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Fall fun
Zelia Jones, age 3, of Elmore, gets a push on the swings from her mother Tiffany at the Pearson Park playground. The two were shopping when they decided to take a break and enjoy the fall weather. (Press photo by Ken Grosjean)
“It matters not how strait the gate. How charged with punishments the scroll. I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul.” Melissa Coduti likes to recite those lines, the last paragraph in the poem Invictus, by William Ernest Henley. Coduti, a 2000 Northwood graduate, is 32 years old now and lives in the Chicago suburb of Springfield, Ill. She joined the United States Air Force in June 2002 – her brothers Jacob Falk, 31, and Louis Coduti, 33, are also Air Force veterans - and she knew then that she wanted to be a military “lifer.” Life, however, sometimes has its own way of mixing things up, turning you upside down and altering your planned future. It happened to the then 5-foot, 115-pound Coduti in August 2002, during hand-to-hand combat training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. Two days earlier, Coduti said, she “accidentally” knocked a fellow female unconscious. “I hip-tossed her and she smacked face first on the ground,” Coduti recalled. “She spent a night in the hospital. They put us together (during training) two days later, and the rest is history.” Coduti and the same woman, whom Coduti did not name, were paired together again during a training exercise, the day after the woman was released from an overnight stay in the hospital. “I was handcuffed face first on the ground, and the female who was doing the training took my left cuff off and shoved my right wrist to the back of my head,” Coduti said. “We were learning search and seizure, and she was pretty upset with me because I accidentally knocked her unconscious.” Coduti’s injury was devastating, and it did, in fact, alter her life. She was diagnosed with bilateral thoracic outlet syndrome, a
condition whereby symptoms are produced that include numbness in the fingers and shoulder and neck pain by compression of nerves and/or blood vessels in the upper chest. “It causes paralysis of the arms, numbness and tingling in the arms,” Coduti said. “You get headaches…I get all three symptoms at the same time. My arms flush navy blue and are no longer useable. I’ve had 11 surgeries since 2002. I was in physical therapy from August 2002 through the end of 2013. There was hardly a time I wasn’t in therapy. I can use both arms now, but I have limited mobility.” Takes its toll Coduti is a relatively fit 138 pounds today, but the injury and surgeries took their toll. She has been married and divorced twice and no longer has the physical capability to have children. There is more. “I was medically retired (from the Air Force) in 2006,” Coduti said. “I was in security forces, and after a failed surgery I was cross-trained into health services management and worked as a primary response technician. We would respond to mass casualties, (helicopter) crashes, anything that had mass casualties. I was attached to the Continued on page 2
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Sadly, there are some people who take delight in your agony and intentionally try to make you upset.
See Bryan Golden Page 11
Oregon
Budget is proposed for senior levy funds By Kelly J. Kaczala Press News Editor kkaczala@presspublications.com A senior advisory committee has recommended a budget for Oregon senior services that will be funded by revenue from a new 0.5-mill senior levy passed by residents last November. Voters approved the five year levy to expand senior services. The city will collect $210,000 each year in revenue from the levy. Members of the committee have been meeting every couple of weeks since April to discuss the best options for distributing the levy funds. The city has already collected $98,000 in senior levy revenue this year. “We came up with a group of services we can live with, but we want to get pub-
lic input,” said Councilman Terry Reeves, who also chairs the Parks & Recreation Committee and is a member of the senior advisory committee. City Administrator Mike Beazley, who is also a member of the senior advisory committee, said the goal of the committee is to “help ensure that there are services available so that Oregon seniors can maintain or improve their quality of life and make it more likely that they can live comfortably in their own homes as long as possible.” “Helping our senior population age successfully longer in their own homes can improve quality of life and lower costs to our seniors, Oregon families, and the broader community,” he said. The services that can help seniors achieve that success, according to Beazley,
include transportation, homemaker or other in-home services; in-home nursing or health aid services, mobile meals or other common site meal programs; respite for family care providers, socialization or other day recreational activities; health screenings; fitness or health classes to promote general wellness and balance or fall prevention; diabetes control; pain or medication management; and other services to help seniors access the Internet or help with daily life needs. The committee looked at senior services currently being provided in the city, and what services are needed. “There are so many residents of Oregon who really aren’t aware of the services that are available,” said Beazley. Research showed that benefits counseling and help in accessing services were the top needs for
seniors in Oregon. “There are so many folks out there who just aren’t aware of what’s out there. We need to step up and find a way to get them to access services,” said Beazley. Current services Facilities that provide services to seniors in Oregon include the Area Office on Aging, the Eastern Community YMCA, and the James “Wes” Hancock Senior Center, Oregon’s current senior center on Bayshore Road. The Area Office on Aging provides benefits counseling and help accessing services, including Medicare and other health care access or insurance questions; home Continued on page 4
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