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Ellie’s Eco Home Store Greens Up Funeral Industry

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

Natures Casket

Natures Casket

Creating a convenient one-stop shop for eco-friendly home and garden, office and building products, Ellie’s Eco Home Store opened its doors for sustainable business in November 2008. This week, Ellie’s announces a partnership with Natural Transitions, a local non-profit resource, and Nature’s Casket, a manufacturer of eco-friendly caskets made from Colorado beetle-kill pine.

“In a typical 10-acre section of cemetery, the grounds contain enough coffin wood to construct 40 houses, nearly 1,000 tons of casket steel, 20,000 tons of vault concrete, and enough toxic embalming fluid to fill a backyard swimming pool, which eventually leaches into ground water, according to the book Grave Matters, written in 2007 by Mark Harris,” says Steve Savage, Ellie’s President and Founder.

“We are extremely pleased to be working with Natural Transitions (www.naturaltransitions.org), which helps clients go through a troubling time with ease and comfort,” says Savage. “Natural Transitions also guides clients through many alternatives and makes recommendations on how to make their experience less caustic to the environment.”

“Our mission is to educate and support families who choose to care for their loved one, helping them to make choices that are more meaningful, affordable, and environmentally conscious,” says Karen Van Vuuren, President of Natural Transitions, based in Boulder.

Natural Caskets (www.naturescasket.com), based in Longmont, CO, makes beautiful, natural caskets using Colorado beetle-kill pine that is sustainably harvested, helping to reduce fire risk by removing dead trees from the forest. “Our goal at Nature’s Casket is to provide affordable, simple yet elegant eco-caskets with a minimal environmental footprint. We start with beautiful blue-stained pine, from lodgepole pine killed in the pine beetle epidemic. We produce our caskets in a facility powered with wind credits. All caskets are made with non-toxic materials approved by the Green Burial Council. And our caskets are 100 percent biodegradable,” says Luc Nadeau, President of Nature’s Casket.

According to Savage, “When I identify an industry with a poor environmental record, I do what I can to change that. Also, the pet segment of this industry is the fastest growing category in the funeral business. This is a perfect solution for your beloved pet as well,” adds Savage.

Ellie’s Eco Home Store strives to be the nation’s leader in environmental and educational resource for shoppers. Ellie’s unites the importance of creating a healthy home with the convenience of one-stop shopping. More information at www.elliesecohomestore.com.

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VA Opens Washington Crossing National Cemetery

Tuesday, January 26th, 2010

New VA cemetery open in PennsylvaniaSecretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki announced the opening of the 131st national cemetery with the first burials taking place Jan. 20 at Washington Crossing National Cemetery in Newtown, Pa.

“With the opening of this new national shrine, many thousands of Pennsylvania and New Jersey Veterans and their families will have interment options available nearby, in a setting that is worthy of their service,” said Secretary Shinseki. “Providing lasting tributes to their sacrifices is one of VA’s most honorable missions, and one we are proud to fulfill.”

Administered by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the new 205-acre national cemetery in the Philadelphia area will serve Veterans’ needs for at least the next 50 years. The cemetery, which will serve approximately 580,000 Veterans in the Philadelphia metropolitan area, is located in Bucks County, north of Philadelphia, about three miles northwest of Interstate 95 and less than three miles from Washington Crossing Historic Park.

In January 2008, VA awarded a design contract to Cairone & Kaupp Inc. of Philadelphia. VA has completed a 12-acre early burial area with temporary facilities, which will be followed by a second, larger construction stage of the project.

When that stage is completed, the 64-acre development will provide 15,500 full-casket gravesites, including 15,100 pre-placed crypts, 6,500 in-ground cremation sites and 4,100 columbarium niches.

The new cemetery will also include an administration and public information center complex and public restrooms, a maintenance facility, a cemetery entrance area, a flag assembly area and committal shelters for funeral services. Other infrastructure design elements include roadways, landscaping, utilities and irrigation.

The state’s other VA cemeteries are Philadelphia National Cemetery, Indiantown Gap National Cemetery and the National Cemetery of the Alleghenies. The Philadelphia National Cemetery no longer has burial space.

Veterans with a discharge issued under conditions other than dishonorable, their spouses and eligible dependent children can be buried in a VA national cemetery. Also eligible are military personnel who die on active duty, their spouses and eligible dependents. Other burial benefits available for all eligible Veterans, regardless of whether they are buried in a national cemetery or a private cemetery, include a burial flag, a Presidential Memorial Certificate and a government headstone or marker. Families of eligible decedents may also order a memorial headstone or marker when remains are not available for interment.

In the midst of the largest expansion since the Civil War, VA operates 131 national cemeteries in 39 states and Puerto Rico and 33 soldiers’ lots and monument sites. More than three and a half million Americans, including Veterans of every war and conflict, are buried in VA’s national cemeteries on nearly 19,000 acres of land.

Information on VA burial benefits can be obtained from national cemetery offices, from the Internet at www.cem.va.gov or by calling VA regional offices toll-free at (800) 827-1000.

For information on Washington Crossing National Cemetery, call the cemetery office at (215) 504-5610. To make burial arrangements at the time of need, call the national cemetery scheduling office at (800) 535-1117.

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The Terminal Event and NDA

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009
Gustave Dore's depiction of the Highest Heaven

Gustave Dore

My uncle talks about the last few hours of my aunt’s life, when she suddenly became more alert and aware of her surroundings. While my uncle thought this increased awareness meant that she was going to be around a few more days, within a few hours she had died. “If,” he said, “I had known that this was the ‘terminal event,’ I would have had different feelings and reactions.”

What is known as the ‘terminal event’ is the hours that precede death itself. Hospice workers and deathcare caretakers know about this event, and they often talk about its repurcussions with family members. While some regard this brief period of rallying and alertness as a gift, other family members see the terminal event as a painful experience, since they know they have so little time left with their loved one.

Dr. Robert W. Buckingham wrote about this near-death awareness in his book, The Handbook of Hospice Care (1992), and he was speaking about children. So, it appears that this awareness is possible in many near-death experiences among people of all ages. This ‘terminal event’ awareness also is called NDA, or Nearing Death Awareness, and it may incorporate visions that are beyond the family’s ken.

Pamela M. Kircher, M.D., Maggie Callanan, RN, CRNH, and the International Association for Near-Death Studies, Inc. (IANDS) Board of Directors pulled together a handout about NDA that may help you deal with a dying loved one and/or the family of a terminally ill patient. The handout talks about the difference between NDA and NDE (Near Death Experiences), and offer suggestions about what a family can do to make the dying patient feel more comfortable.

The greatest difference, it seems, between the NDE and the NDA is that the NDE seems to teach the person how to live better, whereas the NDA seems to prepare the person for death. Additionally, the NDA differs from hallucinations in that the person who experiences NDA can stop speaking with a vision of a dead individual to talk with living people in the room. For the person who experiences NDA, meeting deceased relatives seems universal.

If the living support team surrounding the dying person is aware that this NDA event may happen, then support for the visions appears to reassure the terminally-ill patient.

But, the NDA doesn’t stop there. After the patient has died, it is common for surviving loved ones to sense that person’s presence. Some people may feel notified of the death by the person who has just died, and other people may feel the presence of the recently deceased through words, images or aromas. Some individuals have reported the departed warning the survivor about impending dangers.

While you may scoff at such ‘feelings,’ you may be surprised to learn that they are usual, or normal.

My uncle learned about NDA and the terminal event before my aunt died – the hospice he had enlisted had taught him about these experiences. But, his unending care for his wife and stress over her death had clouded his memory. After she died, he could recount everything that happened, and he was able to connect certain events in her last hours to both the terminal event awareness and NDA as she drifted between total awareness and a need to meet death head on.

As for the rest of the family, I can’t say whether any one of us experience my aunt’s presence after her death – at least not immediately. But, she has left her mark upon everyone who loved her, and we agree that we all feel that presence.

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Cocaine: Cause or Mechanism for Billy Mays’ Death?

Tuesday, August 11th, 2009
Billy Mays, 1958-2009.

Billy Mays, 1958-2009.

You may have read recently that legendary pitchman, Billy Mays, died from heart disease. You may have read further that an autopsy revealed that cocaine was found in his system. Was cocaine the cause of Billy Mays’ death?

Not likely, because Billy Mays died from heart failure – although, cocaine may have been a contributing mechanism for that death.

How would a medical examiner know to look for drugs, and how does cocaine show up in that autopsy – especially when the medical examiner may not be looking for that specific chemical in the body?

While most drugs don’t cause visible changes in the body, they leave behind their mischief in the body’s cells – where most medical examiners cannot go. Therefore, the medical examiner collects fluids and tissues from the body during an autopsy and sends them to a toxicologist. The toxicologist, then, analyzes the fluids and tissues for the presence or absence of toxins. Even when the toxicologist cannot find a toxin, he or she may be able to view its affects through transformation, or the conversion or transformation of one chemical into another in the body.

Cocaine is one of the most widely used amphetamines, also called “uppers” or stimulants. Cocaine users often develop tachyphylaxis, which means the body gets used to the cocaine and the effects are lessened with each use. As a result, users must take ever-increasing amounts to get the same kick they found the first time they used the drug. Cocaine is in such wide use that testing for this drug is virtually every part of a hospital’s or crime lab toxicologist’s test screens.

In the bloodstream, cocaine is converted to methylecgonine and benzoylecgonline. Urine tests target the latter of these two compounds and can find traces for up to three days after the last use (In 2005, scientists found surprisingly large quantities of benzoylecgonine in Italy’s Po River and used its concentration to estimate the number of cocaine users in the region). Toxicologists may use both immunoassay and the Scott Test (not always reliable) as screening tests of cocaine. Mass spectrometry, however, can give the most accurate assessment of cocaine use in a human body.

Although Mays had no history of drug abuse (he had prescription painkillers for a hip problem), Hillsborough County Associate Medical Examiner Dr. Leszek Chrostowski, still performed toxicology tests per standard procedure. As a result, he stated in a press release that “Cocaine use caused or contributed to the development of his heart disease, and thereby contributed to his death.”

If someone with significant coronary artery disease (CAD) takes cocaine, that person’s heart rate increases and his clogged arteries cannot accommodate the demand. The cause of death would be a heart attack, but the cocaine would be a contributing factor. Billy Mays also had a family history of heart disease; but, in light of this new information about cocaine, Mays’ family plans to contest the autopsy report.

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