Our lives can be stressful. We have deadlines at work. Families who need our attention. Bills that need to be paid. Medical appointments that need to be kept. Old friends we want to contact. Exercise goals that we want to accomplish. And traffic jams.

If New York City has taught me anything it is that in order to support my ambitions I must also find balance. Sure, that sounds like a line straight out of the film, “Eat Pray Love,” which I did see last evening and quite enjoyed, but the theme…

This is Caramel. She’s a 16 year old female Calico cat that has been in my life since 1995. I brought her home from the Animal Protective League in Cleveland while I was in my second to last year of nursing school. She was 7 months old and feisty.

Caramel has lived with me in a total of five different apartments since I graduated college. She consoled me through the end of a relationship, encouraged me with her approving meows into a new one, and she moved to New York with…

A frequent type of call I receive in the Customer Care Center at VNSNY relates to patients who have fallen in their homes. I am reminded of the seriousness of such a call as soon as I open my telehealth triage guidelines as listed below:

At least one-third of patients over the age of 65 years and one-half of those over 85 years fall each year. Falls in the geriatric population are associated with significant potential morbidity and occasional mortality. Non-intentional injury is the seventh* leading cause of death in people over 65 years in…

(photo by Ed Yourdon)

Your sister agrees to take over a caregiving shift at your parents’ home upon request. Now you have a Friday evening free which hasn’t happened in a few months, so you decide to meet up with a good friend who hasn’t seen you in over a year due to very busy personal and professional schedules.

You tell your friend to meet you at a favorite restaurant in Manhattan — a French bistro with outdoor garden seating to breathe in some air and feel the cool summer evening breeze. You order a…

(photo by Bonnie-Brown)

In an effort to highlight the benefits of technology and blend it with health & wellness, I’ve comprised the following list of ten iPhone Apps that may be helpful for caregivers:

1. PillMinder — a visual pillbox medication reminder for you or your loved one (but unfortunately not both) where you can keep track of daily medications. You enter your medication, dose in pill amount, description, and pill count. You highlight the pill, press TAKE PILL and it archives that you took it and counts down the pill amount. Cost: FREE
2. Dosecast —…

(photo by David Shankbone)

After a vigorous grassroots campaign on Facebook, 88 year old Betty White hosted Saturday Night Live on May 8, 2010 to a warm and supportive audience in New York City. Betty was beautiful, charming, and definitely spunky but her comedic performance also proved that we need older generations represented in the arts. Everybody has stories to tell, especially those who have lived to share their wisdom. Intergenerational arts should be embraced by the media and Hollywood because aging is the truth and it’s good for our health.

I…

(photo by John Morgan)

Time heals. It’s been nearly two months since my father’s sudden passing and I am so proud of my mom for all of her strength through this process of loss. When I wrote about her struggle with her new role as widow in my last entry, I wasn’t sure how things would turn out. She lives in Ohio, I live in New York. I graciously accepted the task of making sure that although we are miles apart I will always available to her for support through frequent…

(Photo by bionic teaching)

I recently read on someones blog that you can’t feel the positive emotion of thankfulness and the negative emotion of anger at the same time. I’ll be thinking about this through the week as I research its validity and take calls from clients.

I talk to many patients who express difficulty managing their diabetes or caregivers who feel frustrated with the demands of caring for an elderly parent with a chronic illness. They all experience many fearful and stressful emotions.

For example, just this evening, I spoke to a 59 y.o. gentleman who…

Allow me to explain Twitter in 140 characters or less:

Twitter is a social networking site that allows you to post thoughts or other media such as photos, links to You Tube videos, articles, etc. You can link to other’s profiles and “re-tweet”, or re-post, information from the people or organizations you follow. You can also message authors of profiles directly or mention them in your own Tweets. It’s kind of like an interactive bulletin board.

Oops! I couldn’t do it in 140 characters or less. Yes, that’s the amount of space you have to create a post in…

(Photo by Ed Yourdon)

If you’re like me, you have every intention to celebrate Earth Day today, but also feel a bit overwhelmed by what it is you can possibly do to honor Mother Earth. She is giving us a whole bunch in the way of fruits, plants, fish, animals, gorgeous exotic locations, green trees and beautiful flowers, rainy days, green and blue oceans and a whole lot more. There is a lot to be thankful about when it comes to the wise ways of this planet.

Unfortunately, it’s impossible for me…