Well, it is that time of year again, and as children all over the city ready their backpacks and walk (or ride) to school, the asthma season begins full swing again. There are about 14 to 15 million people in the United States who are diagnosed with Asthma. Every asthmatic patient is different and what may trigger an attack in one child may not be the same as another child.

Some common triggers  are:

• pollen,
• pollution,
• certain foods,
• weather changes,
• stress,
• illness,
• dander, and
• maybe even insect droppings (like cockroaches).

There may be others, and often children who are back…

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…

(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…