LIVING FEATURE  Cindy Davis-Huffman has endured more than moments of fatigue. She nursed for 23 years in intensive care, among the high-stress, high-stakes environment of patients perched on death’s door. Between the ICU and her most recent second job as an organ donor nurse, she felt depleted, like a slow-leaking rubber life raft. With one child in grade school and the other in high school, the 44-year-old worked up to 50 hours per week in ICU and spent another 48 hours on call for her second job.

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PARENTING  Kristina Elverum was in a daze during the one-week post-partum follow-up at her obstetrician’s office. The friendly receptionist asked, “How far along are you?”

Elverum, standing alone in the waiting room, taking in the bevy of late-term pregnant women and new mommies cradling their newborns, quietly responded.

“I told her I’d already had a baby, then she was looking around for her, so I asked, ‘Can you get me straight into a room, please?’” Read More>>

EXERCISE  Agility is what keeps an off-balance football player from going head-first into the turf. It’s what keeps an errant diver from belly-flopping into an Olympicsize swimming pool.

It can be trained in many ways, but Chris Sarquillo prefers gymnastics. As a coach at Spokane Gymnastics, he’s seen his students start as gymnasts and go on to be stars in soccer and other sports where quick movement is key. Read More>>

COOKING  For Chef Ryan Stoy, a meal’s last course is sort of like the passing of the Olympic torch. “Dessert offers an opportunity to remember the last bite — and look forward to the next,” says the Downriver Grill chef.

While dessert fills many health-conscious eaters with apprehension, Stoy says it doesn’t have to be a diet disaster. Instead, desserts can offer the perfect opportunity to enjoy seasonal ingredients and experiment with unique flavor combinations that don’t rely on fat and sugar to wow the tastebuds. Read More>>

PEOPLE  If one has spent the majority of his life donating blood — nearly 40 gallons worth — you’d suspect he’d say he’s done it out of a profound sense of community or some other altruistic motive.

At 83, Eldo Androes wouldn’t fess up to any of those motivations, at least publicly. He did admit that after donating blood he tends to “feel better” physically. Could it be there’s such a thing as a donor’s endorphin rush?

This much is certain: Whether Androes is deliberately downplaying his contributions in an aw-shucks-it’s-no-big-deal manner, his actions speak more profoundly than anything he could ever articulate. Read More>>

FROM THE EDITOR  Grab your mug and fill it up. Just in time for the chilly mornings coming our way, a new study of more than 40,000 healthy Germans confi rms, yet again, that drinking coffee has health benefi ts. In this study, those who drank at least three cups a day of regular or decaffeinated coffee were about 25 percent less likely to develop diabetes over the next nine years as people who drank little or no coffee. Hallelujah! A cup, or three, of coffee each day is one health habit I can wholeheartedly endorse. While coffee has already been found to offer some protection from Parkinson’s disease and gallstones, most of us aren’t drinking it because it’s so healthy. We simply need it to rev up our sleepy selves for the day ahead. Read More>>

GUEST COLUMN  We’ve all heard the old adage: The Spokane area is a great place to raise a family. Central to this statement is a belief about our residents’ health as a resource that enables our community to achieve its fullest potential. But the Spokane Regional Health District’s recent report, Health Inequities in Spokane County, paints a different picture of the town where I was born. In reality, health inequities are affecting the lives and futures of people all over the world. Spokane is no different. Read More>>