By Bill Landon
Sophie Alois led the way for Middle Country finding the back of the cage eight times in a nonleague matchup on the road defeating Hauppauge, 15-10, April 22.
Eighth-grader Kate Timarky stretched the net for five goals along with two assists, and teammates Jennifer Barry, who is Boston University bound, and Sydney Juvelier, who will play for Pace University, each scored a goal.
As of April 24, the Mad Dogs were 8-1 overall just behind Northport who sits at the top of Division I.
By Bill Landon
Miller Place’s softball team was down in runs for most of the game at Shoreham-Wading River Wildcats April 22, but the team rallied in the top of the seventh,scoring four unanswered runs to tie the game against SWR at 11-11 to force extra innings.
It was Wildcats freshman Lindsay Cahill’s bat that decided the game in the bottom of the ninth, driving home senior Katlynn McGivney to win the game, 12-11, in a League V matchup against their crosstown rival.
Sophomore pitcher Genna Baudo was credited with the win as the Wildcats improve to 3-6 in league. The loss drops the Panthers to 6-3 with seven games left to play before the postseason. The Wildcats will need to win four games out of their remaining schedule to extend their season.
The crosstown rivals will take on two of the South Fork teams April 25, with visiting Miller Place taking the field against East Hampton for a 10 a.m. start. The Wildcats will host Westhampton with first pitch also at 10 a.m.
A native of Shoreham is in need of help.
Lisa Pepper-Byron, a mother of three young daughters ages 2, 6 and 7, was diagnosed with medulloblastoma, a cancerous tumor that starts in the brain and spreads to the spine, in December 2018.
Earlier last month, members of her family created a GoFundMe page in her name. Pepper-Byron now resides in Concord, North Carolina, along with the majority of her family and was working as a wedding planner before she was diagnosed, and she currently lacks health insurance. Since she has started radiation treatments, she is unable to work and support her family, according to the GoFundMe page.
Jamie Pepper, one of the Shoreham native’s sisters, said her sibling is a giver and tries to be the best role model she can be for her young daughters.
Pepper-Byron grew up and lived on Long Island for much of her life, graduating from Shoreham-Wading River High School in 2002 and during her high school days worked at Mr. G’s Pizza in Wading River. The mother of three only moved to North Carolina in the past few years.
The GoFundMe campaign has already raised close over $7,300 of the $200,000 goal within a month, with 127 individuals having donated. The is a currently trending campaign on the site.
“Lisa is really overwhelmed with the amount of support she has been receiving,” Pepper-Byron’s sister said. “She is doing her best to remain strong during this
difficult time.”
Pepper-Byron recently underwent surgery to remove two tumors from her brain to try to prevent the cancer from spreading to her spine. After the surgery, she began another round of chemotherapy.
“Our family is very grateful for the amount of love and generous contributions Lisa has been receiving on her GoFundMe campaign,” Pepper said.
All funds collected from the campaign will go for treatments, medications, a reliable vehicle and short-term expenses for her and the family. The family hopes people support the campaign so that Pepper-Byron can undergo her chemotherapy treatments without the worries of all the expenses involved. You can donate to campaign at https://www.gofundme.com/help-lisas-brain-cancer-treatment-and-care or can send contributions to the Pepper Family at 101 Georgia Street NW, Concord, North Carolina, 28025.
The rain this past weekend didn’t stop a certain rabbit from dropping off goodies at Benner’s Farm for Three Village and neighboring children.
The farm hosted egg hunt events April 20 and 21, where children found plastic eggs filled with treats and stuffed animals.
Families also were able to visit with the farm’s baby animals, check out crafts from vendors, play on the big swing, walk the trails and take pictures with the Easter Bunny!
St. James R. C. Church in Setauket also hosted its egg hunt April 21 after Easter Sunday morning service.
Following a months-long search process, the Rocky Point school district has selected Scott O’Brien as its next superintendent of schools. O’Brien will succeed Micheal Ring, who is set to retire this summer after 11 years of service to the school district, the last nine years as superintendent of schools. The school board named him to the position at its April 16 meeting.
“During the application process, it became evident that the candidate best suited and qualified to lead our schools into the future was already part of our administrative team,” said board president Susan Sullivan. “In his many years working in our district, Scott has cultivated strong connections with parents, students and residents alike. This, combined with his passion for education, convinced the board that he will continue to serve our district well in this new role.”
O’Brien, who currently serves as the district’s interim assistant superintendent, has nearly two decades of educational experience in the Rocky Point school district. He served as a principal in the district prior to his current position, most recently for Rocky Point Middle School and previously for Frank J. Carasiti Elementary School.
O’Brien earned his doctorate in educational leadership and accountability at St. John’s University, professional diploma in educational administration at SUNY Stony Brook, master’s in literacy from Dowling College and bachelor’s of science in psychology and special education from Le Moyne College.
“Rocky Point has always felt like a home away from home for me, and I am honored and humbled to begin this new professional journey here,” the incoming superintendent said. “This district is well-regarded for the robust educational offerings we provide to students at all levels … I look forward to working collaboratively with the staff, students and community to take our district to the next level of excellence.”
The Port Jefferson Chamber of Commerce hosted its annual Easter parade and egg hunt April 21, sneaking in the event between the weekend rains.
Starting from Theatre Three, the young kids of Port Jefferson and the surrounding communities strode down Main Street towards Harborfront Park, where chamber volunteers had been planting eggs since 11 a.m. Yellow police tape acted as a guard and a starting line for the kids, many dressed in faceprint and bunny ears, before they could run off to collect their eggs. Once the tape was removed, those kids were like a swarm of piranhas, and the field was stripped clean of the brightly colored eggs before one could say “Happy Easter.”
After the race for eggs, kids had the opportunity to take a picture with the Easter Bunny, namely Chamber President Barbara Ransome dressed in the trademarked costume, before walking away with a chocolate bunny.
The first two people to place an order from the new Thomas Cutinella Memorial Field Concession Stand April 12 were members of the Cutinella family themselves. Frank and Kelli Cutinella, who lost their son from a head injury in 2014, asked for something simple, two small cups of coffee.
Frank Fontinell, a Shoreham-Wading River high school student, was one of two students first to run the stand that day. As the small team inside the new concession stand started making up the family’s order of coffee, Fontinell shouted, “The concession stand is now officially open.”
There on the Thomas Cutinella Memorial Field, the concession stand is just another piece of the community coming together to honor the legacy of the young man who died in 2014.
“It’s really a testament to our community, to the Shoreham-Wading River community and to Thomas,” Frank Cutinella said. “This school has been open since 1975, [the new structure] is in 2019, that’s a big accomplishment.”
The new concession stand has been a long time coming. Though the district first broke ground on the project in 2017, plans for the new structure have been ongoing for more than one district administration. Former district board members and now retired superintendent Steven Cohen were recognized for helping get the structure’s plans off the ground.
“The previous board of education, as well as this one, kept it alive, and we’re thankful for that,” Frank Cutinella said.
District officials said the total cost for the new stand was $800,000, though the district estimated 99 percent of those funds came from multiple individuals and businesses, either donating materials, money or time to building the project.
Superintendent Gerard Poole said the entire exterior brickwork was completed by a contractor who wanted no money nor recognition for the deed. Many of the same people who assisted in the project, giving thousands of dollars in time and materials, didn’t ask for recognition for their help. At the April 12 ribbon cutting, the board handed out framed acknowledgments to the people who were involved, yet at the end of the ceremony, many remained unclaimed.
“It came together with a lot of donations,” Kelli Cutinella said.
The stand will be run by two to three students at a time, with an adult supervising, as part of the high school’s career development program. Students can earn vocational credit by helping to operate the new stand, according to Poole.
The Cutinella family and the school have been working hand in hand to help build the new structure with the Thomas Cutinella Memorial Foundation, with the organization helping to add extra funding for construction, according to Frank Cutinella.
The foundation, which was founded in 2015, has since raised over $50,000 in scholarships for students, which goes out to graduating SWR high schoolers and to others from throughout Suffolk County. The family has also had a big hand in changing the rules in New York State for high school football, namely the manner in which tackles are legal out on the field.
By Maureen Rossi
With the opioid epidemic still endemic throughout Suffolk County and beyond, New York State senators are hoping the new state budget will mean more help for those in the throes of addiction.
Measures woven into and passed in the state budget include increasing access for those suffering with substance use disorder to access 28-day inpatient and outpatient programs without prior insurance authorization. They also include money for a recovery high school start -up and no prior authorization for medication- assisted treatment.
“These are critical reform measures,” said New York State Sen. Monica Martinez (D-Brentwood). In addition, she touted another reform, which will require emergency rooms to enact screening, brief intervention and referral to treatment for all overdose patients before they are released. For the first time, emergency room doctors will also initiate medically-assisted treatment to overdose patients prior to their release, utilizing drugs like buprenorphine that alleviate the craving for opioids including heroin.
Martinez was joined by her Democratic colleagues at a press conference in Islandia April 12. Senators Anna Kaplan (D-Great Neck), James Gaughran (D-Northport), Kevin Thomas (D-Levittown) and Todd Kaminsky (D-Long Beach) gathered at THRIVE Long Island, a community center for people in addiction recovery whose funding was a legislative win three years back.
The Island’s Democrats were joined by stakeholders to celebrate critical initiatives passed in this year’s state budget to combat Long Island’s pernicious opioid epidemic. Those stakeholders include parents of those lost to the epidemic, those in recovery and those in the prevention and addiction field, including the CEO of Family & Children’s Association Jeffrey Reynolds, of Smithtown.
“There is still much work to be done to combat the opioid epidemic we are seeing here on Long Island,” Martinez added. She looked to Reynolds to the right of the podium and shared that he was tenacious in getting the Long Island’s senators’ attention as the hours dwindled in budget meetings. “He used social media and tagged every single one of us and let us know what funding was missing in the budget.”
Kaplan said the crisis affects every community, every school and every community.
“Too many innocent souls have been lost to this disease, they have been failed time and again,” Kaplan said. “We are done with half-measures — we will do everything we can to help people get into long-term recovery.”
One such measure included and passed in the budget was the funding of another THRIVE center for Nassau in Hempstead. The doors are scheduled to open next month.
Kaminsky met with some Long Island parents who lost loved ones to the epidemic prior to the budget process. Figures released by the addiction experts on Long Island put that figure at 3,400 since 2010.
“When a parent tells you the story of how they found their child (dead), you want to make sure another parent doesn’t experience that,” said Kaminsky.
When it came to budget negotiations that lasted around the clock, the state senator said they would not take no for an answer.
Suffolk County has long been a powerhouse when it comes to shining a light on the opioid epidemic and taking legislative measures to address it. Packages of historic bills have been pushed through statewide by Suffolk County advocates. The county is one of the state’s hardest hit counties and they were the first county in the country to file a lawsuit against Purdue Pharma, the makers of the drug OxyContin.
Reynolds addressed the senators on behalf of the sixty-plus advocates present. “ ‘Thank you’ seems insufficient. You promised on campaign trails you would do good for Long Island. Thank you so much for your efforts,” he stated.
However, Reynolds promised that he and the Long Island advocacy movement will always ask the senators to do more.
By David Dunaief, M.D.
There are currently about 75 million people with high blood pressure in the U.S. Put another way, one in three adults have this disorder. If that isn’t scary enough, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that the number of people dying from complications of hypertension increased by 23 percent from 2000 to 2013 (1).
Speaking of scary, during nighttime sleeping hours, the probability of complications, such as cardiovascular events and mortality, may have their highest incidence.
Unfortunately, as adults, it does not matter what age or what sex you are; we are all at increased risk of complications from high blood pressure, even isolated systolic (top number) blood pressure, which means without having the diastolic (bottom number) elevated as well. Fortunately, hypertension is highly modifiable in terms of reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease and mortality (2). At least some of the risk factors are probably familiar to you. These include being significantly overweight and obese (BMI >27.5 kg/m²), smoking, poor diet, lack of exercise, family history, age, increased sodium, depression, low vitamin D, diabetes and too much alcohol (3).
Of course, antihypertensive (blood pressure) medications treat this disorder. In addition, some nonpharmacological approaches have benefits. These include lifestyle modifications with diet, exercise and potentially supplements.
Risk factors matter, but not equally
In a study, results showed that those with poor diets had 2.19 times increased risk of developing high blood pressure. This was the greatest contributor to developing this disorder (4). Another risk factor with a significant impact was being at least modestly overweight (BMI >27.5 kg/m²) at 1.87 times increased risk. This surprisingly, albeit slightly, trumped cigarette smoking at 1.83 times increased risk. This study was observational and involved 2,763 participants. The moral is that a freewheeling lifestyle can have a detrimental impact on blood pressure and cause at least stage 1 hypertension.
High blood pressure doesn’t discriminate
One of the most feared complications of hypertension is cardiovascular disease. In a study, isolated systolic hypertension was shown to increase the risk of cardiovascular disease and death in both young and middle-aged men and women between 18 and 49 years old, compared to those who had optimal blood pressure (5). The effect was greatest in women, with a 55 percent increased risk in cardiovascular disease and 112 percent increased risk in heart disease death. High blood pressure has complications associated with it, regardless of onset age. Though this study was observational, it was very large and had a 31-year duration.
Nightmares that may be real
Measuring blood pressure in the clinic can be useful. However, in a meta-analysis (involving nine studies from Europe, South America and Asia), results showed that high blood pressure measured at nighttime was potentially a better predictor of myocardial infarctions (heart attacks) and strokes, compared to daytime and clinic readings (6).
For every 10 mmHg rise in nighttime systolic blood pressure, there was a corresponding 25 percent increase in cardiovascular events. This was a large meta-analysis that utilized studies that were at least one year in duration. Does this mean that nighttime readings are superior in predicting risk? Not necessarily, but the results are interesting. The nighttime readings were made using 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure measurements (ABPM).
There is something referred to as masked uncontrolled hypertension (MUCH) that may increase the risk of cardiovascular events in the nighttime. MUCH occurs in those who are well-controlled during clinic readings for blood pressure; however, their nocturnal blood pressure is uncontrolled. In the Spanish Society of Hypertension ABPM Registry, MUCH was most commonly seen during nocturnal hours (7). Thus, the authors suggest that ABPM may be a better way to monitor those who have higher risk factors for MUCH, such as those whose pressure is borderline in the clinic and those who are smokers, obese or have diabetes.
Previously, a study suggested that taking at least one antihypertensive medication at night may be more effective than taking them all in the morning (8). Those who took one or more blood pressure medications at night saw a two-thirds reduction in cardiovascular event risk. Now we can potentially see why. These were patients who had chronic kidney disease (CKD). Generally, 85 to 95 percent of those with CKD have hypertension.
Eat your berries
Diet plays a role in controlling high blood pressure. In a study, blueberry powder (22 grams) in a daily equivalent to one cup of fresh blueberries reduced systolic blood pressure by a respectable 7 mmHg and diastolic blood pressure by 5 mmHg over 2 months (9).
This is a modest amount of fruit with a significant impact, demonstrating exciting results in a small, preliminary, double-blind, placebo-controlled randomized trial. Blueberries increase a substance called nitric oxide, which helps blood vessels relax, reducing blood pressure.
In conclusion, nighttime can be scary for high blood pressure and its cardiovascular complications, but lifestyle modifications, such as taking antihypertensive medications at night and making dietary changes, can have a big impact in altering these serious risks.
References:
(1) CDC.gov. (2) Diabetes Care 2011;34 Suppl 2:S308-312. (3) uptodate.com. (4) BMC Fam Pract 2015;16(26). (5) J Am Coll Cardiol 2015;65(4):327-335. (6) J Am Coll Cardiol 2015;65(4):327-335. (7) Eur Heart J 2015;35(46):3304-3312. (8) J Am Soc Nephrol 2011 Dec;22(12):2313-2321. (9) J Acad Nutr Diet 2015;115(3):369-377. (10) JAMA Pediatr online April 27, 2015.
Dr. Dunaief is a speaker, author and local lifestyle medicine physician focusing on the integration of medicine, nutrition, fitness and stress management. For further information, visit www.medicalcompassmd.com or consult your personal physician.
Suffolk County legislators announced April 16 all county residents will have free access to all county parks April 20 through April 28.
Parks Appreciation Week will coincide with National Parks Week, which promotes free access to all federally-owned parks.
Normally residents require the county parks Green Key Card, which charges $30 for a three-year pass; otherwise they would have to pay a parking fee. During the week the county will have no admission required.
“We have this luscious, beautiful woodland that we can enjoy,” said legislator Sarah Anker (D-Mount Sinai).
During the week, Suffolk officials are also promoting a number of programs in many county parks.
For more information, go to Suffolk County’s parks website at https://www.suffolkcountyny.gov/Departments/Parks or call Suffolk County Parks Department at 631-854-4949.
Prev
