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With access to the leading health experts right here in the region, Get Healthy offers readers a local perspective on what’s best for your health, including nutrition, fitness, mental health and environmental health. Along with the magazine, email newsletter and Facebook page, Get Healthy offers an array of valuable content that is both relevant and proactive.

The easy-to-navigate Get Healthy site will have even more beneficial content in the near future—including blogs and expert columns—so stay tuned. We’re here for you 24/7, so check it out, and let us hear from you!

Cancer is big and dark and scary, but cancer patients don’t have to struggle through the storm alone. The many hospitals, resource centers and specialized practices in Northwest Indiana are reaching out their hands to help patients cope with—and hopefully beat—cancer. Help is everywhere you look. We’ve identified where to find it.

Check out all of the articles here: Less Trauma, More Precision at NWI Hospitals; The Environmental Factor; The Small Stuff and Northwest Indiana Cancer Resources.

Are Northwest Indiana’s “rustbelt rats” more susceptible to a diagnosis of cancer? Are the industrial pollutants in our environment making us more of a region at risk? Research and data from many organizations track and trend cancer as a leading public health threat. They’ve done the math on many levels. The fact remains, there are multiple variables. More often than not, a cancer diagnosis is most likely to be the sum total of a combination of risk factors.

Local hospitals have cancer registry data tracking the type of cancers diagnosed as well as patient demographics. Submitted to the Indiana State Department of Health, this public health information demonstrates that prostate, lung and breast cancers were the top diagnoses in Lake County from 2001 to 2006. Porter County’s leader was lung, followed by prostate and breast. “Historically, those are always in the top five, along with colon,” observes Janet Sikorsky, Community Program Manager of the American Cancer Society (ACS) of Northwest Indiana. Those are also the leaders statewide and nationally.

(Photography by WALT BUKVA/ Bukva Imaging Group.)

The Chief is in the house—the firehouse, that is. Alonzo Brown, Jr., Assistant Chief and 17-year veteran of the Gary Fire Department, hadn’t planned on taking time off so soon this year. He hadn’t planned for the sudden life-threatening stroke he suffered on January 3. But he’s back on the job with a new zeal to serve and protect. He’s sharing his story and giving lifesaving advice: make a plan to stay as healthy as possible.

“I tell 90 percent of the people I meet who are over 35 to go get a check up once a year, and if you don’t have a family doctor, find one!” Chief Brown says.

“When I look back, I had some warning signs, like headache, and I knew I had high blood pressure,” he says. “My brother and I were talking about two weeks before the stroke happened and he gave me his doctor’s number when I said I was feeling just a little ‘off.’” But Alonzo didn’t have the chance to call for an appointment. Out of nowhere came the onset of a stroke, or “brain attack” that occurs when there is blockage of blood vessels to the brain or when a vessel bursts, leaking blood into the brain. Stroke is linked to cardiovascular disease, including high blood pressure and cholesterol.

Have you ever experienced that sinking feeling that comes when you’re sick and you know you have to go to the doctor—when you think about the hassle of finding your way through the medical maze? It’s almost enough to keep you from seeking care. Could anyone please help?

Winter weather most certainly accelerates the hazards of slips and slides for seniors. Dr. Anthony Levenda, orthopedic surgeon at Lakeshore Bone and Joint Institute in Chesterton, cautions that not only seniors but also family and friends need to be aware that it’s important for the elderly to realize broken hips, fractured wrists and similar injuries can be prevented.