Category: Health

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Not Our Lois

Diane Henrikson Russell

My 13th birthday was on Sunday, July 18, 1965. We three sisters usually had separate parties with our friends and our family. Six-year-old Jan celebrated her birthday in March, while three-year-old Michele and I celebrated together with our family since she was born just four days before my 10th birthday.

This birthday was different. Mom (also known as Lois) was undergoing a hysterectomy the following day. Mom had had three very difficult pregnancies and we three sisters were lucky to be here. Nine days after Michele’s birth, Mom started hemorrhaging at home and had to be taken by ambulance to the hospital for an emergency D&C. The fact that she had a bleeding disorder made the hysterectomy a necessity and a worry at the same time. Would she recover okay or have complications?

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The Overturn of Roe v. Wade

 

Sign for International Women’s Day 4. Original public domain image from Flickr

The Supreme Court’s recent decision overturning Roe v. Wade created a huge amount of controversy in our society. We were interested in the opinions of our readers on this hot topic, so we invited you to submit your reactions in the hope that we could prepare a special edition. These are the responses that we received. –Editors
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Walking In a COVID-19 Wonderland

Diane Henrikson Russell

I drove over nine speed bumps daily on a major street in my subdivision as I impatiently commuted to my USF Career Counselor job, which was 21 miles away. I barely gave the homes or the intersecting streets a glance as I focused on my destination in the pre-dawn hours.

Fast forward from August 2014 to Fall 2020: I now leisurely stroll along the sidewalks of that same street as I watch impatient commuters drive over those same speed bumps.

The stark contrast in my change of pace was not caused by retirement. The COVID-19 virus has made walking a safe and enjoyable way to exercise outdoors while we “vulnerable” folks try to remain isolated from others and still exist on the planet.

Walking has been my preferred method of exercise for decades. As a USF employee, I strolled the sidewalks of the Tampa campus on breaks and at lunchtime. Before moving to Brandon, I even walked to and from work when I lived 1.5 miles away from the campus. I lost my campus walking routine as a retiree, but last year I began walking on the outdoor track at Bay Care Health Hub in nearby Valrico.  (More...)

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My Life During “Stay Safe at Home”

Catherine Mitchell

First, I am grateful because all of my friends and family are in good health, and so far they are financially secure. And I am thankful to all the people who are putting themselves in harm’s way to keep things working as much as possible – not only those people in the medical field, but also grocery store workers, restaurant owners and workers, and all of the unsung heroes out there.

I am 80 years YOUNG and cringe every time that I hear or read, “the frail and elderly.”  I definitely am not frail and hadn’t felt elderly until the coronavirus hit. This is a picture of me celebrating my 80th birthday in Italy last year.  All of a sudden, I went from having a full calendar to having an empty one. So far a dental appointment has been cancelled as has  (More…)

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Why 80 Matters

Don Menzel

In a few weeks I will hit the magic number: 80 years old.  I reckon I can no longer deny that the so-called ”Golden Years” are just a breath away.  “What will be will be” says the great philosopher Doris Day. And so it is. Or, as another modern-day philosopher, Harlem-born Charlie Rangel once said about his age, “I don’t buy green bananas anymore”.   Well, I haven’t reached that stage yet, and I hope I don’t, but I will share a few personal considerations with you.

First, I never ever expected to clock 80 years for two reasons:  Most of my life has been in the fast lane.  Of course, maybe that’s the reason I down 15 pills daily, seven of which target high blood pressure.  And then there’s heredity.  (More…)

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Deep Medicine

Michael Bice

Eric Topol’s Deep Medicine is a significant contribution to American medicine and should be required reading for anyone interested in the present and future of health delivery.  I read the book as a student and teacher of digital health technologies and quickly discovered that my understanding of AI and medicine is superficial at best. In my quest to overcome this deficit, I found the following observations from the Topol book to be of particular relevance.

The first major entry of AI into the practice of medicine was automated systems for reading ECGs, which were first applied in the 1970s and became routine in the 1980s.

Deep neural networks (DNN) are the driving force supporting AI innovations in health. The DNN era was made possible by these four components:  (More…)

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Are You Crushing on Sugar?

[Today’s author, Lynne Wadsworth, has her own blog :  Holistic Health and Wellness, and she’s sharing an article from that blog with us now.  We’ll give you a link to it at the end of this post.]

Lynne Wadsworth

I am sure you have figured it out by now, but I am a full-fledged “sugarholic!” It is a constant battle and sometimes I just flat-out fall off the wagon. Do you know what I mean? My whole lifestyle is based on eating a clean, whole food, health lifestyle, but sometime it is hard when I get sugar inside me, not to give in to that bar of chocolate that’s calling my name!

When you think of addiction, you might think about gambling, substances and alcohol, but there are many other addictions as well. One of them is sugar, which can actually be something you struggle with and not even realize it. Here are some things to know about sugar addiction.  (More…)

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