6 Bad Patterns That You Might Have Developed During the Pandemic

I know things won't go back to normal--if ever--because of the pandemic and the ever-lasting fear of another wave or another pandemic. Failing businesses, and some that won't stay afloat at all, record unemployment and the subsequent horror of losing one's home, anxiety-driven aversion to attending a place of worship or airplane travel, not to mention the well over 500,000 deaths to date just in the U.S. alone. And those are just the ones that come to my mind first.

Have these 6 changes come to you? I won't offer advice (that's a turn-off), but the 6 things and knowledge about them should make you want to change!

1. ALCOHOL

But do people drink more during the pandemic?

The World Health Organization (WHO) and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) have issued warnings to people to avoid excessive drinking, saying it may increase COVID-19 severity and even susceptibility.

Yale Medicine's website that for the week ending May 2, total alcohol sales in the U.S. were increased by more than 32% (probably more now) compared to the same week a year ago. 

When asked about any positive effects alcohol has in the pandemic, David Fiellin, MD, director of the Yale Program in Addiction Medicine, says a definite no. 

"In general, because we know that alcohol has a negative impact on the lungs and the immune system, we believe it will be associated with more severe cases of COVID-19 disease,” Dr. Fiellin says.  “Alcohol can damage the intestinal lining, which then allows bacteria to enter the body more easily. That can ‘rev up’ the inflammatory response, which is also a big part of COVID-19 disease.”  

There's that. Thus, SARS-CoV-2 virus particles could have easier access to the lungs if those cells aren’t working properly, 

2. EATING MORE COMFORT FOODS 

Aah, "high everything" comfort foods. They are emotionally soothing, but we tend to eat more of them in stress situations. They make us feel good that improves mood and well being.  

But sugar and carbs slow down the immune system, and these comfort foods lead to a combination where the brain says  "gimme more" to crave during periods of stress.  Now that you know, you're able to act and maybe resist. 

The Wall Street Journal website says, "Many shoppers have favored fresh and specialty brands over Big Food’s processed products in recent years, while others have opted for cheaper store brands. Now, the world’s largest makers of packaged foods say frozen pizza, pasta sauce, and mac and cheese are rising in favor as consumers in lockdown eat at home."

3. SOCIAL MEDIA BENDERS
Social media can be a welcome distraction if it's not about the rise in COVID. If it comes to a point where social media becomes addictive (like picking up your phone first before really, really having to pee), you need to change your course.

It's bad for your mental health, and blue light exposure emitted by your phone can disrupt sleep patterns and lower your immune function.

4. NOT EXERCISING

By now, close to 8 months later, the pandemic may ravish your energy and motivation. Moving around and physical exercise, in your own safe home can do wonders.

The idea is increase your heart rate, and this in turn will increase blood flow to your brain and muscles. 

You can do this--moving around and exercise--even while you're standing at the sink washing dishes. March in place, or move side to side, or squat lightly. Exercise doesn't have to be hard. It just needs to be consistent and added. Put on some music to get you going.

5. TOTAL STRUCTURE OF YOUR LIFE IS UPENDED

Staying at home was novel for most people in the first few weeks, but eight months? You probably want to go back to work or find another job. Either way, for millions of Americans, by now, this state of things probably makes you feel useless and  off track now that you're unemployed or cut back in hours. 

Sleeping less, skipping meals or overeating, forgetting to take medicines or supplements, seeing no plan for living or living well? There's no better time to see your personal care physician (PCP) and get help. 

6. A POST-PANDEMIC MINDSET

We're all seeking something that will get our heads on straight, but for each person, it's different.  What works for some may not apply to you. And you may disappoint yourself if you compare what you did to your pre-COVID standards. The best you can do is aim for less or more everyday. Less (or no) alcohol, comfort foods, and social media, more exercise, to make you able to do the best for yourself. 

Remember, if you mess up one day, start the next day. We all--everyone of us--fuck up sometimes. Humans are like that. And by the way? The pandemic slowed down, but it's not over! 

Visual Deficit of Any Kind or Just Fatigue from Stroke or Other Brain Injury? OrCam Read to the Rescue!

I was tired after 9 hours from multiple projects and the devastating stroke when, pre-coronavirus pandemic, I went to a famous vegetarian restaurant with a person I was going to interview, which also served vegans (of which I am one). I was told they had excellent food (first-rate grub is not at all uncommon for Portland) and we were seated when the server handed us the menus. 

My anxiety kicked in when I saw the printed menu. Though the lighting wasn't dim, the items were too small to read and my double vision went off from fatigue, both of which made for impossible reading. 

It was a small place, and I could have asked him to read the menu to me, but it was embarrassing and awkward. I closed the menu as if I read it, and so did my interviewee, motioned the waiter that we were ready to order, and asked the server instead, "I'll have that dish with tofu," upon which, being confused about which dish I meant, he rattled off several dishes with tofu, and I chose one.

Almost the actual size

Enter OrCam Read (albeit six months later), the magnificent marvel which is five inched long, less than an inch wide, who reads anything to you from the printed page. It is totally portable, and you could zero in to only part of the document, like for a newspaper or read the whole page of a book. I got one on a loan to write this blog post because my heart is with stroke and other brain injury survivors whose after-effects, except for the lucky ones, include visual deficits. 

The two founders are: Prof. Amnon Shashua holds the Sachs chair in computer science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and his field of expertise is computer vision and machine learning, and Ziv Aviram who holds a B.Sc. in Industrial Engineering and Management from Ben-Gurion University. They both have a healthy history in safer ways to observe the environment, and that led to OrCam Read. 

Impressive indeed. But I wanted more. I sometimes, to this day, have double vision. 

The instructions say, "OrCam Read is a personal AI [Artificial Intelligence] -driven device for people who have mild or low vision, reading difficulties, including dyslexia and reading fatigue, and anyone who is consistently exposed to large amounts of text – at work or school, or for leisure."

Aside from the restaurant where I would have used OrCam Read, it doesn't need WiFi so no disruptions for pilots on airplanes or captains on ships. One could even use it to read books for enjoyment or serious stuff like final exams. The battery in constant use lasts about four hours.

Not only does OrCam Read have screen selection, but there's a laser pointer, too, if you want people to read a chart or bullet points during a presentation. 

OrCam Read features:

• 13-megapixel camera in front

• Built-in speaker

• Only 4 buttons

Power

Trigger

Plus – increases volume or rate of speech

Minus – decreases volume or rate of speech

• Bluetooth connectivity

Functionality:

2 reading options

Capture a block of text with a box-shaped laser beam

Choose where to start reading with an arrow-shaped laser beam

• No need to scan text or follow a line, all you have to do is hold the device in front of the text, push a button, and the text is read aloud instantly

• No internet connectivity is required and there is no connectivity to the cloud

Warranty:

1 year warranty

Oded Tsin, the Business Development Manager for OrCam, said, "Once you press the trigger button, the first button next to the +, the laser guidance will appear. You can keep holding the trigger button and aim toward the script. Once you will release it, the device will capture the image and read to you. 

"If you want to switch between the two laser options, you will double click the trigger button same way you double click a computer mouse." 

So OrCam Read couldn't be easier. I tried it a bunch of times with the loaner. I used it to read a book for an hour and it took the stress of double vision out of the mix. I used OrCam Read to read a printed newsletter from Stroke Awareness Oregon and it did a perfect job. I even used OrCam Read to read an invitation to a baby shower! It's a sure bet that it will work every time. 

Now for the cost for which you can pay it out according to your needs: $1990 and it's not covered by any type of insurance (though it ought to be). Perhaps your organization can buy OrCam Read to share among those with visual deficits.

I want to thank Oded Tsin and also Chris Braswell, Area Sales Manager with OrCam, for letting me try the OrCam Read device.

For more information about OrCam Read, please click here and enter your contact information:  

https://orcam.co/30bEOvV  

Post-note: In case you were wondering, I received no compensation for promoting OrCam Read. So why OrCam Read? I've dedicated the rest of my life to helping stroke and other brain injury survivors and, with many having visual deficits, they're among the ones that will benefit the most from this extraordinary device. Now you have the answer...in case you were wondering.  

Aphasia: 10 Insensitive Reactions to Someone Who Has It

Aphasia is not having a senior moment every once in awhile. Rather, aphasia is the loss of ability to comprehend or express speech caused by brain damage, one of negatives for winding up with a malfunctioned brain from stroke and Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI). Sometimes you get better with aphasia from stroke or TBI, but few get better completely. I know because all ten happened to me.

I make a self-deprecating joke with aphasia when I often say, stumbling to find the exact word, "This here is aphasia in action," naming it before people think I'm slow. But naming it or not, aphasia really sucks. I've had it April, 2009, because I had a stroke.

I've come up with a list the insensitives among us say when, after a few seconds, they lose my thread and start talking about something else. I want to say, "C'mon, guys, can't you wait while I think of the word," but I never say it. Why bother? I saw that now. But early on, I wanted to change the world's thinking about aphasia. What a dud I was.

Here's the list of the top ten reactions people have for those with aphasia:

1. I have trouble understanding you

This statement cuts right into my soul. You're speaking English. I'm speaking English. "So what's the problem?" I say silently. To my ear, it sounds good enough, but to the person's ear, it sounds incomplete, which it probably is. But still....

2. Supplying the right word

Oh, no! I want to be part of the conversation, and if you'd just hang on for a sec or three, the word will come to me. Or they won't.But my aphasia is different from some, because the word that I'll come up with, though in the ballpark of correctness, a word I've rarely used before. Example, we took a ride to the coast and when we arrived, I described the houses as "ramshackle." I never know what's going to come out of my mouth because I lost the filters when I had a stroke in 2009. 

3. People finishing your thought

I can honestly say, "What the F is wrong with them?" Sheesh. Give a gal a chance. They think they're doing me a favor, but the exact opposite happens. I resent them, and fairly soon, I want to leave the room. 

4. Speaking sentences that NO ONE understands

I've improved, but early on in the first three I spoke sentences that even after I was finished, I  couldn't understand. People just stopped listening soon after. 

5. Making up words

I used words, back in the beginning, that weren't really words at all, like "clockfer," "greenac," and "withand." I know that I said them because early on (wanting to escape the aphasia which I still have not done completely), I used to tape conversations on my phone and recognize the errors. I was embarrassed but given the condition I was in, a little empathy please?

6. Inability to understand someone else's conversation

In the first year after my stroke, I went to an art lecture on Picasso, and with the visuals right there in front of me, I had severe trouble following that talk. I hadn't heard of aphasia, but I'm satisfied that other people had trouble following other lectures at first with strokes, too. But people were annoyed that I "didn't get it." Remember when I said aphasia sucks?

7. Pronunciation suffers

On the first round, even after eleven years, I still, like a little child, say "bisquetti" for spaghetti when I don't remember to slow down my speech. It is also useful to say every part of the word in isolation and put it all together, slowly at first. Thus, I had the inability to pronounce words correctly, and some words not due to muscle weakness or paralysis because I could pronounce them if I slowed the heck down. Some people laughed. It wasn't funny though.

8. Loss of reading and/or writing skills

In some patients with aphasia, reading and/or writing skills (usually both at first) are lost. This means that the patient is no longer able to comprehend written language or even express themselves through writing, all of which are necessary to communicate to emotion, language, and information using symbols, and even emojis. You can imagine what that loss does for self esteem. They have to start over. I'm extremely fortunate, as a writer, I didn't have that affliction. 

9. Spontaneous speech is rare for aphasiacs

I gave a speech to a stroke support group a year after the stroke in the Hershey Medical Canter in Pennsylvania, and though it appeared spontaneous, I simply read off the bullet points so fast, it seemed that the neural pathways were on fire for somebody in the back row who was simply listening and not watching the presentation. Spontaneous speech, also called off-the-cuff, is speech that happens without any planning having taken place, and the majority of aphasics, though they want to do it, simply are unable. 

10. The facial expressions

I saw the frowns, and sneers, when I talked to people, even now, if the minds are already made up that this is a person (me) whom they won't understand. I detest it though I can't have any control over so I don't worry about it like in the early years. I can try and talk slower and who cares what they think? If they call me slow and dimwitted, who cares? 

Alexander Hamilton said it best: "We must make the best of those ills which cannot be avoided." Hamilton may have been talking economics, but I'm talking stroke and TBI. Different causes; same result. You have to learn to live with it! Now I say it, but in the early years, I was totally unforgiving. Here's another famous quote: "It's so hard being a person," said by yours truly, Joyce Hoffman, in April, 2009.

The Coronavirus Ain't Leaving So Fast

In a recent Time article entitled Nearly Half of Coronavirus Spread May Be Traced to People Without Any Symptoms by Alice Park, The Annals of Internal Medicine concluded "at minimum, 30%, and more likely 40% to 45%," were spreading the virus to others without realizing they were also infected at all. There is a name for those people without symptoms (fever, fatigue, shortness of breath, coughing) to the COVID-19: asymptomatic.

Eric Topol and his co-author, Daniel Oran hunted for studies that included asymptomatic people and focused on different groups of people tested for COVID-19 worldwide. Among others, included were:

• More than 13,000 people in Iceland who volunteered to be tested for COVID-19
• Residents of Vo, Italy
• Passengers on the Diamond Princess cruise ship where an outbreak was witnessed
• Visitors to homeless shelters in Boston and Los Angeles 
• Prison inmates
• College students
• Nursing home residents in King County, WA.

Follow-up testing of those participants showed that only a small fraction who were asymptomatic when they tested positive on the first go-round went on to develop symptoms, permitting the researchers to choose between people who were pre-symptomatic (who went on later to develop symptoms) and those who are accurately asymptomatic and test positive for COVID-19 but never develop obvious symptoms. For example, among the more than 2300 people tested in the Vo population, 41% who had no symptoms when they tested positive and never developed symptoms over a 14 day period.

Topol and Oran concluded that while they may not be showing any signs of illness on the outside, asymptomatic people are still transporting a dangerous and infectious virus that they can spread to others.
"The virus may be damaging the bodies of asymptomatic in other ways," says Topol. Among the 331 passengers aboard the Diamond Princess ship who tested positive but did not have symptoms, it was revealed that 76 CT scans of their lungs showed signs of lung tissue damage typical of coronavirus infection.  

In another study, this one in South Korea, that studied 10 asymptomatic people from a group of 139 COVID-19 patients and warranted similar findings. The lung was affected in all asymptomatic patients, and researchers decided it was necessary to extend the evidence of COVID-19 testing.

"Given that public health officials aren’t testing the entire population, there are still huge gaps in understanding what asymptomatic disease," Topol says.

Then there is the question of how long asymptomatic people are infectious. No one for sure, but wearing masks in public settings means less infection from those who are asymptomatic. So does social distancing and washing hands frequently given the numbers of asymptomatic people.

“If even a portion of the 100 million Americans who have a smartwatch or fitness band are involved, then we could go in and do studies for information we are missing now—antigen testing, antibody testing and we can look for transmissibility,” says Topol. “The priorities during a pandemic are absolutely to look after the sick. But we also shouldn’t miss how important this area of asymptomatic spread is to understand. For every one person who is sick, there are a whole lot of people who have the virus and don’t know it.”

So what does all this mean for the public? Remember the numbers: "at minimum, 30%, and more likely 40% to 45%." Scary though it is, I, for one, won't be going to the beach where people sit willy-nilly next to each other. No public settings at all for me like concerts or sports events that may open to the public, until much more is known about asymptomatic people. You can't spot one because they're like the rest of us, except they're harboring a death-defying  disease silently.

Simple Pleasures for This Simple Stroke Survivor

Looking back over my life, I had very complicated pleasures. But as a stroke survivor, I found that my preferences transformed into simple ones. Here are ten of them, all of which I didn't do before my stroke:

Waking up to greet the day

Waking up every day is my top simple pleasure. What do I do to achieve that goal? Well, there are no guarantees in life, but switching over to the vegan diet a year ago gave me so many chances to stay healthy. In pretending about the pandemic, I maintain that eating high Vitamin C oranges somehow kept me immune from the coronavirus. That theory is not on the proven list, but consuming Vitamin C is great for preventing or lessen the severity of so many other diseases anyway. 

Adding the perfect amount of water to my oatmeal

I actually celebrate with an audible "Yes!" multiple times when my oatmeal comes out of the microwave perfectly. Of course, nobody is there to hear it, but I find that action reassuring. It's a game I play with myself, guessing which amount of water is suitable to add to the instant variety. Somebody who lives with one or more people doesn't get it, but I get it. I am the only one I have to please. 

Watching the washer wash

I like the sound of the washer wash clothes. I like the "Spin" cycle the best. Oftentimes, I find myself watching the washer wash the clothes--my clothes, mesmerized. The washer sound is relaxing. 

Balancing my checkbook

I used to balance my checkbook as drudgery, something I had to do to keep my sanity in "check," often getting frustrated when I reversed numbers or got the period in the wrong place. Now, I welcome it every month because I remembered my math functions. And I like the way my handwriting improved in 13 years post-stroke, keeping the figures inside the lines.

Monitoring the vegan cooking

I was always a participant, from jumping rope as a youngster, to playing my songs as a teen in the talent show, to throwing events as an adult. Now, cooking-wise, I'm still a participant. My caregiver who prepares all my meals brings the pot over to me to check on the consistency or taste or color. I'd rather cook myself, but have got the handle on do's and dont's. This method is the next best thing.

Observing the houses surrounded by nature

Normally, in those normal times before the stroke, I went around the block and that was it, not noticing the fine points. Now, my friend and I find something new every time we go, like a new fence, plants and trees in bloom, or a missing shingle on the roof. That's the game we play, because remembering what I  found a few days ago keeps my memory sharp. 

Making a schedule

Every time my caregiver comes which are on weekdays, I present her with a to-do list of things that should be done. I can move the entries if she doesn't have time to finish, and she likes to check off completed tasks. Most importantly, this system, too, helps me remember the current and future tasks.

Pronouncing words until I say them perfectly

I have trouble pronouncing some words, or most words my critics would say. Sometimes, if I say it over and over in a day, that will be enough for future times. Sometimes, like with the "scr" words, as in prescription and subscription, having practiced for 8 years, I still get tripped up. I used to be a public speaker so it's difficult to admit I can't do that anymore, but just saying words correctly is the next best thing in order to communicate effectively. When somebody says, "I can't understand you," my heart just breaks.

Getting a coffee package from Amazon

Not that trillionaire Jeff Bezos need free advertising, but I look forward to this Amazon Seattle coffee coming because it wakes me up with a jolt in the morning. A jolt equals instant awareness of my surroundings so that I have an uninterrupted and clutter-free path when I'm going to walk around. In a sense, priceless.

Counting the birds that fly by in 10 minutes

Birds, predominantly crows, fly by in groups. I never see one crow without another one to follow. Especially now that it's mating season, the crows are frequent. 

Today, I find peace and contentment in the current list. Tomorrow, or maybe next week, who knows! I'll have a new list, like watching Poldark again, or rereading the high-drama books by Nelson DeMille, or watching the Ninja blender grind the very last bit. 

New Facts on COVID-19: "Don’t Come In Unless You’re Short of Breath" Doesn't Apply Anymore

I had an annoying, dry cough in the beginning of February. Then the cough roared like a hungry beast. No fever ever. Just the cough, with shortness of breath and fatigue that escalated quickly over a two-week period. I drank at least three strong coffees a day. Nothing. Was it COVID-19, I asked myself repeatedly? I don't know now, and maybe I wouldn't ever know, unless the testing starts very shortly to all people, rich or poor, healthy (for the asymptomatics amongst us) or sick, despite what Jared Kushner, the Moron and Golden-Spoon-in-Mouth syndrome, says, as a spokesman for President Trump, there are enough tests for now. I haven't had one at the peak of coughing/shortness of breath/fatigue. Have you? Just to make sure what you thought were cold symptoms wasn’t the dreaded coronavirus? Wouldn’t you like to know, through antibodies, if you already had it?

But with Trump in charge, forget that option. "Coming up shortly," or "Within the next two weeks," or, my favorite, "Soon" is Trump-speak, when most people, after the passage of time, forget he made those promises in the first place. But I remember. You can count on that.

WIRED had an article written by Megan Molteni who says that scientists are running like crazy to comprehend why some patients also develop neurological ailments like confusion, stroke, seizure, or loss of smell. Stories of other, stranger symptoms like severe headaches, tingling and numbness, or the loss of smell or taste have been going on for weeks. 

“The medicines we use to treat any infection have very different penetrations into the central nervous system,” says S. Andrew Josephson, chair of the neurology department at the University of California, San Francisco. He is saying that most drugs can’t pass through the blood-brain barrier, a living wall around the brain. He also says if the coronavirus is penetrating the barrier and infecting neurons, that could make it more difficult to find appropriate treatments.

When the virus first started in Wuhan, China, health records indicate that 214 patients admitted to the Union Hospital of Huazhong University of Science and Technology, 36.4 percent of the patients showed signs of nervous-system-related issues, including headaches, dizziness, confusion, strokes, prolonged seizure, and a slowly disappearing sense of smell, some before the fever and cough were apparent. 

“We’ve been telling people that the major complications of this new disease are pulmonary, but it appears there are a fair number of neurologic complications that patients and their physicians should be aware of,” says Josephson.

Without that information, datasets in particular, there’s no way to know how to interpret reports on patients, and "single cases are tantalizing, but they can be fraught with coincidence,” says Josephson.

COVID-19’s horrendous death toll, 61, 656 as of this writing, is other-worldly, science fiction-like worthy, and not many autopsies are being done. Only some pictures of the lungs, but a good chance that there’s some viral invasion of the brain.

A paper in the New England Journal of Medicine examining 58 patients in Strasbourg, France, found that more than half were confused or agitated, with brain imaging suggesting inflammation.

“You’ve been hearing that this is a breathing problem, but it also affects what we most care about, the brain,” says Josephson. “If you become confused, if you’re having problems thinking, those are reasons to seek medical attention,” he added.

Viruses affect the brain, explained Michel Toledano, a neurologist at Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. The brain is protected by something called the blood-brain-barrier, something that Josephson says, too, which blocks foreign substances but could be penetrated if compromised.

Since loss of smell is one of the symptoms of COVID-19, some have hypothesized the nose might be the pathway to the brain. But in the case of the novel coronavirus, doctors hold on to current evidence that the neurological impacts are more likely the result of overactive immune response rather than brain invasion.

Jennifer Frontera, who is also a professor at NYU School of Medicine, explains documenting notable cases including seizures in COVID-19 patients with no prior history of the episodes, and new patterns of small brain hemorrhages.

“We’re seeing a lot of consults of patients presenting in confusional states,” said Rohan Arora, a neurologist at the Long Island Jewish Forest Hills hospital, adding that more than 40 percent of recovered virus patients. "Returning to normal," added Arora, "appears to be taking longer than for people who suffer heart failure or stroke." [Apparently, Dr. Arora hasn't worked extensively with stroke patients. After 11 years, I'm still recovering. Just sayin'.]

Anyway, good advice if you have any of those symptoms--headaches, dizziness, confusion,  prolonged seizure, and a disappearing sense of smell--go to the doctor. Many doctors are seeing patients through tele-conference now. If you had a stroke as a result of COVID-19, you probably have already gone to the hospital where there are tests but not too many of them.

One more thing. How about Trump supporters try injecting or swallowing disinfectants to see if they work or this headline: Online demand for hydroxychloroquine surged 1,000% after Trump backed it, study finds. I say that statement with sarcasm, but unlike Trump, he said it confidently when he recommended Lysol, Clorox, and hydroxychloroquine, despite his walkback when people were alarmed and others broke into peals of laughter. It's on tape, Mr. President.