Story and photos by Darl DeVault

While Oklahoma seniors have been the most vulnerable to COVID-19, our modern heroes, medical health professionals, have also been impacted by this huge stress event.
Medical outcomes are stark. There are no proven therapies to treat or cure the disease. In Oklahoma, the vast majority of COVID-19 deaths are in seniors 65 or older, as high as 80 percent. The statistics go on and on, unchanging in dire descriptions of how vulnerable aging bodies are to the pandemic.
Another group shares a vulnerability every bit as brutal in descriptions. Our medical health professionals are the next highest death rate in America. Besides the brutal numbers of deaths, there is another facet of their suffering.
They are repeatedly exposed to preventable unmanageable stress. This immersion in the onslaught of a pandemic has the potential to inflict post- traumatic stress disorder.
In honor of the 200th birth anniversary of Florence Nightingale, the World Health Organization (WHO) has designated 2020 as the “Year of the Nurse and Midwife.” Since National Nurses Week is celebrated soon from May 6 through May 12 it is appropriate to ask one “What are you going through?”
Nurse Beth Bierig said last week from New Jersey, “Working on a floor of all COVID-19 positive patients whose change in status happens quickly without warning, makes you feel constantly guarded as to when your own medical health will quickly turn badly as well. You don’t have time to even comprehend how scary the silent killer surrounds every piece of air you work in, but it weighs heavily on your mind.”
Bierig, from Hackensack University Medical Center, goes on to explain how having a servant’s heart can put a nurse in harm’s way. “While performing life sustaining measures on your patients and respiratory fragments flood the air in the process, you can’t help but wonder, will it be saving their life that takes mine?” she said. “I don’t know the effects it will have on myself or other people, because everyone has had different experiences. Every nursing specialty has their own traumas and people are generally drawn to what they can handle.”
Also, “the support nurses receive after this will affect their long-term mental health pertaining to this situation. The whole situation has affected everyone strongly, not only health care providers. We’re living in a historic time and hopefully we all learn from it.”
From the respiratory therapists who manage ventilators, and technicians that manage ICU equipment to the direct caregivers, stress can be overwhelming. The heroes who share their servant’s heart signed up to be properly supported and use their knowledge and ability to affect positive change. Again, at present, there are no proven therapies to cure COVID-19.
Some health care professionals function where they are overwhelmed by the sheer number of deaths that take place right in front of them. Sometimes as often as hourly, these deaths may inflict a PTSD future on the frontlines of medicine.
For those healers who were constantly worried about their own health because of a shortage of personal protective equipment life can change. Just the apprehension of spreading the disease to their family could have a dire outcome.
COVID-19, the severe respiratory illness caused by the novel coronavirus pandemic is extremely transmissible. Properly protected ICU critical care team workers being readied for patient interaction look like preflight prep before blastoff for our moon missions.
These heroes may share an almost as strong an impact as the vulnerable seniors who perished. Some may suffer grave symptoms of psychological stress impacting their ability to deliver medical health care in the future.
Every psyche is different in the many roles played by helping healers who suited up to sustain the COVID-19 patients. Science tells us women are twice as likely to suffer PTSD symptoms.
This pandemic is something different. The onslaught of stress can change brain wiring for the worse — at the level to create PTSD. Later, some may seek to stay away from the situations that remind them of the traumatic events.
Some caregivers may not be able to adaptively overcome the stress and adversity while maintaining normal psychological and physical functioning.
The potential for PTSD is when an individual is placed in a situation where they do not have all the needed equipment, weaponry, support by colleagues in numbers needed, or proper support from superiors. This is also fueled when they feel they do not have the proper protective material and are forced to go in harm’s way relentlessly when they fear for their own survival. On April 3, Oklahoma showed 10.6 percent of its confirmed cases were health care workers.
Situationally produced and yet self-imposed is the stress of sleeping in their cars in their hospital parking lot because they do not want to bring potential illness and death home to their families. This can result in the development of PTSD, depression and other psychiatric disorders.
In a medical scenario where our heroes ran toward the danger and healing is supposed to take place that sounds extremely abrupt. But in many of our hospitals that were overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients presenting repeated unmanageable stressors, that is exactly what was happening.
Often nurses and doctors in COVID-19 hotspots made life and death choices, deciding who was to live and who was to die because of a limited number of ventilators and limited ability to intubate. And there was the randomness of patients dying right in front of them as these patients first entered the hospital.
We must be honest. Nurses and doctors are human and cannot escape that negative impact. People who signed up to work around the sick also take great pride in learning all the ways to be healers.
To suddenly be immersed in the onslaught of hourly and daily negative scenario can have a permanently deleterious effect on the human psyche. It remains to be seen if overwhelming the individual at a high morbidity level has a lasting effect. We know brainwave activity that negativity establishes can create specific pathways in the brain that were not there before.
How do we know what effect this has on these brave people’s body and spirit when these pathways are never compensated for? These individuals may have anxiety and depression from these days forward.
The wild card in all of this are brave medical health professionals who contracted COVID-19 themselves, while trying their best to help others. Hundreds have died around the world. Yes, they signed up for this profession, but not to suffer the same as their patients.
Another stressor is some hospitals, such as the University of Oklahoma Medical Center, are cutting pay and hours because of the strict emphasis on COVID-19 leaving them cash poor.
“A grateful nation will likely create a fund offering therapy and treatment for front line medical professionals who have health problems traceable to saving lives similar to the federal World Trade Center Health Program,” Oklahoman Kara De La Pena, APRN, said. “Considering for many of us who took on preventable risks, the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010 will be held up as a model for providing us medical treatment. That program is funded through 2090 now.”
The seniors saved and whole world thank our heroes and seek restorative insight into the medical outcomes thrust upon the healers who fight to keep people alive.

For most people, sunshine and warming temperatures serve as welcome heralds of summer. But for Renita Lewis, they can trigger life-threatening disease flares.
“People say, ‘You look too good to be sick,’” said Lewis, 51, of Midwest City. But Lewis, a nurse, suffers from lupus, an autoimmune illness that strikes African Americans like her at disproportionate rates.
Lupus occurs when the immune system becomes unbalanced, leading to the development of antibodies and chronic inflammation that damage the body’s organs and tissues. Sufferers experience periodic disease flares, affecting organs that can include the kidneys, lungs, skin and joints, as well as the cardiovascular system.
According to the Lupus Foundation of America, more than 1.5 million Americans suffer from the disease. Studies have found that it strikes African Americans at roughly five times the rate it affects European Americans.
“We still have a great deal to learn about why African-American women are at greater risk of lupus and at greater risk for major organ damage and early death from lupus than other races,” said Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation Vice President of Research Judith James, M.D., Ph.D.
“We have investigators who are working on genetic and genomic factors, as well as our work which has focused on differences in the body’s major defense system—the immune system. In all likelihood, it’s probably a complicated combination of these factors, and we will keep working until we figure this out.”
Lewis’ first symptoms appeared when she was in her 20s: aching muscles, swollen fingers, skin rashes. But she wasn’t diagnosed until a decade later, by which time she also suffered from shortness of breath, fatigue, asthma, stomach issues and inflammation around her heart. “I don’t have kidney problems, but pretty much every other one of my organs is affected,” she said.
She began daily doses of prednisone, hydroxychloroquine, aspirin and anti-inflammatory medications to control her symptom. Still, over time, lupus has exacted an increasing toll on her body. In March, after a bout of pericarditis—swelling of the membrane surrounding her heart—hospitalized her, she was forced to take short-term disability until she’s well enough to return to work.
For more than a decade, physicians and clinical staff at OMRF, which has been named 1 of only 10 of the nation’s Autoimmunity Centers of Excellence by the National Institutes of Health, have helped Lewis manage her condition. “They’re on the cutting edge of research, especially on autoimmune disease, and they really care about me and want me to have as normal a life as possible,” Lewis said.
As a lupus patient and a healthcare professional, Lewis is happy to participate in research studies on the disease at OMRF. “By donating blood and taking part in studies, I hope I can help researchers develop new treatments,” she said. If scientists are able to understand why it exacts such a heavy toll on African Americans, she said, “That would be a total game-changer.”
In a study published in May in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, an OMRF research team led by James moved closer to answering this question.
The scientists found that African Americans with certain risk factors for lupus had elevated activation levels in T cells, which are known to be important in lupus. Meanwhile, European Americans with similar risk factors did not. That may be a reason at-risk African Americans are more likely to develop the disease, said OMRF’s Samantha Slight-Webb, Ph.D., lead author on the study. And the findings could prove key to helping allay the suffering of patients like Lewis.
“Identifying this protective T-cell response could be pivotal in identifying therapeutic targets and potential drugs that may prevent people from transitioning into the disease,” said Slight-Webb. “It would also help us look at drugs—and dosages—differently based on ethnicity to improve outcomes for African-American patients, who are at highest risk for severe disease.”
Lewis would welcome any findings that could help improve her quality of life. Still, she’s more interested in developments that could benefit her daughter, Taraya, 19.
Lewis’ only child, Taraya previously tested positive for antinuclear antibodies, or ANA, an indicator of lupus activity. Taraya also has several relatives on her father’s side with the disease. “So, when she says she doesn’t feel good, I worry,” said Lewis.
Like all mothers, Lewis wants more than anything to protect her child. “If researchers could find a way to prevent lupus from starting, that would be a dream,” she said. “I never want my daughter to go through this.”

For information on treatment or participating in one of OMRF’s studies or trials, please call (405) 271-7745 or email clinic@omrf.org.

Seaman Imoni Okine on the USS Nimitz

U.S. Navy Yeoman Seaman Imoni Okine, from Midwest City, Okla., left, and Yeoman 3rd Class Ruby Crystal Patino, from Los Angeles, review paperwork aboard the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN 68). Nimitz is in U.S. 7th Fleet conducting routine operations. 7th Fleet is the U.S. Navy’s largest forward-deployed numbered fleet, and routinely interacts and operates with allies and partners in preserving a free and open Indo-Pacific region.

by Nick Thomas

Reassembling a dozen cast members from a popular 90s TV sitcom could pose a challenge for any network, much less an individual. But it was a task Fran Drescher relished. As the nasal voiced star of the hit CBS series “The Nanny,” Drescher co-created and co-produced the show along with then-husband Peter Marc Jacobson.
“Peter came up with the reunion idea for fans stuck at home during isolation and I said right away let’s do it if everyone in the cast is available,” said Drescher from her home in Malibu.
Unable to meet collectively in a studio due to quarantine restrictions, all 12 credited actors who appeared in the 1993 pilot agreed to participate from their home in April in a “Pandemic Table Read” via a Zoom split-screen reading of that first episode, interspersed with cuts from the original broadcast.
In addition to the cast, Jacobson narrated the reading while Ann Hampton Callaway – composer and performer of the show’s catchy theme – opened with a lively rendition on piano.
Drescher admits the reunion brought memories flooding back. “To see everybody and to hear the words again made me miss the show and everyone in it so much. It gave me a lift during this terrible period. Hopefully, it did the same for fans.”
Although nearly 20 years have passed since “The Nanny” first aired, Drescher says she still remembers the pilot and the live studio audience.
“They didn’t know the characters or what to expect from us,” she recalled. “But they quickly got it and were soon anticipating laughing almost before we said the lines. They had never really experienced an outrageous character like Nanny Fran Fine that incorporated elements of Cinderella, Mary Poppins, and The Sound of Music’s Maria.”
Several years after “The Nanny” ended production, Drescher was diagnosed with uterine cancer. She completely recovered, but the experience steered her toward a second career to promote a “whole-body approach to wellness” and form the Cancer Schmancer Movement in 2007 (see www.cancerschmancer.org). More recently, Drescher produced a series of videos called “Corona Care 4 You” featuring interviews with health experts during the pandemic.
A longtime advocate of natural foods and products, Drescher was isolated at home for weeks during the spring like much of the country and used the time to catch up on TV shows, writing, and cleaning. As Nanny Fine, her famous TV character might not have scolded Niles the Butler for using corrosive cleaning products to sanitize the Sheffield’s home in which the 90s Nanny series was set, but today she probably would.
“I use 65% alcohol in a spray bottle with a little water and some peppermint oil which smells nice and has some antimicrobial properties,” she said.
Despite the forced home confinement, Drescher took it largely in her stride.
“I happen to like staying at home, so I don’t get cabin fever easily,” says Drescher who currently stars in the NBC comedy “Indebted.” But for the actress and her former husband with whom she remains close friends, their collaboration on “The Nanny” remains a career milestone. “This was our baby and we remember everything about it.”

Nick Thomas teaches at Auburn University at Montgomery and has written features, columns, and interviews for over 800 newspapers and magazines.

by Mike Lee
Staff Writer

Billie Upshaw, RN, has spent the bulk of her career serving residents in long-term care facilities in Kansas. She traveled from border to border to different facilities each week and then did it all again on Monday morning.
Even though former employers may have operated in a different way, Upshaw has always prescribed to the philosophy that every patient is unique.
That’s why she’s so excited about her new role as wellness director with the soon-to-be opened Heritage Point OKC in northwest Oklahoma City.
“It’s not cookie cutter. You meet where that resident is,” she said. “I read a quote somewhere that said that if you’ve met one person with dementia you’ve met one person with dementia. You can’t say ‘this is the way they are, this is what we do.’ There’s not a perfect answer unless you make it that way for them.”
Upshaw is excited about getting in on the ground floor at Heritage Pointe – which is designed after a similar facility in Overland Park, Kansas and will be a sister to a similar residence to open next year in Tulsa.
When owner Kip Pammenter talks about the residents at his Heritage of Overland Park memory care residence he uses their first names.
The president of a company that specializes in Alzheimer’s and memory care knows that’s the only way you can truly make a difference in someone’s life. Getting to know each and every client and meeting them where they are is the hallmark of Pammenter’s successful approach to person-centered care.
Upshaw likes working for someone with that philosophy. She also believes in tailoring care to the individual.
It’s a unique concept in today’s take-it-or-leave it memory care market.
“Each family comes in with their our circumstance and their own issues and that’s their focus,” Pammenter said. “The relationship blossoms and they tie into other families. There’s a lot of empathy. Families are going through the same issue and families lend support to each other.
“They help each other and they help us.”
David Thompson serves as Pammenter’s vice president of operations.
“Really what we’re trying to do – big picture – is the person-centered care approach,” Thompson said. “We want to know what their routines are, what their interests are and how do we give them meaning and purpose and relationships and enjoyment each day in a lifestyle.”
Dealing with the effects of Alzheimer’s disease and trying to understand available care options can be extremely challenging for families.That’s why Pammenter designed Heritage Point to work with families to envision a better way to live with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementia related impairments.
Pammenter wants to truly reinvent Alzheimer’s care and what life should be like for seniors with cognitive challenges. The focus is on each individual resident; knowing who they are and what they love to do…and then finding activities that have meaning and purpose.
Heritage Point will offer a smaller, home environment that promotes dignity, respect and love. A dedicated team of experienced and caring staff understands the importance of developing close personal relationships with residents and becomes an extended part of your family.
Professionally trained care staff, along with the expert guidance of the medical director, offer an unmatched array of services and life activities to create a home that supports each individual person.
“People trust you to take care of their loved ones and sometimes it’s easier for you to take care of them because you’re taking them where they’re at,” Upshaw said. “We want to remember those things that are good and positive in their life but dementia is a robbing disease. It takes away the person and the things that have always been important to them but sometimes you can circle around and get back to that and those are the moments you live for.
“It’s a horrible disease. I hope we can cure it. I would be glad to be put out of a job. I’ll go find something else to do.”

story and photo by Van Mitchell, Staff Writer

Finding the right financial advisor to handle your investments can be challenging for anyone, including seniors.
Mike McCall, a financial advisor with Blue Crest Financial, located at 1300 North Walker Avenue, Suite 200 in Oklahoma City, said transparency is important to him and his clients.
“I’ve been doing this for 23 years,” he said. “Everyone’s had different experiences in life. They may have gotten burned buying an annuity. They may not have a financial advisor. They may not know who to trust. They might’ve had an experience where they put their money in banks and the bank crashed. I don’t have a cookie cutter approach to planning. I sit down with a client, interview them, and find out what’s important to them. I try to find a solution to make it fit. So maybe telling that story might be something that they consider. “
McCall has worked at Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, Metlife Securities Inc, Mml Investors Services, LLC and Mass Mutual Life Insurance Company.
“MML is my broker dealer, and the office that I’m in is Blue Crest Financial Group,” he said.
MML Investors Services, LLC performs a broad set of services, including financial planning services, portfolio management for individuals and small businesses, portfolio management for institutional clients, pension consulting services, selection of other advisers, educational seminars and other services.
McCall offers total financial needs analysis through a network of experienced professionals with expertise in:
• Retirement analysis and programs
• Estate strategies
• Employee benefit and retention services
• Business continuation strategies
• Trust services*
McCall said his senior clients are generally concerned about interest rates, stock market investments, and they’re more inclined to do safer investments.
“The number one concern for people is running out of money in retirement. And, that’s quickly followed by, I don’t know what to believe,” he said. “When you look at marketing today, it’s usually trying to scare the hell out of you. Like going to gold, the world’s collapsing. People don’t know who to trust, and so they need a guide and an advisor. So, a good way to look at me and my practice would be your general practice doctor, the guy you go to for checkups every year, because I’ve got a wide breadth of knowledge in a lot of different areas, I’ll run some tests to ask some questions, find out what’s bothering you, and then we may need to go to a specialist. I don’t want to just sell you a product. I’m more interested in building a relationship.”
McCall said he gives clients the options of what financial planning route they want to pursue.
“I have a process for financial planning, whether we do a fee-based plan or we do an annual review strategy with no fee. I’m going to approach it both ways,” he said. “I’m going to be your guide. I’m going to figure out what are you trying to accomplish, show me where everything’s at right now, and then I’m going to go through and find the best route up that mountain. There might be two or three routes we can take, and I’ll explain that to you.”
McCall also outlines to customers or prospects how he gets paid.
“If they understand that we operate in a levelized commission world, we’re not married to one company, and then our company has a process, a procedure called best interest contract,” he said. “In other words, as a fiduciary, I’ll act in the best interest of my client. Explaining to people my legal status as far as my licensing is concerned, I think that helps. It goes a long way in easing the client’s mind. Either the company’s paying me overcharging the financial fee, and I kind of let the client decide which route or path they want to take because everybody’s different. I think explaining that to somebody goes a long way.”
McCall said he enjoys building relationships with his customers.
“You really need to develop a relationship with that person,” he said. “Transparency means full disclosure, spending time talking to somebody, trying to find out what they’re trying to accomplish. When we engage a client, we lay out a calendar of activities, which can be anywhere from quarterly to annual review. Annual review is just once you get something set up. It doesn’t mean we’re only going to talk once during the year. It just means that we’re not going to do a formal review until the end of that year. Now, a lot of seniors don’t have a lot of moving parts. They don’t need a lot of reviews that may be appropriate to do once a year, and then if you get something in the mail or you can talk to somebody. I’ve got a full-time assistant, especially in that age group. They want to talk to a human being so that they can call me and bounce something off of me during that year. It’s what the client needs or wants to accomplish.”
McCall said it is important to research financial advisors before signing for services.
He said one way to know if a financial planner has good reviews is through what is known as a clean Form U4.
The Form U4 is the Uniform Application for Securities Industry Registration or Transfer. Individuals seeking to register as an investment adviser representative (“IAR”) of a registered investment advisor firm typically must use this form to become registered with a state securities regulator. This document is filed electronically via the Central Registration Depository (“Web CRD”) system.
Beyond these basics, applicants are required to self-report information relating to customer complaints, arbitration claims, regulatory proceedings, bankruptcies, certain criminal history record information, certain civil litigation and unsatisfied liens and judgments, among other things.
“I have a clean U4,” McCall said. “It (clean U4s) helps people from getting scammed because advisors out there that don’t have clean U4 and they just need to be aware of the problems that they’ve had in the past.”
For more information about Form U4 visit https://brokercheck.finra.org.
For more information about McCall’s financial advisory services call –
(405) 486-1400.