.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........On March 22, Kelly Asbell had to be hospitalized again. She’s been in a hospital bed ever since.One day earlier, the Valparaiso mother of 10-year-old twins celebrated her 40th birthday – a milestone in her sickly life – by performing 40 acts of kindness for strangers. Kelly Asbell walks with her daughter in the hall at Loyola University Medical Center in Chicago.I shadowed Asbell on her birthday as she delivered fresh tulips to an old woman in a nursing home, dropped off coins at a laundromat, put quarters into candy machines, left toys on a playground and juice boxes at a day care center, among other gestures.ADVERTISEMENT“I wasn’t expected to live past my teenage years,” she told me.At 10, she was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis, an inherited … [Read more...] about ‘I feel so blessed to be alive’
Blessing health system
International day for mental health campaign encourages conversation
PUBLISHED: 09:48 15 May 2018 Sophie Smith Oz Osborne, co-director of The Outsiders and Katie Mottram, founder of Emerging Proud. PHOTO: Sophie Smith. Archant A campaign to challenge stigma against mental health has celebrated its second anniversary with an international day of communication, with the main event in Norwich. Volunteer Laura O'Shea at an Emerging Proud event in Norwich. PHOTO: Sophie Smith Katie Mottram, whose work has been published by the Royal College of Psychiatrists, is the founder of #EmergingProud, a campaign to “re-think madness as a possible catalyst for positive transformation.” The former mental health services worker founded Emerging Proud following her own break-down and recovery, and now wants to promote the fact that a mental break-down can lead to personal transformation that might improve a person’s life. The Norwich event for the second International Emerging Proud Day on May 12 was held at the Kinda Kafe on Castle Meadow, and … [Read more...] about International day for mental health campaign encourages conversation
14 Things You Can Do Every Day To Protect Your Mental Health As You Age
WELLNESS 05/09/2018 11:58 am ET Because it's just as important as your physical health. Nicole Pajer On Assignment For HuffPost Aging brings you face to face with the loss of loved ones, children leaving the nest and physical changes such as reduced energy levels. These types of events can “give rise to negative emotions such as sadness, anxiety, loneliness and lowered self-esteem,” according to the American Psychological Association. Growing older can also come with a slew of positive changes like the opportunity to travel, more time to spend with grandchildren and the chance to take on a new hobby. “But any kind of change, even joyful changes, can bring up a variety of emotions, including anxiety, overwhelm, loneliness and depression,” said Connie Habash, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Menlo Park, California. Therefore, it’s essential to make your mental health a priority, especially throughout your later years. … [Read more...] about 14 Things You Can Do Every Day To Protect Your Mental Health As You Age
EXCLUSIVE: ‘I’m banned from getting health care I desperately need’
0 Have your say A man who tried to take his own life just by jumping in front of a train says he has been left to fend for himself after being banned from receiving medical care by Sheffield Teaching Hospitals. Kyle Timms, aged 30, was hit by a train at Woolley Wood Bottom last March, and was cared for at Northern General Hospital for a broken spine.However, after the spinal injuries unit discharged him he was then hit with a 12-month ‘exclusion order’ from all Sheffield Teaching Hospitals sites.Hospital bosses say it is incredibly rare to exclude any individual and only take action such in exceptional circumstances, for example following multiple occasions of unacceptable behaviour.But Kyle says the ban means not only is he forbidden from visiting the hospitals as a patient, he can’t even see other people who are being treated at them.It has also in practice meant that outreach services operated by the hospital in the community can’t treat him, … [Read more...] about EXCLUSIVE: ‘I’m banned from getting health care I desperately need’
‘Health, for parents or kids, makes you happy’
Rahimi, 30, was only seven years old when civil war broke out in her birth country of Tajikistan. She and her family were forced to flee from the capital to the rural north. And in the midst of the chaos and uncertainty, her younger brother was born and her father developed fatal brain cancer. "I understood for the first time that health, for kids or parents, is the thing that makes you happy," she tells The Local – 23 years, two children and several university degrees and career successes later. The daughter of an emergency doctor and a gynaecologist, it is not difficult to understand Rahimi's motivation behind starting up Stockholm-based Shifo – a non-profit NGO with a global mission to boost child health – together with her brother and sister-in-law. "Even when my own children are sick, it could be a simple flu but I still can't focus 100 percent on anything … [Read more...] about ‘Health, for parents or kids, makes you happy’