I just spent an entire morning negotiating the administration and shipping of three specially ordered COVID tests so that my children and I can travel to visit their grandparents in a little over three weeks – and I’m still not sure I have it all straight. The challenge lies in the timing, in order to travel to this particular state, […]
By Melissa Wagoner When Robin Hyslop left her shoes on the sidewalk in front of Legacy Silverton on Sept. 30, she left behind a lot more than a pair of worn-out sneakers – she left behind a 33-year career as a Certified Nursing Assistant, coworkers she’s come to think of as family and trust in a system she feels has […]
Social Media is rife with misinformation, especially in the chaos of COVID. Lazy people use it as their “research.” VAERS is the “Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System”, a reporting system co-managed by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). People grab stats at random from VAERS and then perpetuate inaccurate data to anyone who […]
By Melissa Wagoner The recent closure of the Silverton branch of Childhood Health left Silverton families without a locally-based pediatric clinic – an situation Dr. Scott Hamblin and Dr. Mark Helm are determined to remedy. “Scott and I didn’t want to give up the care of the kids in this area,” Helm, who worked alongside Hamblin at Childhood Health, said. […]
By Melissa Wagoner During his 20-year career as a Clinical Psychologist, Dr. Andrew Weitzman learned a great deal. “Of those 20 years, my first seven were in community health in Vancouver, Washington,” Weitzman said of the time he spent working in drug and alcohol treatment. “Then I got a job at the state hospital for 13 years.” These environments provided […]
By Brenna Wiegand Only two weeks of school had elapsed when Our Town touched base with Silverton High School Principal Sione Thompson, in his first year with the Silver Falls School District. “It’s been quite a trial by fire but what makes it all worthwhile is that these are just terrific people,” he said. “They are kind and compassionate with […]
By Melissa Wagoner There have been a lot of sleepless nights for Oktoberfest board members since the COVID numbers began climbing in mid-July because, by then, planning for Mount Angel’s annual festival was well underway and organizers – having spent hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars in planning – were loath to pull the plug. “We thought long and […]
It is so difficult being a writer, even one throwing out unsolicited opinions just once a month. There is a natural flow of subjects that occur annually, starting with New Year’s resolutions and ending with taking the tree down as Santa heads to the tropics for a well-earned rest. There is Valentine’s Day, Easter, Tax Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, […]
By Melissa Wagoner Few things make a parent feel more anxious than watching a child’s late-night struggle for breath, a situation Amanda Baird – whose son, Jacob, was born three and a half weeks premature and with significant lung damage – is accustomed to avoiding at all cost. “We had him on daily steroids and rescue inhalers and the nebulizer,” […]
Your local medical community would like to publicly announce our support for vaccination against COVID-19. We have all received the vaccine and encouraged all of our eligible family members to be vaccinated. The available vaccines are safe, rigorously studied, well tested, and highly effective at preventing severe disease and death. We are in an unprecedented state of crisis which has […]
By Brenna Wiegand Emily Dazey, Executive Director of Providence Benedictine Nursing Center in Mount Angel, will be moving into a broader role as Providence Director of the Skilled Nursing Facility Collaborative for Oregon. Dazey, who has served at the Mount Angel campus for 26 years, will now serve in a regional capacity on behalf of the Providence hospitals with the […]
By Melissa Wagoner June came in like a lamb this year and went out like a… dragon? It broke records across the state with temperatures in Salem reaching a whopping 117. Then the area had the hottest July on record… And then the August heat dome hit, again threatening triple-digit days. Those kind of temperatures may be expected in Arizona, […]
By Kyle Palmer It’s hard to believe, but as I write this, our state and our community are, for the most part, exiting the COVID-19 restrictions that we’ve all been under since March of last year. It remains to be seen if this move is permanent.There are still many people hospitalized. We will undoubtedly still lose some people with the illness and many people will […]
By Melissa Wagoner Too much time spent interacting with screens was a problem long before the pandemic, so much so that the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) issued specific guidelines about the quantity of time children should spend in front of a screen. “For children younger than two years, the AAP discourages all screen time and encourages ‘…more interactive activities […]
By Melissa Wagoner Trauma is the one-word answer both Sarah White, program director and case manager at Sheltering Silverton, and Sarah Case, a licensed professional counselor, give when asked to describe a prevalent narrative within unhoused populations. “The vast majority of people we serve are survivors of trauma, often complex trauma experienced over their lifetimes,” White explained. “We hear from folks […]
By Brenna Wiegand When the COVID-19 vaccine first became available in late December, Legacy Silverton Medical Center opened a clinic and started providing vaccines, first to primary care providers, then teachers. By January’s end about 5,000 people had been vaccinated at the Silverton campus. Not long after the vaccine became available to the general public, it became clear that some […]
By Melissa Wagoner What started as the Mt. Angel Fire District (MAFD) providing COVID-19 vaccinations to their own paramedics and firefighters this February, quickly grew as they reached out to other districts – Silverton, Woodburn, Lyons and Mill City among them – to provide vaccines. “We ended up doing around 400 first responders,” Fire Chief Jim Trierweiler said. “Fortunately for […]
By Mary Owen Santiam Hospital introduces SalivaDirect, a less expensive, less invasive and safer way to test for COVID-19. “It’s kind of remarkable that our little lab in Stayton, Oregon, is using this test,” said Dr. Janine VanSant, infectious disease specialist. “We are one of the few labs in the Pacific Northwest using it.” Dr. Sarah Comstock, a molecular biologist […]
By Melissa Wagoner When Brian Reif – a clinical nurse who works directly with COVID patients – was offered the COVID-19 vaccine as a member of the tier one medical community, he did not hesitate to roll up his sleeve, likening his participation to a patriotic duty. “What we have achieved to create and now deliver, a novel vaccine in […]
By Steve Ritchie As the number of COVID-19 cases quickly grows in Oregon and throughout the country, government leaders and public health authorities have focused their attention on the readiness of hospitals to deal with an influx of coronavirus patients. With 43 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Marion County (as of March 25), Our Town contacted our two regional hospitals, […]
Jonathan Avery, MHSA, is now Legacy Health’s president for the Willamette Valley Region. His responsibilities include leadership of medical centers at Legacy Silverton and Legacy Meridian Park in Tualatin. Legacy’s announcement said the new regional president role combines leadership of the two hospitals to better focus on meeting the health needs of the community and providing an integrated health care […]
By Melissa Wagoner “In a heartbeat,” is Anna Koch’s instant reply when asked if she would once again hike the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) – the 2,650-mile track from Campo, California, on the United States-Mexico border, to Manning Park, British Columbia. “I actually didn’t finish and that’s a huge bummer to me,” 20-year-old Koch lamented. “I want to go back.” […]
By Melissa Wagoner In a small town in Pennsylvania in 2005, Trish Ambrose’s 18-year-old neighbor, and good friend to her son, fatally shot his parents at point-blank range. “I was interrupted while dressing that morning by a phone call from [the killer’s sister] telling me that her parents had been shot, and she was hiding in a neighbor’s locked bathroom,” […]
On a cool autumn Senior Night the Kennedy High football team checked off the final box in an undefeated Special District 2 season. The defending state champion Trojans dismantled Culver 40-6 on Oct. 25 to improve to 5-0 in league play and advance to No. 1 in the OSAA’s Class 2A rankings. And because Chemawa shut down their program midseason […]
By Melissa Wagoner The importance of getting kids out of the classroom and involved in the natural world is something Special Education teacher Mike Johnson viewed as essential. “He started doing outdoor programs like Outward Bound stuff,” Mike’s daughter, Amy, remembered. “And he quickly realized how important it was for them – how many other skills were part of that.” […]
