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What should people know about fall allergies? When it comes to cherished autumn trappings, ragweed and mold do not rate highly, especially for allergy sufferers. Dr. Ross Tanis of Hinsdale's Allergy & Asthma Physicians said patients may notice that the period when symptoms are most acute is becoming more protracted. "The warmer seasons are longer, and for that reason you're seeing people having seasonal allergies last longer throughout the year," Tanis said. He cited a...
What do you hope to accomplish your senior year? Meiyan Zhu has one goal for her senior year of high school, and that's to make it the best one it can be. "I'm making sure high school doesn't pass me by," Zhu said. She's made a conscious decision to spend her final year of high school trying new things and stepping back just a bit from her rigorous academic schedule to make time for fun. Just days into the new school year, Zhu already has added a line to her resume as a...
Ali Graeme was brimming with nervous excitement as she prepared to open Sweet Ali's Gluten Free Bakery in downtown Hinsdale in 2009. Surveying her shop's new sign from the sidewalk at 13 W. First St., a couple walked past. "I heard them say, 'Oh, this is a bakery. This isn't going to make it,' " Graeme recounted. Today she can reflect on 15 years of making it and baking it, serving up an assortment of delectables with the ingredients of both good health and fabulous flavor...
What will help kids as school year begins? The lazy days of summer have turned into the busy days of another new school year. Shabana Sheikh, program director of The Community House’s Counseling Center, said a little planning can go a long way toward getting the new year off to a good start. “There’s a lot of exciting stuff that kids look forward to,” said Sheikh, a licensed clinical professional counselor who earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s degree in c...
What's important for brain and body well-being? According to the Alzheimer's Association, nearly 7 million Americans are living with the disease. By 2050, that number is projected to rise to nearly 13 million. In 2021. Alzheimer's disease was the fifth-leading cause of death among people age 65 and older. Those are alarming figures, to be sure. But statistics should not steal people's hope in measures to stave off the effects of Alzheimer's, said Hadi Finerty, senior manager...
For Coldwell Banker agent Cathie Callen, real estate is about problem solving. "It's like a puzzle," Callen said, the pieces of which are different for every person she helps to buy or sell a home. An agent since 2006, Callen said she enjoys helping buyers find a home that meets their physical needs, their emotional wants and their financial means. A mother of three, Callen was raising her children and working as a teacher when she decided to pursue a new career. "I decided...
What are the benefits of chi gung and tai chi? Serving cups of tea. Stepping on melting ice. Gentle actions, but they can be keenly therapeutic when incorporated into the ancient practices of chi gung and tai chi. This summer instructor Patrick Baio has been teaching a 90-minute Saturday morning course on these systems of movements and body postures at The Community House (see Page 17 for details). Baio said the program is for all ages, but most students are seniors. "A lot...
What's been rewarding about real estate law? Dominic Mancini found more than a job when he began his career in Hinsdale nearly 50 years ago. He found his forever home. He's now a father of four and a grandfather of 10, seven of whom live within walking distance of Mancini's house. "I love that," he said, saying it's not at all uncommon to run into a member of his family while out for a walk or driving to work. Mancini also continues to enjoy his work as an attorney...
The funeral business has changed in the century since Harry Sullivan made the transition from an accounting career. “The first location was really just a storefront, because they were still doing wakes and everything in homes,” funeral director Brian Sullivan said of the venture his great-grandfather launched in Chicago’s Marquette Manor neighborhood in 1924. For 100 years the Sullivan family has served grieving families, helping them navigate one of the most difficult episo...
How does oral health affect the body? As a former dentist, Jessica Lederhausen thought she knew all she needed to know about caring for her own mouth. But when she received a diagnosis of receding gums, Lederhausen found herself in search of ways to improve her gum health without surgery. In doing so, Lederhausen became convinced of the effects of oral health on the entire body and the big impacts that small changes can have on physical and mental well being. "It all starts...
What's cool about the Stars & Stripes exhibit? The Fourth of July became a federal holiday in 1870, just a few years before Hinsdale's incorporation. Soon residents of the nascent village were staging their own festivities, like the 1875 celebration that "started at 5 a.m. with the booming of a cannon, no one tells who owned it or where it was located, and it was fired intermittently until 9 a.m. that morning," according to preserved records. "Can you imagine right after the...
There is no single definition of the perfect home. That, said Marie DiCosola, is what keeps her job as a real estate professional interesting. "Every house is so very different and every client is so very different. I kind of fell in love with the process," said DiCosola, a member of the team at Jameson Sotheby's in Hinsdale. DiCosola said she caught the real estate bug while assisting husband Nick, president of the DiCosola Group, a real estate construction, development and...
What are the newest breast cancer treatments? The area's top oncologists, surgeons and healthcare professionals will provide the latest news in the fight against breast cancer when Wellness House presents Hot Topics in Breast Cancer Saturday, June 22. Following a half hour of gentle yoga, participants in the daylong event will hear about the latest advances in breast cancer treatment and research from an expert panel from 9 to 11 a.m. Among the panelists is Nan Chen of...
What's the latest way to treat AFib? Living in the town where he has worked for the last 14 years, Dr. Francisco Aguilar said he sometimes feels like the hometown country doctor. But there's nothing small-town about the major medical tools that Aguilar is able to offer as a cardiac electrophysiologist at UChicago Medicine AdventHealth Hinsdale. The hospital is the first in the western suburbs to provide patients with access to the Farapulse Pulsed Field Ablation (PFA) System...
Why should we visit national parks? Theresa Goodrich recounted a memorable encounter with a group of locals while camping in Badlands National Park several years ago. "Bison just walked right through the field where our tent was pitched," she said, describing the behemoths' use of a picnic table as a scratching post. "A bunch of us were up early and standing on one side of our vehicles because on the other side the bison were having their breakfast." Such out-of-the-ordinary e...
What was it like to set a Guinness World Record? Annie Gustafson will never struggle to find that "fun fact" to share at a party or office ice breaker. She will always be someone who set a world record. Annie, a seventh-grader at Hinsdale Middle School, was one of 353 dancers to set a new world record for most ballet dancers en pointe simultaneously in New York earlier this year. The group set the new record by performing a bourree together for one minute. The previous...
What does commencement mean to you? Hinsdale Central student body President Will Kusak will perform his final duty in that role - and as a Red Devil - serving as an emcee of tonight's commencement ceremony. The roughly 600-strong class of 2024 had no in-person eighth-grade graduation due to COVID, and embarked on its high school journey split in halves to promote social distancing on campus. "We were labeled as an 'A day' kid or a 'B day' kid, and that just caused such a stir...
What plants will cicadas put at risk? Spring is always a busy time at the Morton Arboretum. Add in millions of emerging cicadas and the season's to-do list gets exceptionally longer. "We're doing a lot to prepare," said Spencer Campbell, manager of the plant clinic at Morton Arboretum in Lisle. He said workers at the arboretum were busy throughout the first weeks of May wrapping hundreds of the arboretum's youngest trees to protect them from this year's expected cicada brood....
What does it take to be a Green Ribbon school? As a rookie social studies teacher in Fairfax, Va., Levi Brown was troubled that his school was not recycling paper. "I took empty copy paper boxes and sent an email to all the staff asking if I could put a box in their rooms" to collect discarded paper, recounted Brown, principal of Clarendon Hills Middle School. A great plan, until he realized the school had no recycling dumpster. "I went around and got them and piled them all i...
Why is prayer important? Kristin Haag Mathews was introduced to faith and prayer as a child. As an adult facing some of life's greatest challenges, she turned back to prayer for strength and guidance. In doing so, Haag Mathews said she found peace and a desire to share it. As leader of the Caring Team ministry at Hinsdale Covenant Church, Haag Mathews introduces others to the power of prayer, helps people in their quest to strengthen their faith and leans on her own faith to s...
What can we learn through traveling? During a trip to Iran 11 years ago, June Scott hiked with a group to a remote village that was so off the beaten path, supplies were brought in by burro. The Oak Brook resident and native Hinsdalean approached an elderly woman sitting on a doorstep wearing a customary head covering. "She asked if we were Americans, and we said, 'Yes,' " related Scott, who had a translator. "She said, 'You know what? We like Americans. We do not like...
What is Zyn and why is it harmful? Parents might not be familiar with Zyn, an oral nicotine pouch, but college students certainly are. "It was huge on my campus and we have Illinois Wesleyan right next to us as well," said Grace Thompson, an intern at Candor Health Education who will graduate from Illinois State University with a degree in public health in May. "Between those two schools, it would just be everywhere. There would be younger people who would come down for...
What's important to know about home care? Sheri Kupres of Home Helpers in Hinsdale was meeting with a family about senior care when the daughter asked her elderly parents about some dents she noticed on their car. "They said, 'Oh, we hit this pole'," Kupres relayed. "And the daughter replied, 'Well, what if it was a person?' " Finding the couple a senior living facility may be the next step for some. But employing a caregiver - as the family mentioned chose - also is an...
What are the keys to foot and ankle health? With the return of spring come April showers, May flowers and an uptick in injuries as people emerge from their winter habits. Ashley Lee, podiatrist at Northern Illinois Foot and Ankle Specialists' Hinsdale office, said the return to activities like pickleball, tennis, running, walking and youth sports results in an increase in visits to her office for treatment of sports-related injuries. The surging popularity of pickleball has...
Before entering the real estate industry, Dario Medina saw his father and brother succeed in the business of buying, selling and developing properties. After a decade-long corporate career in New York, Medina decided to join them. Now the managing broker at Better Homes and Gardens County Line in Hinsdale, Medina earned his real estate license in 2007. He got his start as one of online firm Redfin's first Chicago-area agents before working his way up to management positions...
