< Previous%Locally SourcedLocally Sourced Over the past 12 months, the West Hills Meals on Wheels, which operates out of Coraopolis United Methodist Church, has seen a surge in demand, largely due to COVID-19. During that time, the kitchen has gone from serving about 46 to 64 clients each day. Many of those clients are seniors who are unable to leave their homes due to COVID-19. As that demand has risen, kitchen volunteers have been working hard to help cook, pack and deliver meals for clients. It’s a process that starts in the early morning hours and continues throughout the day. The meals provide vital sustenance at a very low cost of $5 per day to residents in Coraopolis and the surrounding communities. Recipients get a hot meal and a packed brown bag lunch each day, along with a quart of milk per week. While anyone can receive the meals, many clients are seniors. The deliveries thus provide volunteers with the opportunity to do a wellness check and make sure that clients are not in distress. At times, volunteers have found seniors who have fallen. For some seniors, it’s the only outside contact they receive and that isolation has only been exacerbated by the pandemic. To aid in its mission, the West Hills Meals on Wheels has received some vital assistance as of late, some of which has been rather unexpected. In February, after one Meals on Wheels kitchen volunteer tested positive for COVID-19, the kitchen had to temporarily close. In order to continue serving clients, Armstrong’s Restaurant stepped up to help prepare meals for two delivery days. A story about that partnership that aired on KDKA prompted an anonymous donor to give $500 to help pay for the second day’s meals. Armstrong’s was so moved that they covered the cost of the other half, meaning the kitchen only had to cover one day’s meals. Late last year, the church also received support from Subaru of Moon Township and more recently Brewer Airport Toyota made a donation of $4,000 to the West Hills Meals on Wheels account at the Greater Pittsburgh Food Bank. It was the second donation the dealership had made to its account. In November, the kitchen even got a special visit from the Planters Nutmobile during its Pittsburgh tour. The visit helped raise awareness of the kitchen’s efforts and Nutmobile staff even chipped in alongside kitchen volunteers. On Feb. 23, those staff members returned, albeit without their famous vehicle, as they were passing through the area. Barb Hess, the kitchen’s director, gladly opened the kitchen’s doors to them. Meals on Wheels isn’t the only effort to feed the community that operates out of the church. It has also been handing out “Grab ‘n Go” meals on the last Tuesday of each month. The to-go meals have taken the place of monthly community meals the church was hosting in its dining room prior to the pandemic. Meals are ready for pick up between 4:45 p.m. and 5:45 p.m. in the church parking lot at 1205 Ridge Avenue in Coraopolis. Volunteers hand out the meals directly to people in their cars. The meals are free to anyone in the local area but are prepared on an RSVP basis. To RSVP, call (412) 264-3727 or e-mail office@ coraopolisumg.org. The deadline to sign up for the March meal is Wednesday, March 24. Thus far, the response to the to-go meals from the community has been strong and the church routinely serves over 200 meals each month. The church tries to make as much as possible from scratch, and for its March meals is planning to prepare baked ham with pineapple and a brown sugar glaze, scratch-made scalloped potatoes and green beans Caesar. To sign up for Meals on Wheels service, call (412) 262-5973. West Hills Meals on Wheels continues mission during COVID-19, and gets some unexpected assistance STORY AND PHOTO SUBMITTED Volunteers prepare and package food at the Coraopolis United Methodist Church for Meals on Wheels clients. 10 • Allegheny West Magazine • March/April 2021March/April 2021 • www.awmagazine.com • 11%Locally SourcedLocally Sourced Montour Run Bridge construction Hollow Oak has been in the planning phases of this bridge for some time, but it looks as though the project might finally get underway this summer. Final approval of the 200-foot-long bridge is expected in March and construction could start as early as June. The bridge will cross over Montour Run, thereby connecting Hollow Oak’s Montour Woods Conservation Area trails to the Montour Trail. A spur trail leading to the bridge will branch off from the Montour Trail not far from Hassam Road. The bridge will connect with Meeks Run Trail in Hollow Oak’s 10-mile Montour Woods trail system. From there, hikers and bikers can go all the way to Moon Park and the old Nike Missile Site in Moon Township. The $600,000 project is being funded by $400,000 from the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources and a $100,000 grant from the Allegheny County Gaming Economic Development Tourism Fund. Another grant is pending from the Pennsylvania Department of Economic Development. The bridge will also open up additional parking for Montour Woods trails. Current trail heads for the conservation area are located at 321 Downing Drive and 1875 Hassam Road, but can fill up quick. Conservation area trail users will therefore be able to utilize additional parking adjacent to the Montour Trail near the intersection with Hassam Road. Hollow Oak Land Trust planning several big projects in 2021 Local hiking enthusiasts and nature lovers have reason to be optimistic about several new updates and improvements that are planned for Hollow Oak Land Trust trails and property this year. The projects would impact the land trust’s conservation areas in Robinson Township and Moon Township. Hollow Oak is planning construction of a bridge that would connect its Montour Woods Conservation Area trails with the Montour Trail and is working on acquiring the old Nike Missile site in Moon Township. Hollow Oak is also planning to extend its Trout Run trail system, part of which sits not far from where the Western Area YMCA used to operate. The projects coincide with Hollow Oak’s 30-year anniversary of improving public access to nature in the airport area. For more information about any of these areas, including trail maps, visit hollowoak.org. Download the AWMag Events app from awmagazine.com for an interactive mobile map of the Montour Woods trail system and of trail heads. Here is a breakdown of the upcoming improvement projects: Nike missile site acquisition Hollow Oak is currently working to acquire the old Nike missile site in Moon Township from the Moon Township Community Baseball Association. The site sits at the end of Nike Road and would expand Hollow Oak’s existing Montour Woods Conservation Area. The agreement would formally make the area open to the general public. Hollow Oak is hoping to restore the site’s meadows and create a historical exhibit that honors the site, which played a strategic role to national defense during the Cold War. The Nike missile Army base operated from 1956 to 1976 and housed bunkers with anti-aircraft missiles intended to protect the country from Soviet bombers. Some of its missiles were capable of carrying a nuclear payload and its boosters were so powerful that the missiles could reach Erie in just 23 seconds. Hollow Oak’s first property that it acquired in 1998 is located not far from the site. STORY SUBMITTED This old Nike missile site in Moon Township, with its large meadows, may soon become part of Hollow Oak’s Montour Woods conservation area. PHOTO BY DOUG HUGHEY The Montour Run Bridge will cross this section of Montour Run and intersect with the Meeks Run Trail, thereby allowing access from the Montour Trail to Hollow Oak’s Montour Woods Conservation Area. PHOTO BY DOUG HUGHEY Mountain bikers cross through a meadow at the Nike missile site. PHOTO BY CHRIS ROLINSON 12 • Allegheny West Magazine • March/April 2021 12 • Allegheny West Magazine • March/April 2021%Locally SourcedLocally Sourced Trout Run trail improvements Hollow Oak will be looking to improve and add to its Trout Run trail system, part of which is located near the intersection of Montour Run and Hookstown Grade Road, sometime this year. The Trout Run Conservation Area features beautiful rock outcroppings, dense stands of eastern hemlocks and two stream valleys populated by diverse flora and fauna. Hollow Oak staff and volunteers have built two miles of trails through the rugged terrain, with another mile planned for 2021. In addition, Hollow Oak is negotiating with two homeowner associations for the donation of 17 acres and a half-mile of stream valley. This will allow for the construction of an additional mile of trails and bioswales to buffer the stream from storm water. Hollow Oak is currently collaborating with the Moon Township Garden Club to raise mature native perennials at its native plants nursery in Robin Hill Park to plant in the bioswales this spring. Hollow Oak is also working on plans to complete a loop either by the east or west side of Trout Run, or a combination of both, to reach the public Moon Golf Club. Once those private landowner agreements are secured, the greenway could eventually proceed to Moon Park across property owned by the Moon Township Golf Club Authority and the Allegheny County Airport Authority. Hollow Oak is also exploring a grant that will allow it to incorporate road crossings on Montour Run Road and Beaver Grade Road, thereby making it safer to cross over to the Montour Trail. The Trout Run Conservation Area consists of 88 acres that were donated to the land trust by CJ Betters in 2017. Parking for the trails is located at 1162 Hookstown Grade Road. ABOVE: Red trillium grows along a trail in the Trout Run Conservation Area. RIGHT: Volunteers help construct a raised walkway in the conservation area. PHOTOS SUBMITTED March/April 2021 • www.awmagazine.com • 13y > Learning Curves Learning Curves BY MICHELE P. CONTI Most of us dream of that special day when we walk down the aisle. The bride, dressed in a froth of white with beautiful flowers in her hands, is accompanied by her groom and surrounded by their closest friends and family members as witnesses to their love. Oftentimes, this day costs us one year’s salary! Though times are changing, and couples may already live together or have purchased a house, one thing they rarely consider is what happens if their commitment fails and their marriage ends in divorce. Whether you like it or not, Pennsylvania dictates who gets what upon a divorce, unless you have an agreement stating otherwise. That’s the same as our intestacy laws: you die without a will, Pennsylvania already has written out who gets what. So, why not change the narrative? Rather than allowing the state to tell us which assets are yours and which are your partner’s, come to an understanding beforehand. I’ve heard that this takes the romance out of the day and turns the marriage into more of a business relationship than true love. However, if you allow yourself to imagine the worst - and consider that one day your fairytale could crumble - wouldn’t you rather be protected? I know I would. So, what is a prenuptial agreement? It is a contract negotiated by the parties before the marriage. Because it is a contract, each party must have separate legal representation, unless waived. In the event of death or divorce, the terms are already drawn up. This is important, especially if there is a blended family involved. While each prenup is different, depending on your specific assets and goals, many prenups address what should happen to those assets should the marriage end in divorce. It also dictates how much support the parties must provide to each other and what rights a party should have if the other dies. The agreement allows each party to express their expectations and voice which assets they are bringing to the table. Alimony is a common standard, and usually just involves dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s, unless part of the agreement is broken. We traditionally will include an exception should one of the parties be unfaithful that provides either for less alimony or no alimony. The terms are quite important. I’m asked all the time: who should have a prenup? That question is usually followed by the infamous statement: I’m not rich, I don’t need one. My advice is this: ask yourself what you are Prenup: planning for your happily ever after worth, not in terms of dollars and cents, but in time. The woman who helped put her husband through school so he could become a successful professional while she raised the children is kicking herself when, 30 years later, he leaves and she’s left with, what? The house? A car? What about the time she invested in him? That is the old scenario we hear about, but today more women are working and making the same, if not more than, their spouse. So, flip the script - he leaves and now she pays him. Obviously, no two situations are the same. Wouldn’t you wish you had considered the “what if’s” should your fairytale fall short? Allow us to sit down with you and discuss the potential pitfalls if that one day doesn’t turn out to be your happily ever after. If you have already walked down the aisle, then don’t worry: it’s not too late! Married couples can sign a postnuptial agreement after they’ve said “I do!” It’s never too late to secure your financial future. Michele P. Conti is an estate planning and elder law attorney. Conti attended Allegheny College in Meadville, Oxford University and Duquesne University School of Law. She received her LL.M. in taxation from Villanova University. 14 • Allegheny West Magazine • March/April 2021lLegislative Update Legislative Update BY STATE REP. ANITA KULIK State Rep. Anita Kulik State Rep. Anita Kulik represents Pennsylvania’s 45th District. Her office is located at 1350 Fifth Avenue in Coraopolis. She can be reached at (412) 264-4260. Visit her online at www.pahouse.com/Kulik. Many of us are seeing a light at the end of the tunnel with the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccines. There are sighs of relief from family and friends as they start to get vaccinated. Yet with all of this hope comes frustration and confusion as we try to wade through the registration process. The Governor’s Office and the Pennsylvania Health Department have made the choice to forego setting up a statewide registration site. While the biggest obstacle we face is the limited supply of vaccine doses coming from the federal government, the next biggest obstacle is getting people registered for an appointment to get vaccinated. It seems you have to have a great deal of luck on your side to get a vaccine. Without a working centralized site, people must go to each health system, each pharmacy, or to the various county sites to try to get registered. You have to spend a great deal of time on your computer or phone and, even then, you have to have some good fortune just to get through. It is not that the local health systems and pharmacies are not doing good jobs. Most have efficient registration systems and have the personnel ready and able to administer vaccines. The Allegheny County Health Department has been efficient in setting up clinics. All must wait for their allotted share of doses from the state, which are neither adequate nor regular. This is not the fault of the Commonwealth. All vaccines come from the federal government and each state gets a certain amount each week. As a result of various phone calls and emails, I discovered that Pennsylvania was set to get approximately 175,000 first doses each week for the first three weeks of February. I repeatedly expressed my concerns that this is not nearly enough to meet the demand. This limited amount was designated to be shares between the Federal Pharmacy Partnership (those pharmacies that take care of vaccinating nursing home residents), the pharmacies that have signed up with the federal government for the Retail Partnership Program, the healthcare systems, the local pharmacies, and the counties. However, the lack of a centralized system to assist residents is something the Governor’s Office and the PA Health Department should be addressing, or perhaps should have addressed months ago when we knew vaccines were coming. My office and those of my colleagues field hundreds of calls each day from Pennsylvanians who cannot even get through to a system to be registered, let alone get an appointment. The current site only gives a confusing map of providers and sends you to the provider’s site. In order to address this problem, I have joined with several of my colleagues in co-sponsoring a bill that calls for the establishment of a statewide registry for vaccinations. I know firsthand how confusing the current system is as I am still working on every site possible to get my brother registered or scheduled. Like thousands of Pennsylvanians, he suffers from a chronic illness that makes him very compromised. If this bill goes through, and if the site is properly built, it would make getting registered for a vaccine much less complicated for thousands of Pennsylvanians. I am hoping for quick action on this legislation. In an additional attempt to help with the administration of vaccines, the Pennsylvania House unanimously passed House Bill 326. This bill will allow the Pennsylvania National Guard to work with the Department of Health and the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency in the establishment and operation of vaccine clinics. I advocated for this as a member of the Veterans Affairs Committee, especially because I know of the logistical strengths and commitment of our National Guard. COVID-19 remains with us and it is important that we remain vigilant in our mitigation efforts. Mask wearing and social distancing are not political statements. They are acts of respect and courtesy. We have dealt with this pandemic for a year now and, as irritating as things are, far too many of our family and friends are getting sick and being hospitalized. The long-term effects of this virus on our lungs and general health are yet to be fully understood. Keeping our neighbors’ safety in mind will get us to a better place more quickly. In the meantime, the legislature continues to address issues that have been faced by the citizens of the Commonwealth. If all moves properly, Pennsylvanians will have the chance to decide if they want changes made to the way emergency declarations are handled by the government. A question is to be placed on the ballot for a constitutional amendment that would give the legislature more of a hand in determining the length of time emergency declarations can be in place. I voted “yea” to concur on Senate Bill 2, because I believe the people most affected by the decisions made in times of emergency should have a voice in how such things are managed. As we draw closer to election day, I will provide more information on this important question. Hopeful signs for vaccinations 16 • Allegheny West Magazine • March/April 2021March/April 2021 • www.awmagazine.com • 17y > Learning Curves Learning Curves Modern changes in ENT practice: BY GIUSEPPE STALTARI, MD Giuseppe V. Staltari, MD trained at the renowned University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s Department of Otolaryngology and Head and Neck surgery, where he had the opportunity to work alongside world leaders and innovators in the fields of head and neck surgery, laryngology and professional voice care, sleep surgery, ear surgery, and sinonasal surgery. He practices the full breadth of state-of-the-art ear, nose, and throat care, including diagnosis and treatment of allergies and allergic rhinitis, hearing care, sinus surgery, head and neck cancer care, voice disorders care, salivary gland issues, thyroid surgery, and superficial skin cancers of the head and neck. He works with Drs. Froman, Orsini, Rago, and McElwain at The ENT and Allergy Specialists of Western PA and with the Associated Hearing Aid Services. He is accepting new patients. To make an appointment with Dr. Staltari at ENT Heritage Valley-Kennedy, call (412) 771-0416. For more information, visit entallergywesternpa.com. There is more to modern ENT practice than just tubes and tonsils - that’s for sure. In the past several issues, I’ve written about some of the great advances in my field, particularly in regard to sinus surgery and voice surgery, as well as the utility in allergy testing and therapy. Broadly speaking, advances in medical and surgical technology and techniques can either improve our ability to treat disease or improve the comfort of patients during treatment and recovery. In this edition, I’d like to address two exciting new areas that improve our ability to treat common diseases with improvements in comfort for our patients. These are just two notable changes within our field among many new comfortable, office- based procedures, including: ear tubes for children and adults, treatment of recurrent sinus issues, treatment options for eustachian tube dysfunction, and treatment of chronic runny noses and “rhinitis.” While there are many things that continue to change and improve for our patients, we continue to strive for excellence in the mainstays of ear, nose and throat care. Along with the rest of my partners, we are happy to see new patients of all ages for proven excellence in care of hearing, allergies, sinus disease and airway, voice, sleep, and head and neck surgery. Another very interesting change in the way we are able to treat our patients comes in the world of sleep medicine. As I’ve mentioned in the past, sleep surgery was often destructive to a patient’s tissues; that is, surgeons would remove parts of the body in an attempt to facilitate a better airway for sleep and snoring. However, recent shifts in understanding of the body’s physiology and structure allow sleep surgeons and physicians to change treatment options for patients with sleep apnea. Notably, a sleep implant has been designed and FDA approved for use in many patients with sleep apnea that are unable to tolerate a CPAP device. This is placed without destruction of the body’s normal tissues and is essentially undetectable during the daytime. The sleep implant is placed under the skin of the chest during an outpatient procedure. The implant is turned on at a follow-up visit. In doing so, we can drastically improve both the quality of our patient’s sleep as well as potentially eliminate the need for a CPAP machine. Our group is working to develop this implant program for the many patients in the area and throughout the Heritage Valley Health System. Intracapsular tonsillectomySleep surgery with Inspire Tonsillectomy is one of the most commonly performed surgical procedures in the U.S. Performed for a variety of reasons - including recurrent tonsil or throat infections, snoring and sleep problems in children, tonsil “stones,” or recurrent throat abscesses - tonsillectomy involves removal of two puffy pads of tissue in the back of the mouth. With the traditional technique, major risks are well known to any parent or family member who has taken care of a person after surgery, namely pain and bleeding. The tonsils are traditionally carefully removed from a bed of muscle, which leaves raw muscle exposed. This creates a painful wound that is prone to bleeding if the “scabs” fall off from approximately 10 to 14 days. An exciting paradigm shift in our field involves utilizing a slightly different technique to remove the bulk of the tonsils. This leaves a small rim of tissue behind to cover the muscle, blood vessels and nerves. This technique, commonly referred to as an “intracapsular” tonsillectomy, allows for a much more comfortable recovery with a significantly lessened chance of postoperative bleeding. We are now offering this for appropriate patients. 18 • Allegheny West Magazine • March/April 2021y > Learning Curves Learning Curves We’ve all heard that, just as the eye sees “out,” our eyes are also windows into our bodies. It turns out that this is true, as the eye is the only place in the body where we can easily get such a good view of the body’s blood vessels, which are covered up by skin and fat elsewhere. What we can infer from examining these vessels in the eye during a regular eye exam can have serious health implications beyond just eye health. In 2019, a patient came to see me for a regular eye exam. While examining the retina of this patient, I noticed something odd. I could tell that the blood in the retinal veins was backing up. These veins run from the optic nerve about two inches to the brain. Somewhere past the optic nerve there was a blockage. What I was seeing was a stroke in progress, and this patient was just 48 years old. One of the reasons I could tell what was happening was because of this patient’s past retinal photos that had been taken during previous eye exams. These photos are extremely important, as they allow us to follow the progress of a patient’s overall health. Comparing past photos to present ones help us track if a patient is getting better or worse, or staying the same. While these photos tend to be nearly identical, small changes can be indicative of serious health conditions. Now, what if I didn’t have the first photo for comparison? There’s a very good chance I would have missed what was occurring. Since I had the old photo, however, the evidence of a blockage was easy to see. To make a long story short, the patient was sent to the hospital and did not have a stroke. That’s a good day at the office! This wasn’t the only time I’d conducted a routine eye exam only to discover that a patient had a serious underlying condition. For example, while examining another patient, I could see plaque buildup in the retinal vessels. This indicated that a similar amount of plaque had almost certainly built up in vessels in other parts of When an eye exam catches a medical emergency before it happens BY DR. CLAUDIA WENDEL the body. Most worrying, it could be inferred that these vessels, including the heart vessels, likely looked similar. This patient was referred to a cardiologist, who said the patient would probably not have made it another five months without serious medical intervention - and we learned all of that from an eye exam! Yet another condition that we can monitor through regular eye exams is blood vessel health. This is particularly important for people such as diabetics who have high blood sugar. This condition weakens the vessels and can cause them to bleed. If we can see hemorrhages in the retinal vessels during an eye exam, it can be assumed that these hemorrhages are also occurring elsewhere in the body. These hemorrhages, or the leaking of the blood vessels, can wreak havoc on tissues, leading to foot problems, kidney and liver problems, and cardiovascular issues, just to name a few. Note that none of these conditions are tied at all to vision and it was not important that the patients mentioned had glasses. Whether you have good eyesight or not, it’s important for everyone to get a routine eye exam. If you read my reviews online at local.demandforce.com/b/eyegotcha, you’ll find I do one of the best. ABOVE: These two pictures were taken of a patient’s retina by EyeGotcha. The one on the left was taken in 2017 and the one on the right in 2019. Though nearly identical, the white arrows point to retinal vessels that, in the 2019 photo, have become bunched, indicating the presence of a blockage. These vessels run about another two inches to the brain. Were it not for the eye exam that caught these images, this patient would have likely suffered a stroke. BELOW: This image taken during an eye exam shows hemorrhaging caused by high blood sugar, a condition that can lead to liver damage, cardiovascular issues, and other problems. Dr. Claudia Wendel has owned and operated EyeGotcha optical center in McKees Rocks since 1986. She is accepting new patients. Call her at (412) 331-9696 and visit them online at eyegotcha.net. March/April 2021 • www.awmagazine.com • 19Next >