NAMI lunch meeting Monday March 12 at Center Stage Deli

Our next NAMI Schenectady lunch meeting is at noon on Monday, March 12, 2012 at Center Stage Deli, 2678 Hamburg St., Rotterdam. Our speaker will be Jody Kovach, manager of the Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) team in Schenectady, under Mohawk Opportunities auspices. The team, with a staff of seven and 48 clients, conducts visits to patients in their homes and meets with them at other locations. The aim is to monitor their health and mental health care and try to keep them from having to be rehospitalized. Our NAMI group has reserved seating at the back of the restaurant. We arrive just before noon. Parking is available in front and along the side of the building. Look for the Center Stage Deli sign right after a U-Haul Truck Rental place. The deli is about two miles south of the intersection of Hamburg St. with Altamont Ave. at its northern end. We will also discuss the Health home initiative in Schenectady, the Forensic Task Force, and progress on our affiliation agreement with NAMI national.

NAMI Schenectady lunch meeting Feb. 13, 2012

Hear ye! Hear ye! NAMI Schenectady holds its next monthly lunch meeting on Monday, Feb. 13 at Pinhead Susan's Restaurant, 38 N. Broadway, Schenectady, at noon. We've invited Dr. Heidi VanBellingham, medical director of the Ellis mental health clinic, as our speaker. We arrive just before noon; you can find us at tables reserved in the back room. Park in the lot across the street. Dr. Van Bellingham is one of the senior medical staff at the clinic, who has been the personal doctor for many of our adult family members. She also serves as the medical liaison to inmates diagnosed with a mental illness in the county jail. She can tell us how things are going for staff and patients at the clinic and PROS program at a time of considerable change caused by the state's Medicaid redesign and clinical rate restructuring. We'll also have time to hear updates on the Forensic task force, coming of Health Homes to Schenectady and other aspects of change. We need to also discuss our status as a chapter with respect to NAMI national's new standards of excellence and affiliation agreements. Please come; we order separately off the menu.

Also a reminder: Two relatives support groups continue to meetfor the families of someone with a mental illness. One is led by Kevin Moran inside Ellis Hospital every Wednesday night at 6 pm in classroom B-3. If you are new pls call Kevin beforehand on 243-4255. Park in the hospital garage and walk through the main hall to B wing elevators which take you to the third floor. See signs on the wall pointing to the classroom. The other support group is run by Frank Greco of the CDPC hospital staff and is scheduled every Monday night from 5:30 to 7 pm in a first floor meeting room at the CDPC Franklin St. Clinic, 426 Franklin St., Schenectady. Call ahead to check on meeting availability, 374-3403. There is also a DBSA--Depression, Bipolar Support Alliance meeting for mental health consumers who have either diagnosis, held every Thursday night at 7 pm, run by Celeste Trotz, 374-9753. Call her before you go if you are new to the group. Meetings are at Grace Lutheran Church, 1930 Hillside Ave., Niskayuna.

NAMI Holiday dinner party at Turf Tavern Dec. 15

Hear ye! Hear ye! NAMI Schenectady holds its annual holiday dinner party at Turf Tavern, 40 Mohawk Avenue, Scotia, on Thursday, December 15. We arrive at 6 and sit down at 6:30 in the Bentwood Room, an arm of the main dining room. We order off the menu so there is no need to prepay for the meal, but we do need you to tell us if you're coming so we can tell the restaurant. The Bentwood Room holds 23 and we usually fill or nearly fill the room, so call the Nevilles (377-2619) as early as possible. We have Joe Gallagher, executive director of Mohawk Opportunities, as our guest speaker. Turf Tavern is a cozy place with delicious food. Hope you will join us on the 15th.

NAMI Schenectady meets Monday, Nov 14, 2011

Hear ye! Hear ye! NAMI Schenectady has scheduled its next lunch meeting at noon on Monday, Nov. 14 at Denny's Restaurant, Nott Terrace and Liberty Street, Schenectady. We arrive at the restaurant at 11:45 and sit down for lunch at 12. We have tables together in the rear room of the restaurant.

Our guest speaker will be Mark Chaires, Schenectady police chief. Mark will tell us how police officers might encounter an upset or violent person in the home or out in the community and what happens from there. Mark has previously shown interest in providing more advanced training for his officers to learn to manage similar situations involving a mentally ill person.

NAMI Schenectady fund raiser chicken barbeque August 19

Folks: We've scheduled our annual NAMI Schenectady fund raiser chicken barbeque dinner for Friday, August 19 at Central Park Pavilion. Festivities start at 4 pm with continuous music from disc jockey Vic Furnari. Dinners served by Center Stage Deli starting at 5 pm. Grilled half-chicken dinners served buffet style with side salads, roll and butter, dessert, coffee and iced tea. There's a Chinese auction with tables out full of gift items for people to take tickets and bid on. Prizes for the best karaoke singers and for the worst ones. 50-50 raffle included. We're counting on families and friends together with many others in the community to come out and make this a success.

Tickets were mailed out to many people in mid-July. If you didn't get a ticket you can call Flora Ramonowski on 372-6771 or Mary or Roy Neville on 377-2619. You can't buy tickets at the door unless you have called one of us first and ordered one or more dinners at least three days ahead of the event. Tickets are $20; consumers of mental health services are charged $10. We hope to see you there on the 19th.

NAMI lunch meeting Monday October 10 at Center Stage Deli

hear ye! hear ye!

NAMI Schenectady holds its monthly lunch meeting Monday, October 10 at noon at Center Stage Deli, 2678 Hamburg St., Rotterdam. Speaker is Darin Samaha, director of the Schenectady County Office of Community Services. Darin will tell us about the local effects of the changes in delivery of mental health services directed by NYS Dept of Health and Office of Mental Health. We've learned there are three providers of services vying to be the operator of a health home in this area and beyond. RSS, Inc. is one, Ellis Hospital in combination with Hometown Health and Visiting Nurse Service is another and Fidelis Care, Inc. is the third. One or more will be chosen by NYS Health Dept to run a network of agencies and organizations as case managers and care coordinators. They will focus on monitoring high cost users of medical and mental health care in hospitals and nursing homes to find ways to hold costs down.

We arrive before noon at the deli, have tables reserved for us at the rear of the restaurant and start the meeting shortly after 12. We order individually off the menu--no need to reserve with us. Center Stage Deli is about two miles south of its juncture with Altamont Avenue at its northern end. From intersection of State St and Brandywine Avenue, go south on Brandywine three blocks to Duane Avenue on your left, turn east on Duane and proceed around bend and over bridge to stop light. That is where Hamburg joins Altamont Avenue. Take left fork at the light onto Hamburg and drive at least two miles south to restaurant. It is on the right, just after U-Haul truck rental place and in small block of stores near the road, with sign in front.

Pls read of other events in our October E-News newsletter to be sent by e-mail about Oct.1. It lists dates and times for weekly relatives support groups and the DBSA consumer support group as well as events happening this month. Find back copies of the E-News on our website, namischenectady.org. See you there. Roy Neville 377-2619

Swimming with the sharks or What I did on vacation

I was out in the Gulf off Florida's Sanibel Island in late March swimming in six feet of water parallel to the beach. I go about a quarter mile up the beach and then turn around and swim back, leisurely, just enjoying the pleasure of it. I'm almost always the only one in the water who swims out this far and stays out for any length of time. I overcome the resistance of waves lapping, the bumps in the water as I paddle along in broad, even strokes. The minutes pass. Nothing disturbs me. There is no sound out here. The children and the grownups I see on the beach as I slowly pass them are silent from here even though it is noisy where they are. Their chairs and beach umbrellas and swimsuits dot the shore with bright colors.

Now I swim with my face underwater and see only yellow--the color when water has a white sandy bottom. When I look toward the shore the water is gray-green and when I look the other way farther out facing toward Mexico it turns dark blue. The line of the dark blue meets the middle blue of the sky at the horizon. I float on my back and look up the sky and the sky infinitely absorbs the color blue. I can stare into the blazing sun, too, which makes me see a blob of orange. It is dreamy and delightful. The sea buoys up my body, now motionless. I roll to one side and take in the whole scene on the beach, pleased that I am the only one here and they can look out and see me daring to be out alone--the old guy with the bald head. I cruise along swimming slowly, my arms moving effortlessly, my breath coming easily and I regard all those on the beach as off in another world.


The days are perfect for a swim--85 degrees and water temperature 72. It is so peaceful. I am aware, however, of the slightest feeling of dread. That spooky feeling that everything could be smashed in a split second. There are sharks around. They roam close to shore in the warm waters surrounding Florida. They are all predators but the small ones that the anglers pull in out of the surf and less aggressive species like hammerheads aren't going to bother me. Just the big guys. You eat sharks—they serve fried shark balls at one of the restaurants, even though they're garbage eaters and carry germs. My father served us shark steaks that he caught with an ordinary line off the pier at Clearwater Beach in 1937.

Over on the Atlantic side you do hear of encounters. It isn't fun because these marauders are sheer power and evil. They have rows of big, sharp teeth like you see on Discovery Channel when they extract one from the sea and open its jaws. No way to escape those jagged tines. The thing is, sharks are dumb or don't see well because they sometimes bump into a swimmer with an immense whack and miss getting a good bite. That's the story I keep in mind, how a teenage girl on her board off Lantana Beach on the Atlantic side was smashed into but the shark missed making a kill. She told the newspaper it felt like getting hit with a truck. And he drove her down in the water to drown her. I'm in only a few feet of water so that doesn't scare me but the idea of being bowled over while I'm innocently watching the girls on the beach, does.

I believe sharks have a miserable time trying to catch anything at all. They don't want a human, that's not their main food. The story is that the surfers lie on their boards waiting for a good wave and the poor shark mistakes the shape of the board for a dolphin, his favorite meal. So I'm careful not to lie motionless on my back too long or dangle a leg that might look like a meal to a shark. I keep moving a little.

Would I know how to fight back if one of these monsters attacked? I learned from Discovery Channel you punch them on the snout in a sensitive place just above the upper lip. Or was that an alligator? They release their grip, although your arm or leg may be inside their jaws by then. Those rows of teeth—BIG, pointy and razor sharp, are going to take a chunk out of you. And you know what that means? You bleed profusely in the water and that immediately attracts all the sharks from South Beach to Acupulco, because they smartly pick up the scent.

So the gambit is not to flop in the water and fight tooth and nail, so to speak, or try to wrestle with a leathery skinned beast far bigger than you and uglier, who loves chomping pieces of flesh off other animals. That's what he does for a living. You run for it—you swim like you never swam before, straight for shore, like you're Michael Phelps racing for the wall in the 100 meters in the Olympics. You yell for help —they will point to you but they won't come. Would you head out from shore to make a second meal for some leviathan? Anyway, you don't stop till you reach beach because the shark has had a taste of you and he's just following the trail of blood now, with a few of his brothers, licking at your toes.

They will lay you flat on the sand while the blood oozes out and the waves lap at your feet. The bystanders will ooh and aah at your gaping punctures. Your wife can't look. The children are told to draw away. When the EMC's come they gently shift you onto a gurney and carry you through the crowd to their vehicle. You wake up to find yourself in a whitewashed hospital room, attended by sweet young nurses. They coo and hover over you while you put aside the pain and tell them how you fought off the biggest of the big sharks. The photographer snaps your picture with the gash in full color. And you'll take a copy of the newspaper back home to show your buddies up north what bravery is really all about. (Roy Neville)