World Oxygen Day – October 2

World Oxygen Day 2026 takes place tomorrow on Friday, October 2, 2026 (celebrated as “O-2”), marking its fourth annual global observance.

Led by the Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease COPD Foundation alongside global patient advocacy groups and professional societies.

What is World O-2 Day?

It is a day that raises awareness for the millions of people worldwide who rely on short-term or daily supplemental oxygen for conditions like COPD, pneumonia, and trauma.

You see, hypoxemia, or low oxygen levels, can affect people of any age and can result from a range of respiratory, cardiac, and other conditions.

Despite being recognized by the World Health Organization as an essential medicine, supplemental oxygen remains out of reach for a full 60% of the world’s population, according to the Lancet Global Health Commission on Medical Oxygen Security.

Access to appropriate equipment, reliable oxygen supplies, education and support varies widely. Even for those who can obtain equipment, the technological limitations of that equipment can make it difficult – or even impossible – to leave home, participate in daily activities, or maintain their independence.

The four key signs of oxygen deficiency (hypoxia or hypoxemia) include:

Shortness of breath (dyspnea): Struggling to catch your breath or feeling winded during routine tasks or while resting.

Cyanosis: A bluish or grayish tint to the lips, face, or fingernails caused by a lack of oxygen in the blood.

Confusion or dizziness: Feeling lightheaded, disoriented, or having trouble concentrating because the brain needs a steady supply of oxygen.

Rapid heart rate (tachycardia): A fast or pounding heartbeat as your body tries to pump oxygen-poor blood faster to compensate.

World Oxygen Day was launched on October 2, 2023 by the COPD Foundation – it was stylized as “O-2” for the oxygen molecule. The core motivation was due to the COVID-19 pandemic exposing severe global inequities and shortages in medical oxygen; and organizers sought a dedicated platform to advocate for infrastructure and reforms.

One of the aims is to reduce the stigma around the use of oxygen and eliminate the social embarrassment that causes patients to avoid using portable oxygen equipment in public.

Supplemental oxygen therapy helps people with Scleroderma related interstitial lung disease (SSC-ILD) by easing shortness of breath, improving physical activity, and preventing organ damage caused by low blood oxygen.

Oxygen therapy helps with the management of low oxygen levels and symptoms, but it does not stop or reverse underlying lung scarring. Some people only need extra oxygen during exercise or sleep, while others need it all the time.

In the United States, there are continued advocacy efforts to pass the Supplemental Oxygen Access Reform (SOAR) Act, bipartisan legislation designed to create a more patient-centered, sustainable approach to oxygen equipment and services.

Ultimately, everybody needs oxygen to live. Some bodies need a little extra help.

By supporting World Oxygen Day, you can help improve the lives of those who need it.

Blessings ’til next time 🙂

A Beacon of Hope

In the heart of Galchhi, Dhading, Shree Bageshwori Secondary School once stood as a beacon of hope for 416 students and their families.

Today, it lies buried under thick, grey mud; a haunting testament to the destructive force of the 26 August 2026 Bhotekoshi flash flood.

Miraculous escape

Remarkably, on that fateful day the students of Shree Bageshwori Secondary School survived. When the floodwaters came crashing in, the students were away from their classrooms for their lunch break. Teachers, sensing the danger, had urgently instructed the children to leave their bags and lunch behind and evacuate immediately.

“The teachers said, ‘There is a flood and you should leave bags and lunch boxes.’ That’s how they managed to survive,” recalled the mother of one of the students.

For the families, the survival of their children was a relief beyond measure. Another mother searched in vain for her son’s backpack in a pile of mud-caked belongings but remained resilient: “My son is alive, that is my biggest happiness,” she said.

While the children survived, the school did not. When families and students returned to Shree Bageshwori on the 30th of August to salvage what they could, they were met with a devastating scene:

• School benches and a teacher’s chair lay buried under a thick layer of brown and grey mud.
• Educational materials, including notebooks and desks were coated in sediment.
• A pile of small, mud-caked backpacks, some with colorful keychains, lay scattered on the floors, waiting to be claimed by their young owners.
• Students’ lunchboxes were also found covered in mud.
• The school’s computer lab was completely destroyed; furnishings were ruined and the infirmary room was damaged.

Water lines on the walls stood as silent witnesses to how high and fast the waters had risen, transforming a place of learning into a landscape of ruin.

For the 416 students of Shree Bageshwori, the school is more than just a building. It is their path to a future. Its destruction does not just mean lost classrooms or damaged property; it means a complete halt to their education.

In times of such immense crisis, restoring a sense of normalcy for children is paramount. The school is a safe space, a place of routine and a cornerstone of community stability. Without it, the trauma of the flood is compounded by the uncertainty of when their lives can return to normal.

Nationally, this tragedy is not isolated. Numerous schools across Nepal’s flood-devastated districts have been destroyed or damaged, putting the education of more than 10,000 children at risk. In Dhading alone, Shree Bageshwori stands as one of the hardest-hit, a powerful symbol of a generation’s future hanging in the balance.

The students may have survived the flood. Now, they need the world to help them recover their future. Urgent support is required to clear the debris, restore the classrooms and bring the school back to life, ensuring that the 416 students of Shree Bageshwori can resume their education without prolonged delay.

One month on from the flood the death toll continues to rise, it is now close to 1,500 with well over five thousand people still missing. Some of the roading infrastructure has started to be repaired, making communities accessible so that they can assess where to from here.

Can they rebuild? If so what gets rebuilt first, and if not where do they relocate to? All questions that will be grappled with in due course – Buildings and livelihoods for sure can be rebuilt, but the mental and emotional scars will remain for a lifetime.

The thing is, as Ranjeeta Silwal, a human rights lawyer and Equality Now’s South Asia Regional Representative, explains:

“The emergency doesn’t end when flood water recedes, as the secondary impacts can continue for months, even years. When families lose their house, their income and support networks, women and girls become more exposed and vulnerable to sexual violence, intimate partner violence, sexual exploitation, trafficking and child marriage.”

A post-flood assessment this month by Nepal’s National Child Rights Council and the nonprofit Save the Children has found that more than 1,000 children are living in temporary shelters, including more than 100 who were unaccompanied by any relatives and 439 who were without their parents but had other relatives with them.

More than 32,000 children were unfortunately displaced by the floods, and officials and nonprofits are working to trace and reunite them with their families. So far, only 18 children have been reunited with their parents.

According to UNICEF, across the affected districts, 18 schools have been destroyed and a further 20 have sustained damage, depriving children of safe spaces to learn, play and recover. The futures of these beacons of hope is literally hanging in the balance.

You see, dozens of schools are located close to riverbanks in the affected areas and remain at risk. All-in-all an estimated 10,000 school-age children now face an uncertain educational future.

Unfortunately, Nepal is now also experiencing landslides and additional floods in multiple areas around the country following a period of heavy rain, leaving another 21 people dead and several missing. Roads have also been washed out and infrastructure destroyed, leaving residents cut off from essential services.

Emily and Caleb recently returned back from distributing 285 Education Resource Packs (ERPs) to 4 schools in the Helembu Rural Municipality; and they know first-hand how hard it is for children and families in the affected areas to get to school in the first place, let alone before something like this flood happens.

So, if you would like to support the work that Emily is doing subscribe to the website
Child Nepal New Zealand (CNNZ), and/or follow the CNNZ facebook page.

You may also consider donating much needed funds toward getting ERPs into those schools that have been able to restore education to children. Be a beacon of hope today.

Blessings ’til next time 🙂

I wasn’t built for normal

One of the features within WordPress that I am enjoying of late is the daily reminders of what I have previously written over the years – be it a blast from the past, a cracking open of the time capsule, or today’s throwback.

One such example was the post ‘At a bit of a loss‘ which featured an interaction between John Roedel* and God back in early September of 2023.

The thing is, he has a way of expressing stuff that I’m going through that resonates with me on a number of levels and that post has stuck with me for a few weeks now 🙂

Anyhow, low and behold on my facebook feed this morning I read another poem that John has written recently that has appealed to me and has been gnawing away at me for much of the day:

I’m not waiting for things
to go back to normal.

Normal already had too much of me.
It kept asking for smaller versions
of who I really was.

I’m ready for things
to get stranger.
Wilder.
More honest.

Normal played the same few songs
on a loop until we all forgot
how to dance.

But something in us has cracked open.
Something in us is humming.
I can feel it in my chest like a loose spark.

We’re all shaking our old shells off,
turning into these polka-dotted creatures
with new wings we don’t know how to use yet.

Your plain old blood is shifting colors.
Mine too.

You can feel it, can’t you?
That low rumble in your spirit
like a car warming up in the driveway
before a long overdue road trip.

We’re not made to stay the same.
We never were.

Normal had its season.
Let the strange have its turn.

There’s a river of light running in you
that didn’t even exist
before you were born.

You are rare.
You are wild.
You are beautifully off-center.

And this – right now –
is exactly your kind of season.
Because you weren’t built for normal.
You were built for wonder.

Now, some may call it coincidence (if you believe in such a thing) but for me it kinda flows from where my head has been at of late – especially in regards to my ‘new normal’ that I’ve been living with, or shall I say growing increasingly frustrated with (living with a rare disease – Scleroderma).

This is something that I have alluded to within my last few health updates ‘The Cyclical Nature‘ and ‘Déjà vu‘ to a degree. Not that I don’t appreciate routine and structure etc.

But I wasn’t built for normal.

I’ve always tended to live on the edge of whatever the next thing is, scheming and dreaming about a myriad of possibilities, being open to opportunities and looking ahead to what God would have me do. A high-capacity, constantly on the go kinda person that has often struggled with rest.

Admittedly, this has sometimes been frustrating to some of the people closest to me. But it has always enabled me to live within my visionary mindset and stretched my strategic thinking. In Natural Character Development speak it allows me to be fully enthused for renewal (my strongest energy) and passionate about what is to come. Living with a sense of wonder.

Not that I want to strive to achieve something of worth going forward – I want to thrive, doing what He would have me do. For the biblical motto (theme) behind the communal quality of ‘passion’ is: “Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.” Romans 12:11-12 (New International Version)

And I just love how The Passion Translation puts it:

“Be enthusiastic to serve the Lord, keeping your passion toward him boiling hot! Radiate with the glow of the Holy Spirit and let him fill you with excitement as you serve him. Let this hope burst forth within you, releasing a continual joy. Don’t give up in a time of trouble, (or even when ill health afflicts you) but commune with God at all times.” Romans 12:11-12

Blessings ’til next time 🙂

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* John Roedel is a comic, husband and father of three boys based in Wyoming who began talking with “God” in 2015 on Facebook about his ongoing faith crisis.

What began as a flippant way of making light of his doubts in the Divine turned into something he wasn’t at all prepared for:

God wrote back.

Since creating the popular “Hey God. Hey John.” Facebook page, John has tackled such topics as his journey to mental health wellness, his lack of faith, the joy and pain of raising a child with autism, and grief, all in the form of a simple conversation with God.

Grandparents Day – 4 October

Here in Aotearoa New Zealand this coming Sunday (4 October) is Grandparents Day.

It is a day that is dedicated to celebrating all the joy and value that Grandparents bring to the lives of Kiwi kids, whether they be Grandparents by blood, or Grandparents by love.

It is also a chance for families to gather together and talk, laugh and reminisce about life.

Grandparent’s Day has been celebrated in the United States since the 1970’s. It was initiated at the grassroots level by West Virginian Marian Lucille Herndon McQuade.

Mrs. McQuade wanted Grandparent’s Day to be a family day. She envisioned families enjoying small, private gatherings, perhaps even a family reunion, or participating in community events. 

She started her campaign for a day to honour grandparents in 1970 and first launched the day in her home state in 1973. Then, after many years, much persuasion, and unending persistence, she finally achieved her bigger goal.

In 1979, President Jimmy Carter proclaimed the first Sunday after Labour Day each year as National Grandparents Day.

Other Countries have now joined in the celebration, including Canada, the UK and Australia. With New Zealand celebrating its inaugural New Zealand Grandparent’s Day on Sunday the 28 October 2018.

The good folk at GrandFriends* have put together a number of resources to help you decide how you would like to #DoSomethingGrandNZ to celebrate New Zealand Grandparent’s Day.

These include a list of activities and ideas for families and communities.

Even though it is currently the school holidays they also have a list of activities and ideas for schools and daycare centres – So teachers you may want to include some of them during the first week back at school 🙂

• Bring out the Board games! The more traditional the better – try Ludo, Draughts, or Cluedo and get everyone around the table to play.
• Do some baking – make a slice or bake a Happy Grandparents Day cake.
• Go for a walk. Even if there’s no summer sun callin’ your name, nature walks are fun during any season, or explore the local neighborhood. You may even want to try Geo-caching… https://www.geocaching.com/play
• You may even want to start researching and compiling your family tree.
• Check out the resources page for a heap more ideas.

Blessings ’til next time 🙂

#DoSomethingGrandNZ #Grandparents Day

* GrandFriends is a small but mighty charity that combats big issues like loneliness and isolation in older people and families. They are the bridge that brings Kiwis together across generations.

Latest Spiramentum Ministries Post

Today rather than create another post for The Life and Times of Perry… I thought I’d repost one that I’ve put together for Spiramentum Ministries entitled ‘A Life of Thanksgiving’.

This post reminds us to be grateful for every good gift that God gives us.

Afterall, Psalm 100 espouses us to “Enter God’s gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise” and we are to “give thanks to Him and praise His name.”

A Life of Thanksgiving

You can follow Spiramentum Ministries on Facebook, or click subscribe on Spiramentum Ministries so that you can keep up to date with our latest posts.

Blessings ’til next time 🙂

Daylight Savings – 27 September

Here in Aotearoa New Zealand, at 2am on Sunday 27 September, we move our clocks forward one hour to make better use of the daylight during the upcoming summer months.

* Interestingly it originated in Aotearoa and was written into law in 1927.

The concept, known as the Summer Time Act, was first formed in the 1890’s by a New Zealand bug collector called George Hudson. He was a British-born entomologist and astronomer, during his evening leisure time he collected insects and he presented his initial idea of a two-hour daylight saving shift to the Wellington Philosophical Society.

This idea gained some traction when taken up by MP Sir Thomas Kay Sidey, who put forward an annual daylight saving bill to parliament in 1909.

Finally in 1927, after a few iterations, the Summer Time Act succeeded and came into being, when Hudson was 60 years old.

However, despite the Summer Time Act being passed, the change in hours wasn’t very popular in New Zealand and it took quite some time to come into effect.

It has been revised, amended and changed a number of times over the years and was even abandoned for quite some time before being reintroduced in the 1970’s.

The concept of daylight saving time as we know it today didn’t come into effect until 1974, when it was trialled again for a year, and the following year it was officially introduced running from the last Sunday in October to the first Sunday in March.

While the 1974 trial proved popular with most Kiwis, the shift in time didn’t suit everyone and it has since been extended several times.

In April 2007, the government announced that daylight savings would be extended by three weeks, for a 27-week period.

Therefore, we now have 27 weeks of daylight saving, from the last Sunday in September to the first Sunday in April.

The main purpose of daylight saving time is to provide an additional hour for outdoor activities. So, bring on the sun and let’s have some fun!

Personally I’m especially looking forward to the warmer weather so that I can get outside and tidy up some of the gardens that need some attention.

You see, daylight saving time gives us more time after work or school for exercise, hobbies, and social events in the sun – Hold the fort… How does that benefit retirees again? 🙂

In the meantime I hope you enjoy the following video which is a blast from the past – “You Bring on the Sun” was released in June 1992 by British-American band Londonbeat.

Blessings ’til next time 🙂

* Adapted from a Radio New Zealand’s article and a Stuff article that were published a few years ago.