“Hospital Etiquette: What I learned From a Year on the Inside as a Patient” – Ageist
“I spent the better part of a year inside a hospital with a Stephen King-level freaky, highly life-threatening autoimmune disorder.”
“This is a world I know well.”
by David Stewart
“The odds are that you or someone you love will be hospitalized at some point. My sincere hope is that you will never have to use any of the suggestions in this article. We recently learned from her NYTimes editorial that our friend and AGEIST profile Annabelle Gurwitch is having a very tough time and, because of her illness, stage 4 lung cancer, she is highly engaged with the medical system. Her particular illness is not something I have knowledge of, but the medical system at that level is something I do. Annabelle, you are in our thoughts today as I write this.
“At about 50 years old, I spent the better part of a year in a hospital as a ‘science project’ due to my having contracted ITP — idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura. That is the Latin for ‘you seem to have a problem bleeding and we don’t know why.’ One thing about autoimmune disorders, and their inverse disorder, cancers, is that there is no run-of-the-mill average occurrence. They are all weird, all unique, and all special. You can have an average broken arm, but I have yet to hear of an average, regular old autoimmune disease. Modern medicine is fantastic at things like hip replacement, it is much less so with things like cancer and autoimmune. Which is not so say they don’t do incredible work, they do; I’m still alive! It is just that it is all sort of an experiment on a group of one, you, to see what works.”
“Coping With COVID-19: It Takes More Than Medicine” – Next Avenue
“As social isolation takes its toll on older adults, many find ways to cope”
by Craig Miller
“The holidays, for all their glitter and manufactured cheer, are also notorious for stoking feelings of loneliness and depression.
“This year – the first holiday season of the COVID-19 pandemic – will be a bigger test than usual. With coronavirus cases on the rise again across the country, caution will dictate more social distancing and isolation, particularly among older Americans.
“Some of the nation’s most respected health authorities, including Dr. Anthony Fauci and his boss at the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Francis Collins, have publicly said they’re foregoing large family gatherings at Thanksgiving this year.
“‘It can’t be understated how important social isolation can be on the health of older adults,’ says Dr. Ashwin Kotwal, a geriatrician and palliative care specialist at the University of California, San Francisco.”
Click here to read this article in its entirety at next avenue.
Persevere PA Crisis Counseling Program
This is the Persevere PA Crisis Counseling Program (CCP) Brochure which provides SAMHSA approved crisis counseling tele-health services, through the Center for Community Resources (CCR), and can be provided to people who need support related to the impacts of COVID-19. CCR provides the 24/7 Support and Referral Line that delivers the crisis counseling services.
Click here to download in English
Click here to download in Spanish
Please feel free to share this information with anyone who may benefit.
“The Death of the $15 Salad: How pizza won the pandemic—and Sweetgreen got left behind” – Marker
“Salad chains are among the worst-hit food businesses of the pandemic, in part because so many people are working remotely from home and also because salads don’t hit the same comfort-food receptors that pizza satisfies. Me thinks it’s also easier to rely on someone else to make pizza. It’s far trickier for a stranger to create a salad juuuuuust the way you like it.”
Illustration: Erik Blad
by Moe Tkacik
“The best meal I had all pandemic cost $1.14 and took about 90 seconds to make. It was a Margherita pizza inhaled in the car on a desolate day in late April. I know the precise cost because my husband is the chef who made it: 61 cents for a few slices of fresh buffalo mozzarella, 24 cents for the San Marzano tomatoes and salt, a quarter for enough basil leaves to supply the rest of the menu’s needs for free, and just 11 cents for the dough, made from a mix of top-shelf imported Italian flours. In normal times, his restaurant sold a Margherita for $20, but he could get away with selling it for $10 and still reach 10% food cost.
“We are a nation in the throes of an unprecedented eight-month pizza binge that shows no signs of abating. Multiple pizzerias in Los Angeles reported a 250% rise in sales on Election Day, and on Thursday, Papa John’s reported quarterly same-store sales growth of 23.8%. For months now, the underlying forces for the sustained pizza craze have been as hotly debated within the restaurant industry as the election results have been parsed by professional pollsters. Stress eating is a major cause; quarantine-induced failure of imagination and the return of three major-league sports within weeks of one another over the summer certainly didn’t hurt.”
Read this article in its entirety, click here.
“Medicare premiums, deductibles will Increase slightly in 2021” – AARP
Getty Images
by Dena Bunis
“Medicare premiums and deductibles for Part A and Part B will increase modestly in 2021, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced Friday. Standard monthly premiums for Part B will cost $3.90 more, rising to $148.50 in 2021, up from $144.60 in 2020.
“Part B deductibles will rise $5 next year to $203, up from this year’s $198.
“Medicare Part B covers doctor visits and other outpatient services, such as lab tests and diagnostic screenings. Premiums for some Medicare enrollees will be higher than the standard because these monthly payments are based on income. Part B beneficiaries with annual incomes greater than $88,000 will pay more ($207.90 for individuals with incomes between $88,000 and $111,000, for example).
“The $3.90 monthly Part B premium increase is less than had been expected earlier this year, when analyses by CMS actuaries indicated that the 2021 Part B premium could increase by as much as $50 a month for some beneficiaries.”
Read this article in its entirety at AARP; click here.
“Prayers and Grief Counseling After COVID: Trying to Aid Healing in Long-Term Care” – Kaiser Health Network
Central Baptist Village in Norridge, Illinois, held a socially distanced ceremony for one of its beloved nurses who died of COVID-19. Assisted living centers and nursing homes around the country offer grief counseling and memorial services for staffers and residents lost to the coronavirus. (Dawn Mondschein)
by Judith Graham
“A tidal wave of grief and loss has rolled through long-term care facilities as the coronavirus pandemic has killed more than 91,000 residents and staffers — nearly 40% of recorded COVID-19 deaths in the U.S.
“And it’s not over: Facilities are bracing for further shocks as coronavirus cases rise across the country.
“Workers are already emotionally drained and exhausted after staffing the front lines — and putting themselves at significant risk — since March, when the pandemic took hold. And residents are suffering deeply from losing people they once saw daily, the disruption of routines and being cut off from friends and family.
“In response, nursing homes and assisted living centers are holding memorials for people who’ve died, having chaplains and social workers help residents and staff, and bringing in hospice providers to offer grief counseling, among other strategies.”
Click here to continue reading this article in its entirety at Kaiser Health Network.
“Old dogs, new research and the secrets of aging: The ways dogs grow and age may provide potentially useful similarities with people” – The New York Times
via Alamy
by James Gorman
“Dogs go through stages in their life, just as people do, as is obvious to anyone who has watched their stiff-legged, white-muzzled companion rouse themselves to go for one more walk.
“Poets from Homer to Pablo Neruda have taken notice. As have folk singers and story tellers. Now science is taking a turn, in the hope that research on how dogs grow and age will help us understand how humans ‘age. And, like the poets before them, scientists are finding parallels between the two species.’
“Their research so far shows that dogs are similar to us in important ways, like how they act during adolescence and old age, and what happens in their DNA as they get older. They may be what scientists call a ‘model’ for human aging, a species that we can study to learn more about how we age and perhaps how to age better.”
Veterans Day, 2020 & the history of Veterans Day
History of Veterans Day
World War I – known at the time as “The Great War” – officially ended when the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, in the Palace of Versailles outside the town of Versailles, France. However, fighting ceased seven months earlier when an armistice, or temporary cessation of hostilities, between the Allied nations and Germany went into effect on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. For that reason, November 11, 1918, is generally regarded as the end of “the war to end all wars.”
Join the conversation at a ZOOM Death Cafe on December 14!
Join the conversation; meet others with like-minded interests on their minds: Considerate, compassionate conversations about death and end-of-life topics in a safe ZOOM environment.
Click here to register in advance for this webinar:
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_f3BMzoRjSLCswt9lszq3Ag
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.
