A celebration was held Saturday in Carroll, for the grand opening of the “Freedom House.” It’s a half-way house for veterans who’re suffering from alcoholism or post-traumatic stress. Randy Riesberg, an army veteran from Carroll, says the inspiration came from a conversation with a fellow veteran who went to Des Moines for help. “He was telling me one time on the phone, he says: ‘If we had a halfway house up there, I think I could get the hang of being sober,'” Riesberg says.

The new half-way house in Carroll is a place for recovering veterans to stay and heal, according to Riesberg. “As a veteran of the military, I couldn’t ever talk about what I had done, so these guys will be able to sit around the table and chat with each other on what’s bothering them,” Riesberg says. Up to eight men at a time will be able to stay at the Freedom House. No alcohol will be allowed. “And hopefully they will get clean and sober and stay clean and sober,” Riesberg says.

Riesberg will manage the house. A lawyer from Carroll still owns the property, but is donating its use as a halfway house. For more information, call Riesberg at 712-790-3481.

(Radio Iowa)

Open-heart surgery is no longer the only option for Iowans with an irregular heartbeat. A hospital in the Omaha-Council Bluffs area is the first in either state to offer a new alternative procedure. Cardiologist Dr. John Scherschel says the surgery corrects irregular heartbeat, or atrial fibrillation. “Atrial fibrillation is a huge problem and it becomes more common as people age,” Dr. Scherschel says. “The stroke risk goes up considerably, it’s five-fold higher in patients with atrial fibrillation than those without.”

The procedure, called LARIAT, involves two small incisions to insert a catheter into the heart. It takes about an hour.  “Most patients will be able to go home the next day or the day after that, it’s at longest a two-day hospitalization,” Scherschel says. “With open heart surgery, it can be several days to weeks with recovery requiring weeks to months, depending on the kind of procedure.” Scherschel believes the technique will become standard treatment eventually, but for now, the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha is among only a few hospitals in the nation that are using it.  “When I saw this technique described in the scientific literature back in 2009, I said we need to be doing that because that’s the right way to do this,” he says.

Marc Leger of Plattsmouth, Nebraska, recently had the procedure done in Omaha and says he constantly lived with the threat of stroke.
“Being in my early 60s, I’m glad I got that procedure done now and it’s something I’m going to hopefully live into my 90s and 100s with that,” Leger says.  LARIAT was recommended for Leger as it’s minimally-invasive and blocks stroke-causing blood clots from traveling to the brain. He was able to leave the hospital in a few days with just a Band-Aid covering his tiny incision.  

(Radio Iowa)

Cardiovascular diseases and stroke are the leading causes of death for Iowans, according to the state chapter of the American Heart Association. Salt intake is getting a lot more attention now on food labels and in the media, which is potentially life-saving news, according to registered dietician Marianne Merrick.  Merrick says, “We can really decrease the number of deaths from heart disease if we start paying more attention to how much sodium we are having on a daily basis.” Merrick advises patients who have a salty appetite to slowly start weaning themselves off sodium, especially by keeping an eye on labels of canned and packaged products. She says most of us have too much sodium in our diets.

“Our intakes are too high,” Merrick says. “A big part of it is eating processed foods. I’m a big promoter of going back to basics.” That means eating healthier by eating more fresh foods, especially fruits and vegetables. She says, “Not having the canned foods and the lunch meats and even bread and rolls can be high in sodium, reading those labels.” A recent national study concludes that merely cutting back on salt could save hundreds of thousands of lives nationwide in the next decade. Iowa sees an average of 92-hundred deaths every year from cardiovascular disease. Some 90-thousand Iowans have heart attacks or are diagnosed with coronary heart disease every year, and 60-thousand Iowans have a stroke.

(Radio Iowa)