Try a little 'elder proofing'

Try a little 'elder proofing'
EDITOR:
We go to great lengths, and rightly so, to child proof our homes. We are past that stage in our lives and now have decided to elder proof our home.
The cellar steps had suddenly become a real problem, and we were depending more and more on the use of the wall to guide us down and up the steps. Then there was a visit from our daughter who resides in Florida. She remarked how dark my kitchen was as we worked together preparing a meal. Then there was the toilet that became increasingly hard to depart from and we wondered if a lift toilet was available.
A phone call to a local handyman solved it all. In one morning he installed bright, recessed lights over our kitchen sink, built a railing on the cellar steps and installed a vertical grab bar near the toilet to assist our getting up and down.
What a difference these small improvements have made, we no longer struggle and as such feel years younger than our 82 and 84 years.
Try it, you will like it.
GRACE WILLIAMS
Youngstown
Progress in fight against cancer appears illusionary
EDITOR:
It is strictly in my opinion that we are no further ahead in fighting cancer than we were Dennis Mangan 1/17/06 in the primitive by-gone era of when the colonial settlers first arrived in this country. Sure there is much, much more money passing hands nowadays involving this worldwide disease., but that does not mean we have made any real progress.
I feel that it may be the actual dollars themselves that are the true stumbling block. Recently, I have discovered that I am just one of thousands of believers who feel that we as a nation are at least 40 years behind where we should be in finding a cure for this ugly, ugly sickness. Ask any marketing team from any of the 10 top clinics in this country and they will show you amazing, wonderful statistics that will prove my opinion unworthy and fact-lacking. However, ask me about the ugly, painful and untimely death that my sweet mother just endured, and I will tell you how she was discharged to come home in a very weakened condition from one of those top 10 clinics just weeks prior to her death to avoid a listing in their deceased record books as one of the unflattering statistics.
The clock is ticking and time is way past due for one of our young, brilliant, recently graduated oncologists to step up to the plate and take us into the 21st century.
DAVID MacKONDY
Poland
When are we going to start belting the kids on buses?
EDITOR:
Lt. Christopher Heverly, commander of the Canfield post of the State Highway Patrol, said in a Jan. 8 story that troopers will be patrolling problem areas where passenger safety-belt compliance is too low in an effort to save more lives. He says that Ohio's child passenger safety law requires children under the age of 4 and/or less than 40 pounds be restrained in a child safety seat. Throughout the coming year, troopers will also be looking for child passenger safety violations.
Does that include all vehicles on the roadways, and if so, when to school buses get seat belts installed for their passengers?
School buses carry our children to and from school on the same roads. A school bus can get in an accident just as well and roll over and the children get injured or killed.
Maybe there is something I don't understand about the seat belt law.
TONY SCARSELLA
Youngstown