Today, we celebrated “Tell A Story Day”. We told you the story of a wonderful organization called Adaptive Homes and how they benefit disabled veterans.
Click on the link below to hear our conversation with Executive Directors, Katie and Greg Filbrun.
https://soundcloud.com/wnzr/morning-thing-interview-with-representatives-from-adaptive-homes
The Mission of Adaptive Homes:
To provide transitional housing and home ownership to disabled veterans and their families. We also provide: Referral services to other nonprofit veterans service organizations. Renovations, whenever possible, to modify your existing home to suit your current needs. The technology features to provide in-home health care services. Through these services, our veterans have increased self-reliance through independent living while they transition back into productive civilian life. On-The-Job Training programs
The Vision of Adaptive Homes:
To provide and secure housing that employs ADA Standards at an affordable cost to our disabled veterans, along with support that reaches beyond their physical limitations ,nurturing them back to civilian life and self reliances. Our goal is to provide these disabled veterans with an avenue to independent living and become the healthiest generation of war time veterans in our history.
To find out more information and how you can help, email Katie@adaptivehomescdc.org or go online to http://www.adaptivehomescdc.org
It was also a GET HEALTHY Monday. Today, we talked about tobacco.
Studies show that when it comes to making decisions to improve your health, Monday is the day most people make those decisions. The Knox County Health Department and Get Healthy Knox County want you to think of every Monday as an opportunity to do something to improve your health – Make that decision to lose a few pounds, get exercising, make a doctor’s appointment, stop smoking – Make every Monday the day to start getting healthy.
Whether you are a tobacco user or not, you have probably heard that tobacco is not good for you. There are more than 600 ingredients in cigarettes and when they burn, they create 7,000 chemicals including Acetone which is found in nail polish remover; Ammonia, a common household cleaner; Arsenic which is used in rat poison and Formaldehyde which is an embalming fluid. It had been well documented that tobacco use causes cancer, heart disease, stroke, emphysema and bronchitis.
Despite the fact that about 70 percent of tobacco user say they would like to quit, they have trouble quitting because tobacco is very addicting. But if they would quit, it would be worth it. If you are a tobacco user – meaning you either smoke tobacco or chew tobacco – you will start being healthier soon after you stop:
Within 20 minutes of your last cigarette, your blood pressure and your pulse rate drop to normal. Eight hours after your last cigarette, carbon monoxide levels in your blood drop to normal and the oxygen level in your blood rises to normal
Within 48 hours of quitting, your sense of smell and taste will improve.
Within 72 hours of quitting, you can breathe easier and you have more energy
Within one year of quitting, your risk of heart disease is reduced to 50 percent of someone who continues to smoke.
Don’t think that you are off the hook if you smoke a pipe or use smokeless tobacco: A bowl of pipe tobacco is the same as 2-3 cigarettes; A cigar the size of your index figure is the same as smoking 7 cigarettes at one time; And the nicotine in a can of smokeless tobacco is equal to about 3-4 packs of cigarettes.
If you are not a smoker, but you are around someone who does, you can be affected by second-hand smoke. Riding in a car for an hour with someone smoking is comparable to smoking four cigarettes yourself; If you live in a home where someone smokes a pack a day, the smoke you breathe in is comparable to smoking three cigarettes every day.
Here’s something to think about: Tobacco is the only consumer product that directly contributes to the death of its user.
If you do want to quit tobacco, the Knox County Health Department has a free cessation program that provides up to 8 weeks of nicotine replacement classes. The program is every Thursday from 7-8 at the health department, There’s no need to pre-register, you just need to make a decision to quit and show up.
Whatever your decision to get healthy, make it today. To help you get started, the Knox County Health Department is offering a Get Healthy package every Monday
