![]() Weekly Service and discussion: 10-11:30 a.m., 100A Church Street.Īlcoholics Anonymous: 8:45 a.m., Dry River Rats (O), St. Sunday brewery brunch: 10 a.m., Matchwood Brewing, 513 Oak St. Sunday worship service: 10 a.m., Gardenia Center. Info.: 20Ĭookies, Coffee and Jesus: Informal Bible study, searching Scripture, answering questions, discovering truth 9:30-10:30 a.m., Faith Evangelical Free Church, 2624 N. 9 a.m.-12:30 p.m., Sandpoint Gun Club, Gun Club Road, about two miles west of May's Honda in Sagle. Sandpoint Gun Club: trapshooting (open to public) limited free instruction available. Spokane Symphony: Festival at Sandpoint concert 5 p.m., gates open 5-7 p.m., complimentary wine tasting (must be 21 and older) 7:30 p.m., music begins. 7įamily Matinee with Lisa Livesay: Festival at Sandpoint concert 12 p.m., gates open 1-2 p.m., music begins. And it’s only going to get better.Editor’s note: If you would like to have your meeting or event shared with the community, please contact us at Aug. “I found out how important my routine and exercise is,” said Ballard. “At the end of the day, it’s a quality-of-life decision that’s his to make.”īallard believes not being able to socialize was a bigger threat to his health than the risk of contracting the coronavirus. If he stops going to the gym and can’t see anybody, I know he’s going to deteriorate,” he said. Son Dan said he’s worried about his dad being around people but realizes the benefits. Masks are required to enter the gym but can be removed when exercising.īallard isn’t worried. Despite the threat of COVID-19, Ballard is back to working out six days a week. “Now he comes in without a walker, head up straight, and the spark in his eyes is getting brighter,” Whelan said. WHO chief: ‘End is in sight’ for COVID pandemicĭay after day, Ballard improved. “Today, I woke up and I was happy.” Related Articles “Every day for the past two months, I’ve been sad,” Ballard said on the first day back. “It’s mental health.”īallard resumed his beloved routine the last week of May, with the gym mostly to himself. “The gym business is more than physical health,” said Whelan. He invited Ballard to visit the gym even before it officially reopened to the public. “Everyone here was almost in tears because this vibrant man was gone,” he said. “He couldn’t hold his head up straight and it took him five minutes to catch his breath.” “He comes in, out of breath, with a walker,” Whelan recalled. Not going to the “club,” as he calls it, was taking a toll on his mental and physical health, so he decided to visit Brian Whelan, the owner of the small, family-run gym, in late May. Just as in the 1980s sitcom “Cheers,” it’s a place where everybody knows his name. “My girlfriend was concerned with how I was thinking,” said Ballard, who speaks to her on the phone several times a day.įor Ballard, a self-proclaimed gym addict, Foothill Gym was a second home. He relied more on his walker and sometimes struggled to breathe. But after a couple of months of not visiting the Monrovia gym, Ballard began feeling sad and frustrated, and his health started to slide. ![]() He did his shopping early in the morning and took strolls around his neighborhood. In the beginning, Ballard tried to keep busy. He didn’t have visitors during quarantine, but his son, Dan Ballard, checked on him by phone weekly. They haven’t yet met in person.īallard felt he could handle the isolation of the lockdown order. ![]() ![]() He has a girlfriend he met online - a retired greyhound trainer who lives in Arkansas. He enjoys cooking and trying out recipes, listening to 1950s music and watching YouTube videos about World War II. Since then, he has embraced his solitude and reveled in his newfound bachelorhood. He lost his wife of more than 50 years, Dorothy, to Alzheimer’s disease in 2015. “During this shutdown, we’ve had growing public health and community acknowledgment of how serious it can be to sever the ties with our network.”īallard, a retired jeweler, lives alone in a one-bedroom condo. There’s a huge, disproportionate impact on older adults with this virus and the health outcomes,” said Lisa Marsh Ryerson, president of the AARP Foundation. Social distancing measures have weakened the support systems that older people who live alone depend on for basic activities, such as help with grocery shopping and transportation to doctor appointments. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics. The combination of the pandemic and nationwide lockdown orders put this already vulnerable population at greater risk, said Julie Zissimopoulos, co-director of the aging and cognition program at USC’s Leonard D.
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