| Don't downplay chest pains
My son recently died of a heart attack. I heard people at work and a relative knew he was having chest pains hours before. Apparently, he said it was stress. He was told he should see a doctor, but no one called 911 or offered to take him to the hospital. I understand ambivalence, that at 45 a heart attack seems unlikely, that it might be embarrassing to call 911 and find that it was only indigestion. But heart pain and heartburn have the same symptoms. Medical professionals sometimes are hard-pressed to tell the difference. The consequence of inaction may be deadly. Stuart was acting odd, so I asked him three times if he was OK. Each time, he said everything was OK. On my way to bed, I knocked on his door and asked him again. He said, cheerily, "I'm fine. Good night, Mom." My family tells me he didn't want to worry me! Please, please, don't try to protect your family.
City mulling crosswalk safety
SANDPOINT -- The City Council is taking up a diverse array of recommendations today aimed at making it safer for pedestrians to cross Fifth Avenue at Poplar Street, the scene of a fatal collision on Christmas Day. The council will discuss the recommendations during its regular business meeting at 5:30 p.m. in City Hall.The seven recommendations were forwarded to the council by the city's Pedestrian Advisory Committee, which is hunting for safety solutions for the crosswalks at Fifth and Poplar."We don't want any foolish or panic solutions. We want our city to respond quickly and judiciously for the safety of pedestrians," said Larry Blakey, the advisory committee's chairman.
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Patient patients wanted
IF you suffer from Barrett's oesophagus you could help staff at Hereford County Hospital carry out a trial using aspirin. But you will need plenty of patience because it could last eight years. People with Barrett's oesophagus, better known as the food pipe, have stomach acid that rises causing frequent heartburn. The acid damages the cells in the lining of the oesophagus and in some cases they can turn cancerous. .
An entirely impressive first half
DALLAS - Dinner before appetizer? That seemed to be the order of the mostly pleasurable concert by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra on Thursday night at the Meyerson Symphony Center. In place of the customary overture, German guest conductor Jun Markl dug right in with Brahms' autumnal Third Symphony. This might be the most immediately gratifying of the composer's four symphonies, but subtlety always counts for a lot in Brahms, and Markl worked hard to produce as many dynamic and expressive nuances as possible from the orchestra. His brisk tempos, particularly in the romantic third movement, avoided any risk of stodginess. There was an ulterior motive at work in starting with the Brahms: It accommodated the brilliant French pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet for a pair of virtuosic, although musically uneven, concertos -- Ravel's Concerto for Left Hand and Liszt's Totentanz, which were separated by the intermission.
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