Category: Health and Wellness

I love to travel. As I’ve gotten older, I’m getting more and more interested in how people in other countries live today and how they cope with life, and I’m less concerned with seeing their old buildings and monuments. It’s the people and their cultures that are starting to get my attention when I go someplace new.

In the era of COVID-19 we are in now, I haven’t done ANY traveling. I don’t think I’ve been more than 30 miles from my house since March 5, when I was in New Orleans at a conference. I’m lying low. But, I am reading a lot about other countries, other lands and other ways of doing things, especially countries that were just as devastated by the first outbreaks of COVID-19 back in March and April as we were here in the U.S. Read more

I get it, I really do.

Science, as the media reports it, which affects what we hear, see and read, can be inconsistent. Just in my lifetime, the simple hen’s egg has gone from being considered an important part of everyone’s diet, to being considered really, really bad for your diet, then to not so bad and now, back to being considered an important, healthy source of protein again. It’s like “science” can’t make up its mind. So, I get it. It’s confusing to know which reports are “correct.” Read more

We recently published a Straight Talk piece about what Phase 2 reopening looked like in Louisiana and how we could possibly move to Phase 3 by the first week in July …  IF we stayed on the same COVID-19 trajectory, with lower rates of new cases, hospitalizations and deaths. We were all looking forward to a Phase 3 re-opening so that our businesses could get back to operating, more folks could start going back to work, and the state’s economy could start humming again.

Not to be, I’m afraid. Read more

A few weeks ago, I started to notice some changes in the vision in my left eye. Black specks, flashes of light; everything I read about it said I might be getting a detached retina, which is a pretty big deal. I immediately called my eye doctor, who referred me to a retina specialist. Now, I hadn’t been to a doctor’s office since January so I really didn’t know what to expect, and I was, frankly, a bit nervous about it.

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As we made our way through March, April and May 2020, we saw the number of COVID-19 cases in Louisiana rising very quickly, especially before the governor issued his “stay-at-home” order on March 22.

In response to this unprecedented health crisis, health insurance companies like Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana began to add, amend and alter their coverage to make it easier for people to get tested and treated for COVID-19. At Blue Cross, we also made changes to make it easier for people to get healthcare treatment while staying at home. Read more

When the first COVID-19 cases started appearing in the U.S., we had some very scary examples of what happened in other countries, with this disease overwhelming and even shutting down healthcare systems. Almost all of the original restrictions that state, local and federal officials put in place here, like stay-at-home orders, mask-wearing, business closures, etc. were aimed at slowing down the spread of the virus so we wouldn’t run out of ICU beds and ventilators. We had seen that happen in places like Italy, and it was very, very bad. Nothing you’d want to have happen here. Read more