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Sandra was forty years old when she first noticed that the joints in her hands and toes were tender, warm, and swollen. In the mornings, the joints were stiff, and her body ached. She said she felt like she had been run over by a Mack Truck. She knew something was wrong so she made an appointment with her doctor.
The following week she met with her doctor. Sandra described her current symptoms (pain, stiffness, tenderness, warm and swollen joints). The doctor examined each joint, looking for tenderness, swelling, warmth, and painful or limited motion. He noted that the joints on both sides of her body were affected. (Rheumatoid arthritis tends to affect joints on both sides of the body.)
Next, the doctor ordered blood tests to measure inflammation levels. The blood tests also look for biomarkers such as antibodies (blood proteins) linked with rheumatoid arthritis.
Finally, he ordered a magnetic resonance imaging scan (MRI) to look for joint damage, such as loss of bone within the joint and narrowing of joint space. Note that the lack of joint damage does not rule out rheumatoid arthritis. It may mean that the disease is in an early stage and hasn’t yet damaged the joints.
While she waited for the results of the tests, Sandra researched osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis on her computer. She discovered that osteoarthritis is the most common form of arthritis. According to https://www.everday health.com/rheumatoid-arthritis, it affects over 30 million adults in the United States. It is also known as degenerative arthritis, and it is also called wear-and-tear arthritis. Osteoarthritis typically occurs in older adults.
By contrast, rheumatoid arthritis is an auto-immune, inflammatory, systemic disease. The immune system attacks healthy cells in the body by mistake. This results in inflammation, pain, and swelling in affected body parts. Rheumatoid arthritis typically attacks several joints symmetrically. It may also affect organs such as the heart, lungs, and eyes.
The test results showed that Sandra did indeed have rheumatoid arthritis. What caused this? Doctors don’t know what causes rheumatoid arthritis. However, according to https://www.mayoclinic.org, the following risk factors have been identified:
Being female.
Your age. Rheumatoid arthritis most commonly begins between the ages of 40 to 60.
Family history. If a member of your family has rheumatoid arthritis, you may have an increased risk of getting the disease.
Smoking. Cigarette smoking increases your risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis.
Environmental exposure. Exposure to asbestos or silica may increase your risk for developing rheumatoid arthritis.
Obesity. People who are overweight or obese appear to be at somewhat higher risk of rheumatoid arthritis, especially women diagnosed with the disease when they were 55 or younger.
If you have a family member who has a serious illness and needs private duty nursing, call American Home Health at (630) 236-3501. The agency can provide round-the-clock nursing care by Registered Nurses (RNs), Licensed Practical Nurses (LPNs), and Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs). Our service area covers fifteen counties in Northern Illinois including Cook, Lake, McHenry, Boone, Winnebago, Ogle, Lee, DeKalb, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, LaSalle, Grundy, Will, and Kankakee. American Home Health is licensed by the State of Illinois and accredited by the Joint Commission. For further information, go to www.ahhc-1.com, or call (630) 236-3501.
MUHAMMAD ALI AND WIFE LONNIE WASHINGTON, DC JUNE 11, 2001
In 1964, a twenty-two-year-old boxer known by his birth name, Cassius Clay, Jr. entered the ring for a match with Sonny Liston, who had been the world heavyweight boxing champion since 1962. Clay had spent the weeks prior to the match trash-talking Liston’s fighting abilities, trying to get inside his opponent’s head. Clay won the fight in a major upset. He then changed his name from Cassius Clay, Jr., which he called his “slave name,” to Muhammad Ali.
Ali described his fighting style as “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. The hands can’t hit what the eye can’t see.” He considered himself “The Greatest.”
In 1966, two years after winning the heavyweight title, he refused to be drafted into the United States military. He gave as reasons his religious beliefs and opposition to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. He was arrested, found guilty of draft evasion, and stripped of his boxing titles. He was sentenced to five years in prison, fined $10,000, and banned from boxing for three years. The U.S. Supreme Court overturned his conviction in 1971.
Ali was provocative and outlandish and arrogant and fearsome. Before his famous “Rumble in the Jungle” match with George Foreman in 1974, Ali continued his pattern of verbal assault. “I wrestled with an alligator, I tussled with a whale, I handcuffed lightning, thrown thunder in jail. I’m a bad man. . . last week I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalized a brick. I’m so mean I make medicine sick.”
Ali retired from boxing in 1981 at age 39. In 1984 at the age of 42, he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Some reports attributed his condition to boxing-related injuries, but both Ali and his physician disputed this.
In 1998, Ali began working with actor Michael J. Fox, who has Parkinson’s disease, to raise awareness and fund research for a cure for Parkinson’s disease. In 2002, they made joint appearances before Congress to push the case. Ali worked with the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s disease to raise awareness and encourage donations for research.
As his condition worsened, he made limited public appearances. He was cared for at his home by members of his family. Muhammed Ali died June 3, 2016 at age 74 after a 32-year battle with Parkinson’s disease.
If you have a family member who has a serious illness and needs private duty nursing, call American Home Health at (630) 236-3501. The agency can provide round-the-clock nursing care by Registered Nurses (RNs), Licensed Practical Nurses (LPNs), and Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs). Our service area covers fifteen counties in Northern Illinois including Cook, Lake, McHenry, Boone, Winnebago, Ogle, Lee, DeKalb, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, LaSalle, Grundy, Will, and Kankakee. American Home Health is licensed by the State of Illinois and accredited by the Joint Commission. For further information, go to www.ahhc-1.com, or call (630) 236-3501.
Born January 6, 1912 in Deerfield, Michigan, Amos Muzyad Yakhoob Kairouz was the son of Maronite Catholic immigrants from Lebanon. One of ten children, he was raised in Toledo, Ohio, where he attended St. Francis de Sales Church (Roman Catholic), Woodward High School, and the University of Toledo. You know him as Danny Thomas, the American nightclub comedian, singer, actor, and producer.
Using the name Amos Jacobs Kairouz, he began performing on radio in Detroit in 1932. He moved to Chicago in 1940 where he changed his name to Danny Thomas (after two of his brothers).
Thomas first reached mass audiences on network radio in the 1940s when he played the part of the shifty brother-in-law Amos in The Bickersons. He also played the part of Jerry Dingle, the postman on The Baby Snooks Show. He had his own 30-minute weekly variety show called The Danny Thomas Show. It ran on ABC in 1942-1943 and on CBS in 1947-1948.
With the advent of television, Thomas starred in Make Room for Daddy, later known as The Danny Thomas Show. The show ran for eleven years (1953-1964).
As a “starving actor,” Thomas had made a promise to St. Jude, the patron saint of hopeless causes. He had promised that if he found success, he would open a shrine dedicated to St. Jude. Thomas did not forget his promise. After he became a successful actor in the 1950’s, he and his wife began traveling the United States to raise funds to build St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital. With help from Dr. Lemuel Diggs and close friend Anthony Abraham, an auto magnate in Miami, he founded the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee in 1962. Although St. Jude’s was named after Danny Thomas’s patron saint, it is not a Catholic hospital and is not affiliated with any religious organization. The focus of St. Jude’s is the research and treatment for children with cancer and other life-threatening diseases.
According to https://en.wikipedi.org/wiki/St._Jude_Children”_Research_Hospital. “All medically eligible patients who are accepted for treatment at St. Jude are treated without regard to the family’s ability to pay. St. Jude is one of the few pediatric research organizations in the United States where families never pay for treatments that are not covered by insurance, and families without insurance are never asked to pay. In addition to providing medical services to eligible patients, St. Jude also assists families with transportation, lodging, and meals. These policies, along with research expenses and other costs, cause the hospital to incur more than $2.4 million in operating costs each day.” Today, according to _Forbes Magazine_, St. Jude Children’s Research Center in Memphis, Tennessee, is the fifth highest fundraiser in the United States with $1.37 billion in contributions.
If you have a family member who has a serious illness and needs private duty nursing, call American Home Health at (630) 236-3501. The agency can provide round-the-clock nursing care by Registered Nurses (RNs), Licensed Practical Nurses (LPNs), and Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs). Our service area covers fifteen counties in Northern Illinois including Cook, Lake, McHenry, Boone, Winnebago, Ogle, Lee, DeKalb, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, LaSalle, Grundy, Will, and Kankakee. American Home Health is licensed by the State of Illinois and accredited by the Joint Commission. For further information, go to www.ahhc-1.com, or call (630) 236-3501.
On May 16, 2017, Michael Case was working as a conductor on an Amtrak train pulling into the station in Naperville, Illinois. Aboard the train was Edward Klein, 79, who was returning home from a canceled trip to Las Vegas..
Case knew that Klein needed to get to Chicago to catch a train to Milwaukee to get to his home in West Allis, Wisconsin. He was aware of a plan to escort Klein at Union Station to get him safely home to Wisconsin.
When the train pulled into the station in Naperville, Case got off the train to help other riders with their baggage. Klein was acting agitated and disoriented so Case closed and locked the train doors to keep Klein on the train. Case later explained his decision to keep Klein on the train, “I didn’t feel like it was a safe place for him to get off at Naperville station with all those tracks there.”
Minutes later, Klein reached out an open window and shot Case with a .38 caliber revolver. Case, who was struck in the abdomen, was able to crawl behind a partition to safety. He was taken to Edward Hospital in Naperville in critical condition and underwent multiple surgeries during the next six weeks. He was released from the hospital ten weeks after the shooting.
During his hospitalization, Case’s wife stayed at the hospital almost twenty-four hours a day. She was his support, his anchor, through it all. Case said, “I remember her sorting me out real quick, like, ‘Hey, we’re going to do this. I got you.’ And she did.”
Klein was charged with attempted first-degree murder, and was ordered held on $1.5 million bail. His attorney said that Klein was mentally unfit to stand trial.
According to https://www.dailyherald.com/news/20180105/dupage-judge-wisconsin-man-had-intent-to-kill-amtrak-conductor, “A DuPage County judge ruled Friday that Edward Klein knew he was doing wrong and intended to kill an Amtrak conductor he shot last May in Naperville. Using a complicated legal term, Judge Jeffrey MacKay ruled Klein was “not not guilty” and “not acquitted” of the multiple charges against him, despite being found unfit to stand trial. Doctors have diagnosed Klein with an impaired cognitive disorder and dementia and said he suffers from a major neuro-cognitive disorder.” He faces confinement in a mental health facility.
If you have a family member who has suffered a serious injury and needs private duty nursing, call American Home Health at (630) 236-3501. The agency can provide round-the-clock nursing care by Registered Nurses (RNs), Licensed Practical Nurses (LPNs), and Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs). Our service area covers fifteen counties in Northern Illinois including Cook, Lake, McHenry, Boone, Winnebago, Ogle, Lee, DeKalb, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, LaSalle, Grundy, Will, and Kankakee. American Home Health is licensed by the State of Illinois and accredited by the Joint Commission. For further information, go to www.ahhc-1.com, or call (630) 236-3501.
Born at St. Luke’s Hospital in Chicago on July 21, 1951, Robin Williams was the son of Robert Fitzgerald Williams, a senior executive in Ford Motor Company’s Lincoln-Mercury Division. His mother, Laurie McLaurin, was a former model from Jackson, Mississippi. During a television interview on Inside the Actors Studio in 2001, Williams credited his mother as an important early influence on his humor. He said he tried to make her laugh to gain attention.
Williams attended public elementary school at Gorton Elementary School in Lake Forest and middle school at Deer Path Junior High School. When he was twelve, his father was transferred to Detroit. When he was sixteen, his father took early retirement and the family moved to California.
He began performing stand-up comedy in San Francisco and Los Angeles in the 1970’s. He also starred in numerous films including Good Morning, Vietnam (1987) and the box office hit Mrs. Doubtfire (1993).
On August 11, 2014, the world learned that Williams had committed suicide by hanging himself in his California home. He was sixty-three years old. The autopsy report showed no alcohol or illegal drugs were involved. Prescription drugs in his system were at “therapeutic” levels. The final autopsy report noted that Williams had been suffering “a recent increase in paranoia.” An examination of his brain tissue suggested Williams suffered from “diffuse Lewy body dementia.”
According to a Mayo Clinic article “Lewy body dementia” at https://www.mayoclinic.org., “Lewy body dementia, also known as dementia with Lewy bodies, is the second most common type of progressive dementia after Alzheimer’s disease dementia. Protein deposits, called Lewy bodies, develop in nerve cells in the brain regions involved in thinking, memory and movement (motor control).
“Lewy body dementia causes a progressive decline in mental abilities. People with Lewy body dementia may experience visual hallucinations, and change in alertness and attention. Other effects include Parkinson’s disease-like symptoms such as rigid muscles, slow movement and tremors.”
If you have a family member who suffers from Lewy body dementia and needs private duty nursing, call American Home Health at (630) 236-3501. The agency can provide round-the-clock nursing care by Registered Nurses (RNs), Licensed Practical Nurses (LPNs), and Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs), Our service area covers fifteen counties in Northern Illinois including Cook, Lake, McHenry, Boone, Winnebago, Ogle, Lee, DeKalb, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, LaSalle, Grundy, Will, and Kankakee. American Home Health is licensed by the State of Illinois and accredited by the Joint Commission. For further information, go to www.ahhc-1.com, or call (630) 236-3501.
Fifty years ago, subdivisions were sprouting in the cornfields and bean fields in Illinois. The 1960’s and 1970’s were a time of rapid growth in the housing stock at the edges of major metropolitan areas such as Aurora, Rockford, and Bloomington-Normal.
Ranch houses, tri-levels, and two-story homes were popular styles. Most had attached garages, and the backyards were often enclosed with chain link fences. The homeowners planted shade trees on the boulevard and in the backyard. They spent time and money mowing, watering, and fertilizing the grass. They took pride in ownership of a beautiful new home.
Margaret, her husband, and their four children lived in one of these new houses. She was a stay-at-home mom, and her children were allowed to be free range children. That meant they roller skated on the sidewalks, shot basketballs into hoops mounted on rooftops above the garages, and played baseball on the diamond at the elementary school. The boys on the street made a go-cart out of wood and an old lawnmower chassis and gave rides to the younger boys.
AND THERE WERE THE DIRT HILLS. Since this was a new subdivision, the last row of houses backed up to a large piece of vacant land. The builder had dug a retention pond, installed concrete sewer pipes, and piled up a huge mound of dirt next to the retention pond. Many a young boy rode his dirt bike down from the top of the mound of dirt. In fact, some became so skilled that they could ride at full speed down the dirt hill and land on a raft in the lake.
The children grew up, got married, and moved away. Margaret and her husband continued to live in the house. When Margaret was in her late seventies, her health began to fail. She could no longer climb the steps into the house so her husband built a ramp in the garage.
As Margaret’s illness progressed, she needed 24/7 care from CNAs who came to her home. This was a tremendous help to Margaret and to her husband. It allowed her to continue to stay in her own home for a period of time. Later, she was admitted to a hospital and died there at age eighty-one.
If you have a family member who needs private duty nursing, call American Home Health at (630) 236-3501. The agency can provide round-the-clock nursing care by Registered Nurses and (RNs), Licensed Practical Nurses (LPNs), and Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs). Our service area covers fifteen counties in Northern Illinois including Cook, Lake, McHenry, Boone, Winnebago, Ogle, Lee, DeKalb, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, LaSalle, Grundy, Will, and Kankakee. American Home Health is licensed by the State of Illinois and accredited by the Joint Commission. For further information, go to www.ahhc-1.com, or call (630) 236-3501.
To hear the Beatles, the English rock band, sing “With A Little Help From My Friends” from their 1967 album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, go to With A Little Help From My Friends—You Tube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0C58ttB2-Qg.
