By Steve Ritchie A common New Year’s Resolution is to make a new or strengthen a commitment to become healthier and fitter. By the time the middle of January rolls around, some people may reach the wall of frustration where they aren’t seeing the results of their fitness plan. Before throwing in the towel on your 2013 goals, Cindy Woodley […]
By Margaret Inoue Older adults might not always recall names, rote facts and figures as well as in their youth, but they may be better at coming up with ideas and solutions. Older adults can find themselves in a position where they are accomplished at thoughtful decision-making. “You slow down a bit and give yourself time to think. You feel better […]
By P. Milliren Silverton resident Randi Embree sometimes feels like a crazy old woman “dragging people around showing them weeds.” Five days a week, she is the manager of a nonprofit tax policy organization. On Sundays, she teaches people how to make medicines from wild plants. Embree started using herbs 40 years ago when she was a teenager. Herbalism dates before written history, and the Scripture talks about using plants and herbs. “Herbalism is not yet the […]
What seems like eternity – plus one of your English teacher’s relentless lectures on literary elements – is finally interrupted by the resplendent resonance of the lunch bell. This well-deserved break in the school day gives students a chance to relax and visit with friends over a mid-day meal.
By Brenna Wiegand I met Gerrie Faessler-Gray while interviewing Marie Jackson about her new Thai Massage practice in Silverton. She was a good sport about being in the photo. Gerrie, 69, told me she raised eight kids on a dairy farm near Silverton; that her first husband, Charles Faessler, had passed away shortly after they sold the dairy and moved […]
Silverton High School seniors Olivia Dahl and Katie Spink describe having a concussion like being grounded for something they didn’t do and they can’t get out of it – until they passed the test.
Yara Delgado and Kristin High shared one of their most private, physically painful, yet monumental moments in their lives with their colleagues.
Dr. Jolson Tharakan of Silverton Health often hears the misconception that eating large amounts of sugar can cause diabetes.
Nothing lasts forever, so even the long, dreary rainy season must come to an end sometime. We know that, in Oregon, spring doesn’t always mean warm, sunny days, but the days are getting longer and gradually warmer.
At an athletic event in late November, several women lamented the upcoming holiday season. “All I am looking forward to is the week after Christmas when everything is done and I can relax,” one woman said, adding she dreaded the additional responsibilities and expectations of the holiday season.
Silverton High School freshman Tim Cain is a medical mystery. Although he’s been to several doctors in the past two years, none can determine why he has a low white blood count and abnormality in his bone marrow.
When Ruth Schwab first attended one of Tsipora Berman’s yoga classes at the Silverton Senior Center, she did most of the poses in a chair. “She’s a Type A, fast-paced person (so yoga was a new thing for her),” Berman said. “She didn’t know where her body was, but the coordination, strength of mind, and breath from yoga has changed her life.”
A 9-year-old boy is playing second base on a baseball team on a Friday evening. He dives to catch the baseball and in doing so lands hard on his right wrist. He stands up yelling his wrist hurts.
Mount Angel Family Medicine has moved into the specially renovated 5,000 square foot space at 250 W. Marquam St. and doctors and staff invite the public to join them in celebration April 14, 3 to 7 p.m. The building, which was previously a grocery store, has been completely refurbished to provide twice the space, modern workflows and more patient amenities.
Forget New Year’s resolutions about working out every day or never eating sugar or fat again. We all know they end up abandoned because they prove next to impossible in our unpredictable everyday lives.
Is it “my time” to deal with my excess weight? While many of us are asking ourselves that question at the start of the new year, we also may not know how to go about losing the weight. One answer may be joining a TOPS or Take Off Pounds Sensibly program. Groups meet Thursday evenings and Friday mornings in Silverton.
Marie Traeger has discovered a secret to sticking to an exercise plan. It’s not about losing weight, she said, adding she realizes regardless of how many hours she exercises she’ll never be a “skinny-minnie.”
Dr. Michael Grady saw more than an empty mayonnaise jar with a few coins and a hand-written note asking for donations to pay for an ill child’s medical treatment. “Seeing the jar in the mom-and-pop store, it hit me ‘wow, what would it be like to be that child’s father’,” Grady said. “I had four kids who I could take care of if something happened to one of them.”
After enduring vacuum extraction, cesarean section, and having a baby resuscitated immediately after birth, Jeannie and Mike Gearhardt decided on an alternative approach for their fifth child: home birth. So the Gearhardts went midwife shopping. The search started — and ended — with Betty Griffith, a licensed direct-entry midwife who came highly recommended.
When Eyonna Shubin of Silverton went into labor with her fourth child, she wasn’t sure if it was false labor or the real thing. After hours of steady contractions, she called her midwife to say, “I think this is it.” Instead of driving to a hospital, Shubin stayed home.
Unfortunately, Kropf said, many people believe school lunches are the culprit for the increase in childhood obesity in America. “The lunch program is a good scapegoat,” said Kropf, who is the food services manager for the Silver Falls School District. “We give kids a choice on what they can get so I feel that should take some of the blame off us.”
Like bears emerging from hibernation, local runners and walkers are being lured out of the fitness centers and off their couches by the warmer and longer days to start pounding the pavement. It’s now safe to exercise outside again – just in time for Silverton Hospital’s 27th annual Fun Run on Saturday, May 8.
Childhood obesity is “our generation’s Black Plague,” Sarah Fronza said, not once but twice to emphasize the severity. The director of chronic disease prevention and management for the Silverton Hospital Network, Fronza is passionate about educating people on preventing childhood obesity.
A renowned study of Alzheimer’s Disease and brain health will be discussed May 11, by Sr. Catherine Bertrand at the 14th annual Sister Marilyn Schwab Memorial Lecture. The event is free and open to all. Sr. Catherine, of the School Sisters of Notre Dame, will speak on “The Nun Study – Educators in Life – and in Death.”
The brainchild of Dr. Frank Lord, emergency physician at Silverton Hospital and now medical director of the program, WellspringHeart is an instructional program devoted to the reduction of cardiovascular disease by changing lifestyles. Launched in November 2007, the program has had roughly 200 patients so far.
