Never Forget and Bowled are the only books that got released and so I have a backlog of books that will likely be pushed into next year. In Other Words, is the first in the Boothbay Harbor series.

In Other Words

My book cover designer Najla Qamber from Bahrain has done such a fantastic job on this one. She also designed by Wish Upon A Bollywood Star cover. Set in Maine, this book is a contemporary, sweet romance.

Trish Holt is a pianist, living in picturesque Boothbay Harbor, Maine. She is stunned and blindsided by the most bitter kind of betrayal: her boyfriend of three years has left her. His new lover is her manager. Her bitterness is compounded by the fact that Trish has made bad choices when it comes to past relationships. Much of it stemming from her own issues as an adopted child from Korea.

When she moves out to a new home, she encounters Michael Quentin. Not only is he her neighbor but also a local chef on the island, who romances her and helps her get over the betrayal.  As Michael and Trish fall in love, their childhood issues resurface. Can Trish stop herself from loving Michael whose own family’s dark past is holding him back? Can she ignore his love for tradition and roots? All she knows is she will not chase him. She’ll take what he’ll give her and then walk away.

Questions about loving someone with no roots, the need for a family, mistakes in choosing lovers and new beginnings are explored as Trish learns that even broken people can be mended. 

Parts of the Cover

I was an absolute nightmare to work with on the cover. I’m not sure why but I was consumed with how we’d position this in the market. Similar books of my genre had a theme. This was a series so we had to look at the cover potential on a long term basis, instead of a one-time event. Finding the right house, the right background, the trees, etc. Every element on the cover has been put together piece by piece.