Tony Testa is most at home on stage. As the leader of the ‘60s doo-wop vocal group The Duprees, his voice is his instrument. When he woke up one morning unable to speak, he wondered if his 60-year career was over. Tony, 76, a resident of Jackson, is known [...]
If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, you are not alone. An estimated 9.3 million adults have reported having suicidal thoughts in the past year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Recent celebrity suicides can perpetuate these thoughts, as can other triggers [...]
Brian Giacchi has experienced muscle spasms off and on since age 9. When the condition ramped up in his 20s, he sought medical advice. Unfortunately, several years of doctors’ visits, testing, and frustration failed to solve the mystery. Then finally, at age 34, he got an answer: he had [...]
A few years ago, Walter “Bud” Burch’s wife, Kathy, found him on the kitchen floor writhing in pain. He had to be carried to their truck before being driven to the emergency department. Suffering from a chronic condition called trigeminal neuralgia, Bud lived with this kind of intense pain [...]
While some people live with some degree of pain, those with chronic pain may struggle to complete even the simplest activities of daily living, severely impacting their quality of life. A relatively new therapy—neuromodulation—can greatly alleviate discomfort for chronic pain sufferers. Neuromodulation devices work by delivering gentle electrical impulses [...]
For Bob Granito, the personal obstacles he conquers during a 12-mile Tough Mudder® are harsher than the challenges of a 16-foot-high wall, dangling live wires, or a water pit. A veteran participant of 10 Tough Mudders, the 55-year-old Freehold resident demonstrates that his multiple sclerosis (MS) does not define [...]
In 1993, Elizabeth Losardo, then 64, and her husband Michael, had just retired from Brooklyn to Monroe Township and were ready to start living the good life—including wintering in Florida. As Elizabeth recalls, it was a normal day. She woke up and merely had an innocent yawn. The next [...]
Ulcerative colitis by itself would have been bad enough. By the time Kristin Detamore, then 35, returned to work as a school social worker after the birth of her second son, she was accustomed to the pain from inflammatory bowel disease. But the headache baffled her. Unfortunately, the headache soon [...]
That optimism came from a 24-year-old woman who just the year previously had her life turned upside down by a stroke. Now, more than two years later, Alex's positivity has only grown as she continues to make remarkable progress in her recovery. In December 2012, Alex was just getting [...]
Catherine Zalewski knew right away that she was having a stroke. She just wasn’t able to tell anyone around her. Catherine, who was Miss New Jersey in 2011, was working at her gym as a personal trainer on the morning of July 30 when she suddenly began feeling “very strange,” [...]
