Update: The "Donate" button has been removed. Please read The Circle of Life to see why.

As I wrote in my previous post, "A Possible Disappearing Act", the possible is now definite. I will be flying from Manila, Philippines to Phoenix, Arizona, USA, prior to my wife's dual tonsillectomies, which should take place sometime between the middle of February and March.

All of my life, I've been taught it's always better to give than to receive. In fact, one of the reasons I gave up my second good job (after military retirement) and turned down a promotion that would pay me more than USD $60K per year is because I needed to be in a place where I could do the most good.

After being on the giving end of the stick for so long, you can't imagine how hard it was for me to put up the PayPal donation button (upper left sidebar). It just feels so wrong. Nevertheless, I'm in a position where I need the financial help for the first time in my life. Please, I don't want you to consider this a gift. I want you to consider it a loan. A loan that will be paid back, if not financially, in many different ways.

I and my wife will be celebrating our wedding anniversary apart on January 25th for only the second time in our marriage, the first time being when I was in Saudi Arabia just prior to the first gulf war in 1991. This will be our 23rd anniversary. Take a look at the picture below and you can understand why I consider Josie the most beautiful woman in the world and a person I want to protect with every asset at my disposal.

Josie Cunningham

I want to thank Vic of Blogger Unleashed for kicking my virtual ass and making me consider this as an option with his post about a blogger in need. I would also like to thank Darren Rowse of ProBlogger for following up with the post to help a blogger in need.

And Even More Well-Wishers

My reading list is growing. I apologize if I'm missing anyone. I'm going through pingback notifications and Google Alerts. Some of the pingbacks had to be despammed from Akismet before they appeared. I assure you, I submitted them as "not spam" and hopefully, Akismet won't do it again.

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I wanted to quickly mention why I said "tonsillectomy" above when there's much more to it than that. Josie has been to doctors many times since she left here in May of last year. So far, this is the only thing she's having surgery for. I tried to convince her to do all of this here in the Philippines, but she doesn't trust the local Filipino doctors. Besides, health insurance here is a joke. She's had mammograms, sonograms, pap smears, and other tests I can't even remember. I attribute most of her problems to her life before we met, but I can't get into detail with that here. It's just too personal.

I've mentioned it before, but others in her family were either murdered or wounded a few years ago. With the streak of bad things that have happened in her life, she's justifiably afraid of being alone for the surgery, especially after she learned that one of my grandfathers died on the operating table for a much more minor operation. Mere words cannot express the gamut of emotions both her and I are going through.

I'm going to attempt to put aside those emotions so that I can continue to do the things I normally do when I'm blogging. Some of you know what those things are and some of those things are quite invisible to the casual observer. That's the way I prefer to do things; shameless self-promotion just isn't my cup of tea.