The February meeting of the Gallia County chapter of the Ohio Retired
Teachers Association was held at the Gallia County Senior Resource Center at 12 noon February 12, 2009. President Barb Shelton
called the meeting to order by ringing a school bell, after which she welcomed all and told a humorous story. We recited the
Pledge of Allegiance and Henry Dillon said grace. The cooks served the meal of turkey, mashed potatoes and mixed vegetables.
Dessert was their famous ice box cake.
In keeping with heart health month the speaker for the day was Dr. Michael Englund, an intervention cardiologist from Holzer
Medical Center. He gave an interesting and very informative presentation. He gave us a bit of his history, how he came to
his field as well as how he landed at HMC where he has been on staff for ten years. A sobering statistic he cited is that
the Ohio Valley is the leading heart disease area in the US. He cited several reasons:
• Gene
pool
• Environmental factors ie; power plants
• Tobacco usage
•
Diabetes
• “Biscuits and gravy” ie: diet
Taking care of our selves is important
and relatively simple. Some things we can do:
• Take a 20 minute walk every day
•
Extra-cise (exercise outside of your normal routine)
• Don’t smoke (interesting factoid:
nicotine is 5 times more addictive than cocaine!)
• Eat a balanced diet and take it easy on fatty
foods, keep sugar intake down especially for diabetics
• Take a vitamin every once in a while
• Take a baby aspirin every day
• Maintain good cholesterol
•
Maintain good blood pressure
• Get health screenings whenever possible
There was a Q&A period, many good questions were posed which
prompted Dr. Englund to state he could tell this was a group of teachers by the quality of questions. (Interesting factoid
from the Q&A: the liver is the only organ that regenerates itself) In response to a question regarding eating citrus when
taking statin drugs, Dr. Englund stated it’s okay to eat citrus, just not immediately after taking the drug. Statin
drugs are made to work with normal stomach acidity.
The Cardiovascular Institute at HMC is growing and getting better, a new cardiothoracic surgeon Dr. John
W. Perry has recently joined the staff. Due to strides made in heart care many more patients are being treated now who would
not have been eligible for invasive heart procedures in the past. Dr. Englund likes the people in this area and finds the
folks to be genuine and truly caring, he gets lots of hugs from patients and family members.
Taking care of yourself
includes mind, body and spirit, it is important to be optimistic. Dr. Englund shared two pearls of wisdom he learned from
his grandfather:
1. If it isn’t broken, don’t try to fix it
2. If
you feel okay I can’t make you feel better, only worse
Sandy Anderson was in attendance to present information
for Bob Stein who is running for one of the two retired teacher seats coming open on the STRS Board. Mr. Stein is from Strongsville
a Cleveland suburb. He has financial experience and thinks the STRS Board needs to update its investment model. She distributed
information sheets as well as petitions for his candidacy. Want more info? www.bobstein.us
Wanda Willis told the story of her Valentine Cameo. The cameo is dated from
1860 and pictures a woman reading a book. She was the successful bidder on an e-Bay auction for this item. It was her husband’s
valentine gift to her. The membership rolls have been updated, we have 260 members to date. Karen Cornell volunteer chairperson
presented an engraved plaque to Jean Cassidy-Rice who had the most volunteer hours for 2008, a total of 714 hours.
We netted $105 from the raffle. Lois Carter won the quilt made
by Jeannine Cunningham and Marilyn Reese won an afghan made by Nancy Hood. A big thank you was given to Christine Williams
who has been doing the newsletter but is giving it up. NICE JOB Christine!!! We signed a card for Janet Wetherholt who is
doing fine after breaking her hip. We also signed a card for Estivaun Matthews who is not doing so well at this time. Meeting
adjourned at 1:40 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Marlene Hoffman
Secretary
