Helping Hearts, Blog of Anne Sanders

Yesterday I was talking to my mother in law about my husband’s older brother. His birthday is about a week away and he LOVES birthday celebrations. My husband’s older brother has Down Syndrome and he is just one of those people who loves other people, especially women if you know what I mean! He will go hug a woman he’s just met and smile the whole time. As he has gotten older (he’s in his mid-fifties now), however, he’s gotten a little more set in his ways. He doesn’t like going places as much as he used to and he would generally just rather stay at home and watch television or play with the little people toys he has had for years. He’s also gotten where he doesn’t want to work as much. He refused to go to work a couple of days this week and we don’t know why. But my mother in law said something that stuck with me about my brother in law and why she and his father want him to keep working. They’re afraid that if he stops working, he might just stop altogether. As with many older...

Last Friday was World Arthritis Day and honestly, I wasn’t sure what to say about it. Arthritis is a condition that affects more than 46 million U.S. adults—a number that's expected to increase to 67 million adults by the year 2030. But I’ve not had a personal experience with it until I became friends with a lady at my church who has arthritis. She asked people to wear blue on World Arthritis Day and then I asked her if she'd like to be interviewed! There are more than 100 types of arthritis but rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is the most common type of inflammatory arthritis. More than 1.3 million Americans are affected by RA. According to the American College of Rheumatology, about 75 percent of those affected are women. In fact, between one and three percent of women are likely to develop rheumatoid arthritis in their lifetime. So, it’s appropriate that my friend is a woman. Her name is Melissa Maxey and here is her story. 1.        How long have you h...

May is a month of health awareness, from mental health (which I’ll be featuring next week) to arthritis to National Stuttering Awareness Week this week. While we’re fighting the blues for national mental health awareness month, the Arthritis National Research Foundation is asking people to Go Blue for Arthritis Awareness Month and wear blue clothing the whole month to get people to talk about arthritis. You can upload photos of yourself wearing blue at their Facebook page and can win a water bottle or autographed hat from professional golfer Kristy McPherson . I’m choosing today to talk about arthritis because it affects so many people, 50 million according to the Arthritis Foundation .   That’s one in five, making it the nation’s most common cause of disability. There’s an old joke that an elderly lady told her pastor that she sees three men each day—Will Power to get her up in the morning, Arthur Itis with whom she goes from to joint to joint and Ben Gay to...