Studies in the UK show that food poisoning cases double in the summer season. Barbecue season has begun and the following food safety tips by the UK’s National Health Services will help to allow you to enjoy your barbecued food without worry.
Daily Dose of Inspiration
Emergency Preparedness
Julie Entwistle, MBA, BHSc (OT), BSc (Health / Gerontology)
The storm in Toronto last week hit hard and fast. The flooding in Calgary was severe. Parts of Barrie were leveled many years ago from a tornado. In 2004 some of Ontario suffered a power outage that lasted for days in the heat of summer. A few winters ago there was a significant snow storm in London and Sarnia that trapped people in their cars for hours and even overnight. Ontario and Quebec have also suffered from severe ice storms that have caused power outages in the coldest and darkest days of winter.
While I don’t like to be “doom and gloom”, I do believe in being prepared for an emergency. I have three kits I keep in my car. One for the car (jumper cables etc), one for first aid, and one for us should we be stranded. When we take our kids into busy public places we take a photo of them on our phone so that we know what they are wearing when we arrived (flashback to my panicked parenting moment when we lost a twin for 45 minutes at an amusement park and could not remember what she was wearing to tell the paramedics and police). In the “olden days” (okay, 8 years ago) we would carry walkie-talkies with us when out with our kids so we could easily communicate about which parent had which kids (flashback to the time when my husband was frantically looking for a kid who was with me the entire time). Now, we use our cells for this. Our pool is separately fenced from our already fenced yard and when our kids were small we had safety locks on all the doors to prevent them from leaving the house independently. The list goes on…
I recently finished a course in Risk Management. In this, students had to consider the many risks that face an organization, prioritize how significant those risks are to the business should they happen, and determine ways to protect a business from these, or how they should react to “stop the bleeding” following.
The same risk management process can be applied to us personally – regardless of our situation. This is especially important for persons with disabilities who may have special equipment, housing, medical, or dietary needs that reduces the time they can safely tolerate emergency, or their physical or functional ability to react. To look at your own risk profile consider the following: What if you become stranded in your car? Could not find a child? Suffer a significant power outage? Hear of a tornado alert? Need to evacuate your home? Have a failure in life-sustaining or mobility equipment?
I believe it is valuable time spent, and could be lifesaving, to outline the risks facing you and your family (including your pets) should disaster strike. Is there anything you can do to prepare for your identified risks ahead of time? Are there kits you can make or buy for your car, home or work (blankets, food, water, candles, first-aid, etc.)? Do you have back-up options if you cannot heat your home, cool your home, store or prepare food for several days? What if you have special equipment and if this fails do you have battery options, other non-power devices to use, or an emergency response number to call?
Like many things, perhaps an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Not to mention the fact that panicking in an emergency situation is rarely the right response, and having a plan in place for the emergency will reduce the likelihood of you responding poorly, making the situation worse.
Daily Dose of Inspiration
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
Eleanor Roosevelt
Weekly Mind Bender
What is unusual about the following words: revive, banana, grammar, voodoo, assess, potato, dresser, uneven?
Take the first letter of each word and place it at the end. It will spell the same word backwards.
Daily Dose of Inspiration
“Each day is a new life. Seize it. Live it.”
David Guy Powers
Your Healthiest Summer Yet
After a long winter it’s important to reflect and reconnect with yourself and your health. The freshly grown crops and warm weather provide many opportunities to be active and healthy all summer long. The following article from webmd.com provides fun and easy tips to get healthy and stay healthy the entire summer!
Daily Dose of Inspiration
A small taste of things to come…
Still Don’t Get OT? Try This:
My previous post outlined the value of OT and spoke about a recent article that highlighted how OT’s are underutilized, but provide great value in healthcare. I could not agree more. And I would hope that anyone that has encountered a good OT would also agree. One of our biggest challenges as we try to become a “household name” is the fact that people still struggle to understand what we do, and how we do it. With OT there is no magic formula so we can’t publish the recipe for our secret sauce. Besides, we don’t see disability in a vacuum where a diagnosis determines the treatment. Rather, we look at each disability in the context of that person, in that environment, and this makes it impossible to really give people the goods on how we help. OT then is the definition of healthcare “customization”. Perhaps you really need to experience an OT to understand and appreciate the scope of what we do.
However, I always love spreading creative and fun ways to explain our profession. These two You Tube videos are well done, and explain OT in a way that you can’t put on paper. Take a look, enjoy and hopefully you too will be saying to someone someday “maybe you need an OT”?
Daily Dose of Inspiration
“When rain has covered my leaves with tears, I want you near to kill my fears. To help me leave all my blues behind. While standing in your heart is where I wanna be and long to be… Ah, but I might as well try and catch the wind.”
Donovan: “Catch The Wind”