New trees on Saxon Avenue

Newly planted trees on Saxon Avenue

I was happy to see new trees all over my neighborhood.  It has rained since I took the picture so the trees have been watered.

Lobby Restoration, The Towers

Lobby, November 27, 2015 finishing touches to bottom of seating

October 30, 2015 Lobby almost finished

August, lobby is starting to get the paneling.   Waiting for the updated notice.

July 3, 2015 lobby still unfinished.  No explanation given.

Scenes at the Amalgamated Housing

November 24, 2015 Window Washing Tower 2

November 23, 2015 the windows of my living room in Tower 1 were washed.

Windows being washed on Building 9, September 18, 2015

Balcony Restoration Project, Memos, Photos

The first item, attaching items to railings is important.  Once during a snowstorm a falling flower pot hit my railing and split in half.  Half dropped to the ground, fortunately, no one was out there and hit by it.

Balcony restoration completed

Balcony just before windows boarded up

The dates have been pushed back, no explanation given.  No completion date even hinted at for the B & E lines.

Manhattan woman resists giving up her balcony

Woman fights the law and the law won.

Fortunately, we haven't yet had this problem.  We have had challenges with severely mentally ill people but this story was the most extreme I've heard of.

Discontinuing Heart Drugs

Larry Husten wrote this thought provoking article.  Almost nothing is known about the long term impact of taking heart drugs such as statins, ACE inhibitors, beta blockers and aspirin.  No one has the financial motive to do the research.  On an autobiographical note, I discontinued two medications clopidogrel and amplodipine because I could see no reason to continue with them.  I tried to talk to my cardiologist about my medications and he cut me off with the remark "you don't know how serious your condition is".  I understand, I have a right to discuss my medications.
When should drugs be discontinued

Intercom keypad

The glyph for the bell is hard to decipher.

Aug 24, 2015 I contacted Elvox and learned that the display can be customized.  Instead of showing date and time we could have another instructional panel telling people how to get into the building.  It could be in Spanish.  Management needs to look into how to make the display more meaningful.

FUBU

This did not happen.  The main intercom panel was not installed, no apartments were visited.  Cooperators were not notified of the change in plans.

Plywood off windows

Yeaaay!  The plywood is off my living room windows, the sun is shining in!

Van Cortlandt Village Senior Center

6/16/2015 No air conditioning in the dining room, the room where exercise classes are held.  I spoke to someone in the office who said it will be repaired today.

6/17/2015 again, no air conditioning in the dining room

Amalgamated Nursery Flea Market May 17, 2015

Amalgamated Nursery Flea Market 

TAVR poor survival with severe aortic stenosis

TAVR decreases overall survival in patients with severe aortic stenosis

Here's the first paragraph
Overall survival of patients with severe aortic stenosis assigned transcatheter aortic valve replacement decreased drastically 24 months after surgery compared with patients who underwent surgical aortic valve replacement or sutureless valves.

Bellezza Tempo review

My review of Bellezza Tempo was published in the Amalgamated Houses Community News of March 2015. I have reprinted the review here because someone sent me an email and asked me if I had written it just to get published. No, I wrote it because I was pleased with the haircut I got.

This winter has been very cold.  We’ve all had plans disrupted because of the weather.  One of my delayed excursions was to get a hair cut.  For years I have been going to a beauty salon in Manhattan but this winter I wasn’t able to go there and by February my hair had metamorphosed into a tangled mess.  On Saturday, February 8, there was a break in the weather and I hurried out to run errands.  It began to snow again and for a while it was very heavy.  I decided to cut short my shopping and go home.  On the way back I passed a beauty parlor and it looked empty, Saturday is usually a very busy day.  Hmm, perhaps I’ll get a haircut I thought.  I got off the bus by Bellezza Tempo, and walked inside.  I saw several young women under the dryers but no one was getting a haircut.  A beautician was available.  I got a shampoo and cut.  It came out really well, I’m now set until spring.  These stylists can do hair for both young and old and I suggest you give them a try.

TAVR you have a good chance of dying within 3 years, at least a 24% chance within the first year

Fewer people are getting coronary artery stents, so TAVR is the new cash cow for interventional cardiologists.

26% 1-year death, stroke rate after TAVR

Causes and timing of death during long-term follow-up after transcatheter aortic valve replacement - American Heart Journal

Here's an article about how hospitals in their advertising for TAVR downplay the risks.
U.S. hospitals tout TAVR's benefits, downplay risks
By: MITCHEL L. ZOLER. Cardiology News Digital Network Jan 13, 2015
If patients seek out information online about transcatheter aortic
valve replacement, they'll read mostly about the procedure's benefits
and see much less about its risks, according to a survey of 317 U.S.
hospital websites done in spring 2014.
Close examination of the information available for transcatheter aortic
valve replacement (TAVR) on the websites of U.S. hospitals that perform
the procedure revealed that 99% of the 262 hospitals with websites that
described TAVR mentioned at least one benefit from the procedure, while
26% mentioned at least one risk, Dr. Mark D. Neuman and his associates
reported in a research letter published online on Jan. 12 (JAMA Internal
Medicine 2015:[doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2014.7392]).
"Our findings suggest that web-based advertising of TAVR to the public
by hospitals may understate the established risks of this procedure and
provide little context for the magnitude of those risks to inform patient
decisionmaking. Hospitals may promote appropriate use of TAVR by
presenting more balanced information regarding TAVR's risks and benefits,"
wrote Dr. Neuman, an anesthesiologist at the University of Pennsylvania
in Philadelphia, and his coauthors.
During May-June 2014 they reviewed the websites for each of the 317 U.S.
hospitals listed as sites that offer TAVR by the Society of Thoracic
Surgeons and the American College of Cardiology. Fifty-five of the
hospitals' websites did not have their own English-language web page
that mentioned TAVR. Of the 262 U.S. TAVR centers with a web page that
described the procedure, 260 mentioned at least one benefit, most
commonly the reduced degree of invasiveness of the procedure compared with
open-surgery valve replacement, which appeared on 250 (95%) of the websites.
Of the 69 websites that mentioned at least one risk, they most commonly cited
stroke, on 18% of the sites, followed by vascular complications, on 14%, and
death, on 12%. In addition, the hospital sites supplied numerical
quantification for benefits more frequently than for risks.
mzoler@frontlinemedcomcom
On Twitter @mitche1zo1er
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