Treva Lind

MultiCare Health System returned to a temporary mask mandate beginning Monday in patient care areas that include Deaconess and Valley hospitals, based on the past week's rise in respiratory illnesses.

For nine years, Jodi Rivas has matched the Christmas wishes of Medical Lake children with donors who buy those gift requests. Also a Medical Lake resident, Rivas decided for this holiday season, she had to do more for her town after the summer's Gray fire. Rivas extended the gift drive to any neighbor who lost a home or had a financial hit because of the disaster, including adults without kids. This time, donors covered entire families and were from across the region. Requests were humble, "lamps, extension cords, a snow shovel, cleaning supplies, warm socks, a jacket, a robe ... They just want a little bit of home back."

New treatments and research for Alzheimer's disease have room to expand in downtown Spokane where neurologist Dr. David Greeley has opened a center. As new drugs emerge, he expects more innovations to fight the disease within a few years. Greeley bought the building at 1520 W. Third Ave., formerly Global Credit Union headquarters. In November, he moved his independent practice, Northwest Neurological, and separate research company he owns, Kingfisher Cooperative, to the renovated ground level.

Each year around this time, Salvation Army volunteers know which tags still hang from the organization's angel trees in stores – gift requests for teenagers. That gift gap seems wider this season with inflation, said Captain David Cain of the Spokane Corps of the Salvation Army. Early this week, he said Christmas requests still weren't fulfilled for about 20 youth in Spokane, both males and females, ages 12-20. "Every year, teens are the challenge because it’s just easier to buy for the little ones, but particularly now it is when $25 used to go a lot farther," Cain said. The angel trees are located at Spokane-area stores of Fred Meyer, Walmart, J.C. Penney and Old Navy. The local organization also has an Amazon wish list open through this Friday, with a link on its website, www.makingspokanebetter.org.

Thick, fleece-lined socks – 218 pairs – sit bundled in a Post Falls home ready for delivery Christmas morning to people who can feel isolated as the holiday nears.

Receiving a liver transplant at age 3, Ruby Mwamba turned often to books and a favorite bracelet during long days in the hospital.

Pothen, 43, of Greenacres began Mountain Creek Miniatures at the University of Montana. She first made tiny wind chimes. Today, she runs a part-time hobby business around full-time work. She crafts miniature holiday cookies on baking pans, chocolate bars, landscape items, wizard tools and vegetables for dollhouses or one-room themed boxes, which mimic rooms in a home or businesses.

Betsy Godlewski has long held a fascination for historic architecture and early theaters – particularly those in the Art Deco style.

The concrete staircase easily could be missed – one side is tucked among trees near a dead end of Perry at 20th Avenue. But the pedestrian pathway linking neighborhoods on the South Hill is beloved by many residents nearby.

Becky Van Keulen has worked nearly a decade to expand the reach of Cancer Can't, a cause she credits to her late husband Jonathan. As he fought a form of bone cancer in 2014, the couple realized this region didn't have resources dedicated to adult oncology, so they co-founded the nonprofit. After his death in 2016, Van Keulen continued that work, such as a transportation program for people getting to treatments and a plan to build a lodging facility for patients and families traveling to Spokane for cancer care.

As veterans pounded nails into the walls of birdhouses on a recent Sunday, their jokes got traded as often as a supply of hammers, nails and drills. A new woodworking club at the Spokane Veterans Home draws six regulars who meet once a week around a long table in the dining room. The group has become so popular that the center has put out a call for community donations of woodworking tools, from hand saws to electric drills.

In 1952, Karl Hoffmann came to Spokane from Germany at age 18 to join his sister and brother-in-law. Hoffmann, 89, died Oct. 28 in Spokane, after complications from a bad fall. Hoffmann left his mark on Spokane through decades of successes in insurance, financial consulting and as a co-founder of the city's earliest soccer teams, the Spokane Spokes and the Spokane Shadow.

Brea Seaburg thought she’d never run another marathon after a surprise Type 1 diabetes diagnosis four years ago.

Raised in north Spokane, Aaron McCarty figured he'd do a short military stint to pay for college. He's nurse manager today of the surgical-orthopedic unit at Providence Holy Family Hospital, where he was born. At his 1995 Rogers High School graduation, he didn't first envision a nurse career. McCarty also didn't expect he'd spend a decade in the U.S. Army, including a year in Iraq. While his military role wasn't medical, he credits that Army experience and Iraq deployment as helping him in his work now in handling sometimes chaotic moments and working with people.

Last winter, 100 Spokane County residents called for help to clear snow-covered residential paths. They're seniors or disabled, unable to do the shoveling, and often can't afford to pay someone. Now, Aging & Long Term Care of Eastern Washington is sending out a distress call before this winter. It urgently needs sign-ups among groups of snow-shoveling volunteers from churches, schools, businesses, community centers and clubs for a new initiative, Adopt a Neighbor.

Arico, 85, has perfected his stained glass handiwork for some 50 years to create suncatchers, lamps, ornaments, characters and glass panels. These days, he sells some pieces at two holiday craft fairs a year, including Dec. 2-3 at Ridgeline High School in Liberty Lake, but he's also enjoys gifting pieces of artwork. He recently made and donated 70 star-shaped ornaments in red, white and blue for a cause. The pieces adorn a patriotic-themed Christmas tree up for raffle at the Cancer Community Charities craft fair fundraiser on Friday and Saturday at the Kootenai County Fairgrounds. The stained glass topper is his handiwork, as well, and the tree with other decor and gift packages is valued at $2,000.

Cody and Laura Brincken's son Isaac needed 13 blood transfusions during his 157 days of life. Those transfusions – made possible by regional blood donors – gave them more days with Isaac before he died Oct. 10, 2018, his mom said. Moved by that generosity, they regularly donate blood and also organize a public Vitalant drive in Isaac's name each October. They also launched Isaac's Bookshelf in 2019 that brings literature to pediatric hospital patients.

Irrigation canals once stretched for miles across the Spokane Valley by the late 1890s to open the flow of lake and river water to early settlers to plant orchards or start farms. They also offered unsanctioned summertime swimming for countless children. The largest and most ambitious irrigation project, was known as the Corbin ditch. The Spokane Valley Heritage Museum' is presenting “Flumes, Ditches & Canals, the Irrigation Story," for a 19th annual fundraiser and history program. It's scheduled 1-3 p.m. Oct. 28 at CenterPlace Regional Event Center.

A beloved Spokane musician and teacher, Quindrey “Drey” Davis stood out as a talented drummer as early as middle school.

It wasn't many years ago that football pros gained fame for delivering – or receiving – repeated, skull-shaking tackles. Within the past two decades, that perspective slowly changed as awareness grew about the risks of sports-related concussions, especially the dangers of a secondary blow when the brain hasn't recovered. It led to return-to-play protocols now standard – from the National Football League down to kids' sports. For younger athletes, Washington was the first state to create a 2009 law to block prematurely returning a player to a sport after a suspected concussion, until getting cleared by a licensed health care provider.

Bobby Clark recalls earlier parts of a football game 12 years ago. He sounds excited, still, about being a senior player for his Priest River Lamanna High School's Sept. 11, 2011 homecoming. But he speaks with a slow, deliberate voice now that gets interrupted by unexpected emotions. Two separate hard hits causing concussions in that game – minutes apart – robbed him of life ever being the same.

Likely in the next two years, a biomarker blood test is expected to emerge as a diagnostic tool to catch Alzheimer's disease earlier, said a University of Washington doctor scheduled to talk in Spokane Wednesday. Dr. Thomas Grabowski, UW Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center director, argues it's best to battle the disease at the beginning of cognitive symptoms, or if possible, decades before. "Most people when they think of Alzheimer’s, they think about dementia and the worst case that can happen," he said. "In fact, the dementia’s phase is like the last eight or 10 years in something that is really a 30-year process." These insights and the latest in Alzheimer's research will be part of the 6-8 p.m. Next Generation Medicine Lecture at Gonzaga University's Cataldo Hall. It's open to the public and led by Grabowski, medical director of the UW Memory and Brain Wellness Center. Dr. Silvia Russo, a Spokane-based Providence cognitive and behavioral, is scheduled to join in a question-and-answer discussion.

A vision to widen access to youth and family mental health services became reality Tuesday as MultiCare opened a new Hillyard facility. The $2.58 million MultiCare behavioral health clinic opened with a waiting room, 21 treatment rooms, three large group therapy rooms and a community classroom. It's in remodeled 8,200 square feet of the former Hillyard Library and uses some original building features such as natural lighting and stained-glass artwork. But what drew the most attention this week was the start of those outpatient therapy services.

Nancy Webster worked at Spokane's only acute rehabilitation hospital as it opened 30 years ago – before it was called St. Luke's. At that facility's helm the past seven years, she keeps that perspective in mind. Under a short-lived name of Deaconess Rehab Institute, Webster first was hired at the site as a recreational therapist. In September 1994, Webster recalls looking outside to see a stream of therapists with patients in wheelchairs coming down the hill from Sacred Heart Medical Center. That day came after Deaconess and Sacred Heart leaders decided to collaborate to form a single long-term rehab facility, known today as Providence St. Luke’s Rehabilitation Medical Center. A shared goal for long-term rehabilitation services helped shape what is now a regional hub for patients recovering from brain injuries, strokes, spinal cord injuries and amputations, Webster said.