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Hearts of Gold

Rescue Organization’s Therapy Dogs Lend a Loving Paw in Central Florida by K. MICHELE TRICE If you have ever seen a golden retriever, Labrador retriever, or similar dog serving as a therapy dog working hard to lift spirits and ease anxiety at an event in Central Florida, there’s a good chance that dog was working…
The Unbreakable Yolanda Davis

A Journey Through MS and Advocacy by REBEKAH PIERCE Ask Yolanda Davis her grounding philosophy on life, and she’ll tell you, “Be the light that lights another light.” Ask anybody around her whether she actually exemplifies that philosophy, and they’ll likely tell you, quite emphatically, “Yes!” She’s a force of nature, an unstoppable spirit with…
Beneficial Pawtnership

K9s for Cops Program Helps Fund Polk County Sheriff’s Office K9s by PAUL CATALA On Sept. 28, 2006, Polk County Sheriff’s Deputy Matt Williams and his partner, K9 DiOGi, were killed in the line of duty while pursuing a driver who had fled from a traffic stop. It was that dedication to law enforcement, the…

Healthy Cook: When stress is holding your eating habits hostage

Eating is soothing. It satisfies a primal urge. When life is getting to be too much and stress sets in, food can be your friend. The more stress, the more you eat, at least some people do. Others don’t eat when they’re stressed. They are the lucky ones.
Ask a Nurse: The evolution of modern medicine

Did you know that an anesthesiologist (the doctor that puts you to sleep and keeps you alive during surgery) wasn’t even considered a field or specialty in medicine until 1941!1 Could you imagine undergoing surgery without anesthesia? Barbaric! Thoracic surgery (chest surgery) wasn’t approved until 1970, and bariatric (obesity) medicine has yet to become an official…
Medical Advice: Avoiding mosquitoes and chikungunya virus

I was first introduced to a disease known as chikungunya during my medical training. Initially, I dismissed this foreign illness as something I would probably not see in my career. Chikungunya was originally found in Asia, Africa, and the islands of the Indian Ocean and Western Pacific. This changed on December 2013, when there was…