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Hi there everyone, this is Mark Maloney, host of the Mark Mo Show podcast available on YouTube

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and all podcast platforms with new episodes every Saturday. Special thanks goes out to

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the producer Greg Kovac and Eden Maloney, and thanks to each and every listener. I hope

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you enjoy and please like, share, and subscribe. Our newest segment on the Mark Mo Show is

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Fireside Chats, where I have a casual chat with interesting and informative community members.

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This week on Fireside Chats is Christy Cleveland. She's a registered nurse from St. Mary's and with

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Valpo YMCA and also joining us from the YMCA, Raffiella Petting. Hi everybody, how are you?

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Great. Hello. That is good. That's great. I'm very excited to have you guys in here. We've had YMCA

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on I believe three times now, so this is pretty exciting stuff. There's always things going on

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and being that we have this outreach to the community, it's kind of the perfect vehicle. So I

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love having you guys in and we're just going to get started. Christy, why don't you tell me a little

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bit about yourself and how you got started in healthcare? I would say I was probably like 15

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or 16. I've always wanted to be able to help take care of people. I was the one that if there was an

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animal that was sick, I'm going to take care of that and I kind of switched. I think I like to

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talk to people. There's a little more response coming back than the animals, although I've always

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had animals in our family and I enjoy that. So then you get the best of both worlds. Most

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definitely. So you are based out of St. Mary's. Now this is the St. Mary's in Hobart, is that

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correct? Yes. Yes. Okay. And how long have you been there? You know what, I've been with them

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right about nine years. I was with Franz Siskin, one of our competitors, I guess I'll say, but

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great memories. I worked with them for 30 years. So now we're aging myself. Downtown Hammond. So I

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felt like I kind of grew up there, cool place to work, kind of sad that they had to close their

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doors. It's kind of a, I think they'd been there for more than 100 years. So that's kind of sad.

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But this has been a really good switch. Coming to it was community healthcare system. Now we are

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Powers Health. So look for that out there. But it's been a great switch. The physicians are so

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responsive when I ask for help doing a program, doing presentations, they're ready to get out there

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and meet the public and you know, help in any ways they can. It's been a really good move. A lot

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of cool people. I'm always meeting new people at the Y especially now. Yeah, that we have a medical

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partnership with the Y. So that's kind of cool. I have an office there. So I kind of have an

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open door policy. People come in with every kind of health question. It might be my foot hurts. Can

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you look at my foot? Take off your shoe, your sock. Oh, okay. You know, maybe we could go in and see

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Brian in our physical therapy. Right. And he's always welcoming and gives good suggestions. He

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might even offer exercises for them to do that might help them. And if that doesn't work, he said,

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we can talk to your doctor and maybe talk about getting an order, you know, for some physical

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therapy exercises and work with them. So it's always a good fit. We have personal training in the

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Y. So there's that option. If it's something about exercise, if it's cardiac exercise, I usually even

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walk people around the areas where they can do different kinds of exercise. I talk about safe

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exercise with using age predicted. If they don't have heart disease, we go with age predicted.

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Otherwise, they probably have something with their physician. If they've had a stress test,

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then it's calculated special based on that. So it's more individualized. We do a lot of blood

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pressure screening at the Y. We actually have a Higgy machine, which is right outside my office. So

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when I'm not there, it's kind of nice because people are still able to get their blood pressure

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checked. I always try to tell people don't do it more than once a day because they're going to drive

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theirself crazy because there's so many things that can affect our blood pressure. But then we

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also do AFib screening. And that's a way to even catch some kinds of serious arrhythmias. It can

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put you at risk for having a stroke or a heart attack. Sleep apnea, surprisingly, is one of those

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things that puts you at a higher risk of going into AFib. Generally, it's more as we're older,

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probably like 60, 65 when you're going to be at a higher risk for AFib. But it's an irregular

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heart rhythm. And so teaching people even knowing what your norm is, if something changes and you

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feel your pulse, hmm, it's really, really fast. I can't count it. That's a bad sign that we need

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to get some help. If it's irregular, and that's what puts us at risk for throwing a blood clot. So

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if we have a throw a blood clot, you know, that's where it depends on where it's going to travel. If

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it goes to your brain, or if it goes to the heart, you know, depends on if it's going to be a stroke

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or a heart attack. So the sooner that we can get that documented and, you know, get to a cardiologist,

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you know, that we can convert them. So there's different options that they can do as far as

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converting them, whether it's medication, or if we have to do some kind of a special procedure

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that we would need to do in the hospital. And we've got some great cardiologists that are always

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able to take on new patients. So I can even text some of the physicians, which is kind of cool,

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say, you know, hey, we've got this going on. This person really needs to be seen pretty fast. This

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is what their blood pressure is, you know, that we did the Cardia mobile, which is the little

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device that you see on the TV that talks about, do you know what your heart rhythm is? And I think

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they're less than $100, then you just put your two fingers on there, and it gives you a regular

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cardiac rhythm that will go either on your iPad or on your phone. You could send it to your physician,

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which I'm sure the physicians probably don't want to get everybody's EKG that they're taking all

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day long. But if you were having some problems, it's nice to be able to share that directly to

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the physician. And I've actually shared that from my office for people in the Y. And that brings up

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one of the AFib screenings that we had done. I want to say it was last year, one of the members

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had been there. And I always do a lot of education with each person when I'm doing the AFib screening

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so that they understand what their pulse feels like, what it's doing that it's regular, so that

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they recognize that something has changed, that's when we need to notify somebody or get help. And

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this one person said that, you know, he went through the whole thing and he's a regular person at

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the Y. He exercises all the time. He plays different games out in the gym. And he was there, and I

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believe it was on a weekend. And he noticed that his heart rate was really fast and it was irregular

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and he got really nervous. And so he had actually after that AFib screening gone and bought his

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own device. So he went home and checked it. And it said, I think you're in AFib. So he went ahead

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and went to the hospital and actually he was in AFib and they cardioverted him and he's been in

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normal sinus rhythm on medication. And he feels like he's had his life saved that, you know,

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if he wouldn't have known about that, he didn't know what was going to happen. Because your heart

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rate can go 130, 140, very irregular. And of course, depending on if you have a stroke with it or a

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heart attack, we don't know how we can, you know, the outcomes with that. So that was kind of cool.

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We have a lot of people that come through different reasons. You know, we kind of have our own

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emergency setup at the Y, which is kind of neat when I started there. I don't know if I should tell

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you what it's called because everybody in the building knows George Williams. So we know that

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everybody goes immediately to where it's at. And we have some different points in the building where

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they have like an alarm system. So it's really cool. And it just does such a good job of getting

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help to that person as quickly as possible, because everybody runs and whatever's needed. We

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have AEDs in the building, which is so critical. Because if somebody does need to have their heart

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shock to get out of some very serious arrhythmia, it's so much quicker than waiting for the ambulance

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to get there. Because if we take time to assess a person and find out what's going on, and then we

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have to wait for an AED to get there, you know, that's time is very valuable. Being that this is

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heart month, you know, we talk about time is so valuable, saving that heart muscle. So it's real

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critical for people just even to learn about risk factors of heart disease. If you know what your

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risk factors are, then you know, okay, from there, that's those lifestyle changes that I want to

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start working on, so that I can be healthy as I'm aging. So we have a lot of different ages

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population in the Y. And so we try to give, you know, education geared towards all those

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different ages. But of course, the senior people are the ones that are going to have more health

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issues, of course, than the young ones. So giving that information for them to make those lifestyle

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changes is really beneficial. I do a lot of lifestyle coaching. We do metabolic testing

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there also, which is cool for people if they're trying to lose weight. If they're wondering even,

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I'm just not sure about how many calories I should keep it at. I'm trying to maintain where I'm at.

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I just want to be healthy. So it's a way that they can tell exactly at rest how many calories am I

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burning. So it's a respiratory test. So you put your mouth on a mouthpiece, and then your nose is

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clamped off, and you're sitting kind of in a reclined position. You want to do it before, before

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any exercise that day, before any kind of a health, probably a heavy meal, four to five hours before

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you would eat. And then of course, no caffeine before, because that's going to speed things up. So

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usually I just tell people that easiest would be first thing in the morning. So we do that, and then

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that can give you a set suggested range to keep your calories in if you want to lose weight, keep it

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in this range. If you want to maintain, if you're being supervised medically, they'll let you go a

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little bit lower. But I always worry about slowing somebody's metabolism down if you don't take in

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enough calories. And that's probably one of the mistakes a lot of people make when they're trying

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to lose weight, that they don't take in enough calories. And then I just talked to them a little

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bit about macros, three things, you know, trying to think of nutrition in general, if you break it up

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to protein, healthy fats, and your carbohydrates. And the carbohydrates, I always say we got to have

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complex carbohydrates, the more fiber, the longer that it'll burn for you. So it's a better fuel. So

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you try to put those three things together and then keep it under certain a number of calories. And

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then if you add in the right exercise, so it's trying to get all those pieces put together to

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make a healthy lifestyle for someone. So I enjoyed going over all of that and helping people try and

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make those changes. Along with the risk factors of heart disease specific to if people knowing that

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it's again, I'm going to go back to heart month, knowing the signs and symptoms of a heart attack

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is really important. You know, if you've got chest pressure, and I had somebody in my office this

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morning that said, you know, it was just kind of a feeling I've never had before. It's just kind of

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heavy. And I've heard people describe it that it was like crushing on their chest. Some people have

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been very vague and it was, you know, my jaw was just hurting and it just, I just wasn't sure, did I

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need to go to the dentist? I've had patients that they pulled a tooth because they thought, wow,

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that tooth must have been pretty loose. Now this was downtown Hammond on state lines. So we had a

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variety of different patients that came in. But I thought, wow, I don't know that'd be going that

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far. But I'm thinking of those classic symptoms, you know, chest pressure, chest pain, tightness,

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you know, and to be able to describe it to your physician can help also. It might be just, you

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know, your left arm pain, it could be in the center of your back. You might just feel like,

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yeah, I'm just not feeling so good. I'm kind of sick to my stomach. Maybe if I go to the bathroom,

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maybe I'll feel better. And sometimes it's you go in the bathroom and they might be having those

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symptoms and they might have a bowel movement. You know, thinking about that, the nausea, the

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vomiting, those are all symptoms that are really classic that, you know, you should have investigated.

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And remember when we know that if it's cardiac related, if it's any of those symptoms, you're

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better to get it checked out than to not do anything because time is so valuable. If we can do a

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procedure at the hospital, maybe just do an angiogram and see if those coronary arteries,

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what they're looking like, we could save that heart muscle and open it up where there is not

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going to be any permanent damage. If somebody waits a day or two and they come in, they already

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have the damages already done. So just for people to learn about those signs and symptoms and what

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to do, you call 911. Don't drive yourself. What if you can't stay alert while you're driving and

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you run into a telephone pole, you're going to hurt yourself. What if you run into somebody else?

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The ambulance can come and those people are healthcare professionals. They know they're

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going to get an IV started. They're going to give you medication to take care of that pain.

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They're going to give you oxygen because you're going to be short of breath. So they're going to

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be able to take care of all those symptoms that much quicker and relate to the hospital. Hey,

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we're bringing somebody in that it looks like and they'll send an EKG. And so all about time

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saving and saving that heart muscle. So that was something that we did in addition that we just

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opened up a new emergency room out on our it's off of 49 and Burlington Beach Road or 500. We've

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got a clinic out there and we had an immediate care and we actually enlarged it and changed it

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into an emergency room. So people have more options of getting emergency care immediately

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right away. We also have an immediate care still that's on 30 and we enlarge the size of that so

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that we could take on the extra people that might be coming there. So it's good to know when should

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I go to the emergency room? When should I go to the immediate care? It usually costs a little bit

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more going to the emergency room. But if it's respiratory, if it's cardiac, we need to go to

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the emergency room. I'd recently had a fall and I hit my head so I thought oh boy, I know I need to

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go get a CT so I need to go to the emergency room. So that kind of cinched that. I was like well,

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I don't like being the patient. I'd much rather be the nurse. But I've got a great hand out if

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anybody is ever wanting one of those and I always tell people put it on your refrigerator. It really

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takes the guesswork out of when should I go to the emergency room? When should I go to the immediate

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care and be able to be seen quickly and always keep the cost down. I'm always trying to help

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people think about okay cost-wise. If it can be covered at the immediate care and you can get in

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and out, that's the way to go. Our emergency room has an ambulance there. I know we don't have a

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hospital right there but we have a huge clinic and we have all the capabilities of testing that we

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already have at the hospital so it's pretty cool. We've got MRI, CT, labs, ultrasound, oh my goodness,

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everything that we have at the hospital. So if they determine that you need to be hospitalized,

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they will take you by ambulance that is there on site directly to the hospital and have you

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admitted and you'd be direct admitted. So all about saving time again because of we're here in

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Valparaiso and we want to be able to be taken care of as quickly as possible. So I can tell you

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about some other situations that have come up at the Y. It's kind of cool. The teamwork that we

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have there, we had a situation, this one was another one I think it was a couple of weeks ago,

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someone was in the pool and our lifeguard recognized and I was so impressed with her. I told

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her man you did awesome. She recognized that this person was swimming in the pool and you

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know you think about it she was in the deep end just doing laps back and forth and then she had one

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of those kickboards and she was swimming back and forth and then all of a sudden she realized that

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she was struggling and so she ran over to the side and tried to pull her out and had one of the

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other guys came in the two of them pulled her out and had her right there on the edge of the pool

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and they called George Williams and immediately we have help within a minute and when I got there

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usually you know you want to try to assess that person. I realized she already had garbled speech,

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the classic signs that go with stroke and that that acronym is fast if anybody doesn't know

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that one. So you think in your mind okay if my family member was doing something strange and

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think through is are those points hit on and so she had the facial drooping, she had the garbled

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speech, I tried to have her raise both her hands, the one wouldn't go up at all so you raise those

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arms and then time, time is so valuable again we're talking about the brain and we had already

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called 911 so I was able to tell them on the phone directly the symptoms that she was having

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what her blood pressure was was very elevated and so they were able to send out the right ambulance

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that has the paramedics that has all of the extra equipment and then transport them as quickly as

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possible to the hospital so we have a stroke, a certification I think and I don't remember the

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exact terminology but Community Hospital in Munster is where they actually had to eventually

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transport her to for this area so they're a stroke center as with cardiac we always think

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about okay I want to go somewhere where I know that time is measured and so we're a certified

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chest pain center that's with st. Mary so that's important because we know it's they call it door

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to balloon time is within so many minutes and again it's talking about saving the heart muscles

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so it's very critical that you want to be able to go where you know that they're going to be

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able to act you know immediately I had a lady today it was kind of interesting I get a phone

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call and I'm telling you you get all kinds and this lady sounded you know elderly later on in

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the conversation she told me I'm 91 I said oh it's wonderful she goes I just wanted to call

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and ask your opinion because I saw your name in this book and we have a take care book that

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goes out I think quarterly and it has all of our different health screenings and classes that we

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offer through the different hospital programs so that anybody is welcome to sign up for and she

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said that she goes you know I've got swelling in my feet and my ankles and I don't know what kind

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of a doctor I should go to what do you think I was well do you have a doctor she said well I'm

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in the process of changing and then later on in the conversation I found out okay you have a

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cardiologist because you know when you don't know the person's history you know you want to be able

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to help them quickly direct them but she had a cardiologist so she's going to check with her

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cardiologist so that they could maybe do some labs and you know see if maybe her heart function

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has changed and that's why all of a sudden it could be congestive heart failure which is a symptom

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where you have fluid that you know can collect in your lower legs and your feet and you know we

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talk about anybody that has congestive heart failure we always want to help them manage it the best

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if somebody is 90 or 90 years old they've made it this far I am not going to tell them they have

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to change their whole life I'm going to tell you honey you've been doing great one thing that you

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could do to help yourself so you can breathe better because it can also affect our breathing is low

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sodium and we really talk about that a lot in our classes with managing blood pressure low sodium

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they recommend to know more than 1500 milligrams for the whole day so if you're familiar with

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reading labels at all you'll find that how quickly it can add up and one that's a typical one is the

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soups that are there's two servings and a can of soup you don't it's not condensed you don't have to

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add any fluid so it might be between 800 and 900 milligrams of sodium per serving you have to double

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that because I always tell people I know you're not going to put half of that in the refrigerator I

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think you're going to eat it all so you're already over your limit for the day and then that's where

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that extra salt is going to have a problem with you retaining the extra fluids your heart has to

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work harder so then of course that raises your blood pressure so helping people manage their

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blood pressure with diet and then also thinking about exercise stress management is part of one

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of those and again those are all risk factors of heart disease so helping people look at those

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risk factors I always think man more people should think about those and and I meet with people all

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the time and talk about those so anybody is always welcome to meet with me that's kind of one of my

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probably favorite things to go over with somebody I was a cardiac rehab nurse for oh geez I'll just

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say 20 plus years so going over risk factors that was one of the things that everybody gets before

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they go home if they've had a heart attack if you've had bypass surgery if you've had congestive

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heart failure you're going to get risk factors of heart disease because you need to change your

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lifestyle and let's move you in a healthy direction so that's one thing you guys can meet with me

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anytime what now what a tremendous asset you are to Valpo YMCA what are your hours there you know

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what it kind of varies because I do the metabolic testing I like to you know be available to go in

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early if someone needs that early time if they can get it in before work on average because

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there's more people coming in the evening I probably come in around between eight and nine

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but I keep a calendar on my outside my door unfortunately I have to go to meetings sometimes

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and they might be off-site so I try to communicate with the staff there you know with what changes

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and on my business card it has my cell number so everybody has Christie's number it's kind of

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interesting I take calls on the weekend my husband will say are you gonna take that somebody

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needs me kind of it's you know whatever it doesn't matter to me you know there's some that call

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pretty regular and I've gotten to know their names of course and then somebody else might call and

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just say hey I've got a quick question could you help me with or something I've had people that I

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help them call their physician immediately because it was something much more urgent or I might tell

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them you know where the immediate care is and remind them about that and of course our new

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emergency room depending on what the symptoms are so yeah I'm usually pretty available but 8 to

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4 30 ish you know but I stay later if somebody can't come if they're coming only I say I work

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money through Friday I can only get there at 5 o'clock then I'll be there at 5 o'clock until

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you know whenever they need me so I try to be pretty flexible I don't have young children so it

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works out pretty well oh that's great now when you were talking a little bit about obviously

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heart health and diet and exercise and things of that nature does your I was gonna say advice

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but counseling is probably a better term for it so does your counseling really depend on age and

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weight and I guess maybe their goals and things that they're doing there just from the standpoint

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of I have a daughter she's an athletic trainer and a life coach out in Seattle so when I was out

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there I got the fold you know she's like this is how you do it and this and that so one thing that

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they focus on a lot is muscle building muscle building and toning and things like that along

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with stretching to which I don't think people do enough in terms of stretching but that the diet

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is an important component and cardio is an important component so does it really depend on

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who visits you on a given day as to like what their goals are and what they're trying to do

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goodness yeah absolutely you know my little risk factor sheet that I've used for many many years

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top three are the ones that we can't do anything about age is the one sure of course as we age

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our risks are going to increase then you add in family history well you can't do anything about

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that mom and dad grandma and grandpa otherwise you know you think okay so if age is the one then I've

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got to do any lifestyle changes of the ones that I do have so that we can make a difference as far

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as muscle I emphasize this with our even our elderly population staying strong keeping your

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legs strong so that you're less risk for falls is so important how else are we going to keep those

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muscles strong is putting in the right fuel so we've got to get in enough protein and there's

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actually and I don't know if this was with the CDC but they said that the our aging population

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they've done the different research that they don't metabolize that protein as well so they want

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them to take in 1.2 grams per kilogram of weight so then you've got to help them calculate their

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weight into kilograms because I do that in the classes all the time so it's it's making sure they're

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getting in enough protein a lot of elderly people I think maybe they've lost a spouse they live by

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their self you know I don't feel like cooking oh I'm just gonna have a snack what do they have

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some chips and oh you know I had a something you know maybe they'll have a yogurt hopefully

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something with protein but they end up not taking in enough calories or enough protein throughout

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the day and they lose weight they get weaker as they age so being at the Y I think it's a very

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positive environment they have some great classes for the seniors that are so fun I walk by some of

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those classes and I think man the music is so upbeat I want to go in there and there's a

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course they invite me in you know sure well sure you know but you know I have to work there might be somebody else that needs me so but no it's

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very positive for the people whether you're a single person or just you and your husband now you know and

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sometimes people get a little bit down just because okay I'm 90 you know how much longer am I gonna be

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around but there's so much good that you can do for other people younger people hearing about your

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stories and you know they've got the new gathering area out there so I've seen a lot of the folks sitting

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out there and you know being able to interact with others and the younger people are coming it's it's just a

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really good positive environment the I would say regular adults and before we become seniors we need to make sure

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that we're getting in enough protein and you know the recommended I think from the American Dietetic

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Association is 0.8 grams per kilogram so you know there is a little bit of a difference and keeping our

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muscles strong so getting a balance with a little bit of cardio a little bit of weight training they have

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everything there at the Y and you know people that can help them get set up it's kind of nice that they can

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learn basic equipment and keep it simple because I've taken them around to even if you could just use a

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recumbent bike they can sit in the seat they've got the back support so that they're not going to be

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unsteady if they're steady enough and they can do the treadmill that's great there's other equipment so I

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mean there's something there for everybody sure cool that is cool when you do your your seminars

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or your presentations things like that you ever find that you have even a younger audience so maybe you

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know kids teens things like that to be able to help them form positive habits when they're younger so

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they can kind of continue that absolutely and talking about even I've had mothers say you know my kids

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are picky eaters what do you think about that I mean I've always tried to okay we're not going to make

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separate meals for everybody so hey if the kids can be part of that cooking thing they're actually

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making the food they'll be more ready to try the different things help have them make a plan with okay

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what do we want to make for this week for groceries we're going to make a grocery list what do you

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feel like eating this week let's make a plan so our afternoon classes we were trying to get more

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towards families we didn't have it we probably didn't have as good a turnout as we hoped because I

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think the kids are so involved in so many activities that I think it was hard to pin them down for it

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but having the kids involved in the food and food preparation and even meal planning and I told parents

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you know let each of your kids there was one family that came with that had three kids let them each

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plan the whole meal you know and think about those food groups and so you know my play using that as

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a basis and thinking about and then we even talked about the macros keeping that simple I think

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everybody if we can think about those macros those three things it's pretty simple then that I could

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have that in each of my meals if I'm pre-diabetic if I'm diabetic if you eat just simple carbs of

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course your blood sugar is going to spike if you eat it with different kind of food combinations and

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add a healthy fat with it you aren't going to see the big spike so thinking about having a good

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balanced meal is going to make a big difference where you're not going to have those big spikes and

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then we'll keep our blood sugar on an even keel we're going to feel better everything's going to

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work sure inside too you know yeah that definitely makes sense when I was on the website and looking

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at your page a little bit there was an acronym and I don't believe we covered it yet dash dash

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yes that one is dietary I always have and this is why they call it dash because who would call a

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diet dietary approach to stop hypertension so it's like really and it's actually been around for a

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long time but they've made some modifications so it's 1500 milligrams or less and they want you to

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increase how many fruits and vegetables that you add into that diet the top diet that's been chosen

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overall for everyone for long-term health for controlling blood pressure for even helping

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with controlling your blood sugars so diabetes overall health cholesterol is the Mediterranean

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diet so they kind of combine the Mediterranean diet and then they look at the dash diet and those

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were kind of the top two and so with the Mediterranean diet they want you to eat some kind of a fatty

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fish at least two days a week and then increasing fruits and vegetables cooking with olive oil

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avocado oil adding in nuts and seeds that kind of thing so you're getting those and then that diet

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is really easy to look at and think about the macros so putting those pieces together is kind of fun

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and making it work and then gosh it was probably about a year ago I had read a study that was put

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out by Rush and they were looking at for the elderly population what would be the healthiest diet

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and they came up with the name mind diet so we're trying to keep the brain healthy and as we're

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aging that we're not as forgetful and you know long term so it's really kind of in a nutshell

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it's the combination of the dash diet with the Mediterranean diet so I've done some talks on

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that and it was very interesting and people seem to be very motivated they wanted to learn details

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about it so what do I do how do I eat that way and and I think it made people be a little more

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aware of meal times meal prep if you do planning you'll do so much better meal prepping you could

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do it on the weekend and you could prep three four meals and then you've got Monday Tuesday

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Wednesday Thursday covered well Friday night can be pizza night right sure oh yeah and there's all

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kinds of healthy ways to have pizza and especially if you have young kids oh my gosh they get to make

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their own you could have all your toppings set out they get to make whatever kind they want you

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know have the different crusts or maybe they're old enough that they could even make their crusts

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themselves you know we try to get away from using the packaged goods packaged foods because of

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course they're going to be a lot more preservatives and of course they're coming out with more things

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like red dye now they finally realized oh it is bad glad that that was but I think it's not going to

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be technically taken out of the foods until next year or something yeah it's kind of like wow but at

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least we are aware so that we can make those changes but again it's all about reading your labels

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you know thinking about you know what's in the food what ingredients if you've got a list of

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ingredients that's this long it's probably not great pretty packaged up and and probably not going

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to be the best choice teaching kids how to do food prep and getting them a cookbook with simple

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ingredients so that they learn I think about like kids that go away to college I'd love to have

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classes that's geared towards okay I'm getting ready to go to college mom and dad aren't going to be

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there I got to go to the cafeteria and I got to get food but I don't want to have that 15 pound

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gain that you know they always talk about or 20 or yeah the freshman 15 or 20 unfortunately that's

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right that's what happened to a lot of us during COVID you know we didn't go anywhere right that's

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right so of course if you're sitting in your dorm room and then that's when they first learn about

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going to parties and you know there's a lot of things that change from what it was at home so

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you know thinking about making the best choice of what's available and maybe having some healthy

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snacks in your dorm room versus all you know though I wouldn't say garbage but chips and cheesy

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poofs and all that stuff yeah you know snacky foods right you know having a little refrigerator

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with some veggies and you know navigating that cafeteria to what healthy options would they

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have you know I'm sure they have some healthy options there so to kind of close it out if I'm

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at the why and I want to see you is it through appointment or can I stop down to your office

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how does it work you know what I have people that drop by all the time if I have time available I

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don't have any meeting scheduled or there's not somebody waiting for something they drop in all

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the time if somebody's coming from home and they want to make sure that I'm available then give me

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a call you can send me an email you could text me and we can set up a time of whatever's convenient

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for that person oh fantastic well that's really great rafiella as I alluded to at the beginning

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of our interview here yeah we always like to finish up with you to tell us all the new and

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interesting things going on at the Valpa why oh there's so many but I know we mentioned that

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February is you know heart health awareness month but even though we draw attention to it in

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February you have to be heart smart year-round you know so we are nurses are an integral part of

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our community and the YMCA so we are so lucky to have nurse Christy here we love her so much

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she's definitely it's one of the amazing benefits that we have is as a member of the YMCA you know

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as we were saying if you have any questions she's an open door policy if it's something you've been

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afraid to ask your doctor or you didn't want to make an appointment or you know just anything she's

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very easy to talk to and like I said an incredible resource for the Y and for our community so you

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really appreciate her and part of a part of a showing our appreciation for our nurses you know

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some of the hardest working people that we have out here the YMCA is offering a 10% discount for

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off-memberships for all nurses who live and work inside the Valparaiso community oh that's

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fantastic just come call our front desk or come down and see us and well even if you want to tour

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of our new facility we're happy to give you a tour yeah yeah well yeah you guys were closed to

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making some updates and things like that I believe you have some sort of new cafe or something

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when you were talking about figuring out what to do in your dorm that reminded me of the story

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that Gabe was telling me our so we have a bright love cafe in our facility and he was talking about

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how him and his roommate that's how they came up they were making their own coffee in the dorm and

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everyone can't smell it so come by the YMCA get a tour if you haven't been a member before get a

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membership preferably we've got so much going on and stop by and see nurse Christie get a coffee from

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Gabe absolutely absolutely yeah well it's always great having you guys here nurse Christie thank

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you so much for visiting us today some really fantastic information and if you're if you're at

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the Y and maybe you need some counseling especially as it pertains maybe heart health and diet and

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things of that nature visit nurse Christie her door is open and she's there and Rafael thanks

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once again for joining us and mentioning all the wonderful things going on at the Valpa Y

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thank you and thank you nurse Christie definitely definitely I always like to meet new people

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well this has been the Mark Moe show we are a podcast you can hear us on all podcast platforms

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as well as YouTube and you'll hear this show several times during the next week here on the

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WVLP airwaves here in Valparaiso one of 3.1 FM so thank you so much for joining us today and have a

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great day you