Speakers at JL: Heart Disease in Women

Maybe I love JL so much because of the food and wine. That could quite possibly be it. But I'm still going to give another example, just to redeem myself.

At every general membership meeting our educational committee lines up a speaker or two. They're geared toward women and are usually informative, educational, motivational, empowering, etc. They're most always rather interesting.

This week we had a speaker from a local hospital's women's unit talk about heart disease in women. February is a big month for heart disease and the American Heart Association has their Go Red campaign on February 5 (I'm a little late on that aren't I?). Anyway, I was quite shocked to learn that women are affected very differently and have different warning signs. For example, did you know that you can have pains in your shoulder blades or jaw? Isn't that bizarre? Or, maybe I'm the only one that didn't know that.

Our other speaker talked about the new Greenhouse Elderly Care projects. These homes are more of a "home" than an institution as nursing "homes" are. It's a great concept and I'm interested in seeing where this goes and how quickly it spreads. Did you know that 85% of people will be faced with the decision of long term care for their parents?

We already know I fall in the 15% that won't have that issue, but I do wonder about my grandparents and J's parents and what we may be faced with in the future. Elderly care is something we all should think about for ourselves and the fact that we'll most likely deal with it for our parents/grandparents/great aunt Mildred.