Feature: How Veterans Lose Weight. How I lost 71 lbs. How I lost 122 lbs.

This was an insane story to write. Imagine interviewing someone who has lost 71 pounds in all. Wow!

Now imagine interviewing someone else who has lost 122 pounds. Fantastic!

These two gentlemen were such inspirations. And it sure sounds like the MOVE! program, which they participated in works on some level.

An acronym for Managing Obesity and/or Overweight for Veterans Everywhere, this national weight management program, focuses on behavioral health, diet and exercise.

You should totally take the FREE interactive online quiz and get a 4-6 page individualized report, which includes a list of recommended MOVE! handouts (containing nutrition, physical activity, and healthy behavior change information) and see for yourself.

Click here to read the entire story.

Feature: When You've Hit Rock Bottom There's No Place to Go But Up

This was one story that moved me like none other.

I met a woman with a remarkable story to tell and her courage and fortitude in the face of abuse and homelessness just blew me away. She told me, there's no place to go but up, when you have hit rock bottom and thats what kept her going in spite of the odds.

Click here to read the story.

Jan-Feb 2008 Issue of Health

Click here to download a low-res PDF copy (2.30 mb) of the Southern Health Magazine.

Click here to download a hi-res PDF copy (5.46 mb) of the Southern Health Magazine.

Feature: Surviving Inflammatory Breast Cancer

Click here to read the story.
I interviewed a sweet old lady for this story. She was an inflammatory breast cancer survivor and spoke at length to me about her battle with the disease.
Towards the end of the interview, she told me about how she would love to visit India and about her interest in space! She came across as warm, intelligent and full of life.
Unfortunately she never got to see the story in print. She was in hospice care when she spoke to me. She passed away some weeks before this issue came out. I hope she is at peace where ever she is.

Nov-Dec 2007 Issue of Health

This was the issue I collaborated on long distance, while I was in India. It was a crazy time, since dad was in a coma then. My team did a remarkable job putting this together, with my long distance input.


Click here to download a low res PDF of the Southern Health Magazine.
Click here to download a hi-res PDF of the Southern Health Magazine.

Feature: Skin Regenerating Procedures

What are your options?

Click here to read the story.

Feature: In Pursuit of Youthful Skin

Non-Invasive, Anti-Aging Beauty Treatments in Southern Illinois

Click here to read the story.

Oct 2007 issue of Health

I never did get around to uploading the October 2007 issue of Health, did I?

A lot of people told me it was the prettiest issue ever.

I guess we need to thank my gifted graphic artist for that.

Click here to download a high resolution PDF of the magazine (4.9mb).

Click here to download a low resolution PDF of the magazine (3.5 mb)

Goodbye Appa

My father passed away at 1:35 a.m. on the 29th of October, 2007. He was only 63. The doctor's labelled the cause of death as multi-function failure.

I find it hard to believe that my father, the man who brought me to life, is now dead. I find it hard to believe that an important chapter in my life is now closed.

It saddens me that my future children will never get a chance to meet or know my father.

I feel scared when I think of my mother living on her own for the first time in her life, in a house full of memories. My mother is strong and brave and insists she will be fine on her own.

As the death ceremonies were being conducted according to Vedic rites, I kept thinking my father was going to wake up and say, "What the hell is going on?"

As I went through some of my father's closets, the day after his cremation, I found objects from my youth, preserved and taking up pride of place in my father's room. I found gifts I had given him a long time ago, still kept, unused.

I flipped through his address book and found names and numbers of everything from friends to funeral services to freezer boxes for the dead. It seems my father, a meticulous man, had planned ahead in case of his death.

Since we are Hindu Brahmin Iyers our death ceremonies will continue for 13 days. My mother leaves for Varanasi, the holiest of cities, on Sunday, to perform my father's 9th to 13th day ceremonies there.

According to Hindu philosophy the body is just the outer garment of the individual. The real self never dies, but is reborn in a different body in due course. I wish my father good health, happiness and all the love in the world, in his next birth.

Update on Dad

Its been a little more than two weeks now since my father went into a diabetic coma and had a stroke. The doctors label it a Cerebrovascular Accident (CVA) coupled with a multi function failure.

A few days ago, he was shifted from the IMCU to the ICCU. This means he is less critical then what he was before, because the Intensive Critical Care Unit is apparently a step down from the Intensive Medical Care Unit.

But he continues to be hooked up to machines and monitors and the doctors continue to tell us it could swing either way. They refuse to give us any hope.

They say every day is different and right now they are focusing on stabilizing my father. Also, they are yet to ascertain how much damage has occurred to the brain, when it was deprived of oxygen and if the damage will be temporary or permanent.

Meanwhile, my father drifted into semi-consciousness two days ago and mumbled a few words no one understood, before drifting back into unconsciousness. It looks like his speech function has been affected.

I have postponed my ticket back to the US by a few more days, on the advice of my father's primary physician, who is fast becoming a friend.

Not Dead

The doctors informed a lady sitting next to us that her husband was dead. Very soon some 300 Muslims showed up at the hospital. It seemed like the dead person was an important Islamic leader of some sort.

An ambulance was deployed to bring the dead body home. Relatives wept outside the IMCU.

Suddenly a nurse comes out of the IMCU and informs the people that the man is not dead. Apparently they managed to resuscitate the dying man.

How can any responsible hospital do this? How can they claim someone is dead and then say the opposite. It really is appalling behavior.

Shouldn't they first make sure their patient really is dead before informing his family? Its simply bizarre.

Given a choice we wouldn't have placed my father here. But this is where he insisted he wanted to go to, if there was ever a medical emergency. My father truly believed he would get cured if he came to St. Isabel's, since this is where he has always been hospitalized in the past and this is also where my grandfather came to when he was unwell.

Call it superstition, faith or just a place he was comfortable to go to, but we will respect my father's wishes to the end.

Hospital Hoarding