We want to be able to communicate medical facts which most of you have not heard about.

a.  Immunosupression in patients with CLL  (chronic lymphocytic leukemia.)  CLL is a common blood disorder which is mostly characterized by increased numbers of lymphocytes   (a certain type of white blood cell in the blood.)  It is often found by chance during routine blood tests, and patients can go for years feeling fine with no need for treatment.

If you have CLL or know someone who does, they need to know that their immune responses are probably impaired  (immunosuppressed) and that they are at risk of COVID virus  infection.  They must be vaccinated, but their ability to respond to vaccination may be compromised.

The vaccines work by stimulating the production of antibodies which fight off infection, but CLL patients may not be able to produce antibodies at all or in effective quantities.

Your doctor may want to measure your antibody responses  (a blood test)  after vaccination, and you will certainly need a third dose (booster) as soon as possible after a prescribed waiting period.  These facts about CLL are not widely known in the medical community.

Measuring blood antibody levels will become routine in a variety of situations, but the guidelines remain to be completed.

b. Atrial fibrillation is one of the hottest topics in cardiology.  It is a common cardiac rhythm disturbance, and in recent years there has been an evolution in diagnosis, risks, and treatment—-especially with an “invasive” method called *ablation.   Another method involves use of medications.

There is a sub-specialty of cardiology which involves itself with the myriad of issues surrounding “AF” and it is called electrophysiology.  We will be bringing you some of the latest ideas about AF.

* Ablation is a catheter based approach where AF is treated using tiny tubes threaded into the heart by placing the catheter into a vein in the groin.  There are a variety of methods being used  or evaluated  including, in rare cases, open heart surgery.

c. We have had another printing of our book  Prevention Does Work: –A Guide to a Healthy Heart. This book was designed for anyone who wants to gain practical, mostly nutritional, information about ways to prevent heart attacks.  It is on Amazon for $13.00. You can pick one up signed at 113 Mt Hermon Way for $10.00 cash.  The last edition was 2011, but it is still mostly up to date, and the cook book section never is obsolete.  Some people need to learn some heart healthy recipes.  Click below to read the cover.

d.  Booster vaccine shots. If you have one, you may find that you have side effects greater than the first 2 shots.  Most often it resembles a cold with a low grade fever  (eg 100-101 degrees). You can have fatigue, weakness, reduced appetite, cough, headache,and  stuffed  nose, and such reactions are usually transient, but they may last for a week or more.

The side effects of boosters are still being studied, so you may want to wait awhile until the dust clears and guidelines are more certain.

Paul Goldfinger MD, FACC  BSM    (Blogfinger School of Medicine.)

Paul Goldfinger photograph. Ocean Grove boardwalk. August 2019. ©. Click to enlarge.

DONNIE ELBERT.   From the original soundtrack score of  The Irishman.

The Aurora Hotel. Bob Bowné photo in 2014. Now it has been turned into 4 condominiums. It could have been refurbished for its historic value. The creepy Neptune crowd let this happen with the help of the Greedy Grover Society.   Blogfinger.net

September 22, 2021.

David H. Fox:

“People have higher expectations for hotels today than in the 19th century. A bathroom down the hall or even shared is off-putting. Elevators are always nice. I once stayed in a hotel where the ceiling was the underside of the floorboards upstairs. Every movement thundered into my room. This hotel has since been heavily renovated.

“This summer, I stayed at the Shawmont and was very pleased with the rebuilding carried out in the decade or so since my previous visit. Fire resistant room doors had been installed and the bathrooms completely renewed. Fire detectors and sprinklers were everywhere and gave a reassuring presence. However, the steep original stairs still remained.

“I found hotel rooms to be very short supply and could not stay as often as I had desired.

Converting a hotel to a condo actually reduces parking needs as condos tend to be far larger than hotel rooms. Of course, single family houses would use even fewer spaces. Condos are year-round things whereas hotels have to make their money in only two or three months. One can appreciate the economic challenges.”

Here is a quote from the Neptune Township Master Plan:

“The decline of the hotels and rooming houses that previously provided summer lodging gave rise to conversion to multi-family residential uses or provided additional rooming and boarding uses for the indigent. These changes had deleterious effects on Ocean Grove.”

“Ordinance changes prohibiting similar conversions of hotels  to multi-family use have resulted in limited additional deterioration and facilitated a renaissance of investment for single family housing*, bed and breakfasts and historic hotels. These types of uses, in conjunction with and as shaped by the unique lay-out and civic design of Ocean Grove are more appropriate to the scale and character of the district and provide an appropriate type of growth and evolution that preserves the character and fabric of Ocean Grove.”

“Through these efforts the Township has demonstrated a strong commitment to the protection of all properties designated as having architectural and historic significance.”

Blogfinger:  The last sentence above by Neptune is a lie.  Just witness what happened to the Aurora.

David Fox would like to see old hotels be refurbished, not only for historic reasons, but because he thinks we need more hotel rooms. That is a solid conclusion if such a conversion is truly historic and especially if parking can be provided. which is highly unlikely.  And it is economically unsound.

But creating new hotels, as proposed for the North End, is just wrong and shouldn’t have been allowed.  Someone should erect large signs at the North End with quotes from the Master Plan.

The conversion of an old hotel to condos is forbidden, but a condo developer who can twist some arms at the Mother Ship can be given special permission   (ie a variance) by the Board of Adjustment  (ie The Board of Special Influence)  even if the conversion comes with no off- street parking.  Over the recent years, there have been many such inappropriate condo conversions, but read above where the Master Plan says that such conversions are deleterious.

Blogfinger was at the meeting where the Aurora developers’ lawyer was rude and dismissive of what’s best for the town, and his reward was permission to ruin “one of the the most important authentic historic hotel structures in town and in America.” *

*Quote from the late OG historian Ted Bell regarding the Aurora.

HARRY NILSSON :  “Remember”

We have been following Noah on Blogfinger ever since he was an ultrasound shadow and we learned that he was a boy.

He is now 3 years old and he can say a few words in Spanish and Portuguese, and he can swim underwater.   You can tell that he is living in a very special place but those details must not be disclosed.

ASHLEY GRAMINS   from her album “Mama Rocks !”

Albatross as it appeared in the HBO series Boardwalk Empire. Paul Goldfinger photo from the video.

Rumor mill reports sale of the Albatross on Ocean Pathway in the Grove. Await confirmation.    More condos without parking?   Paul Goldfinger photo undated.

By Paul Goldfinger,   Editor Blogfinger.net   September 21, 2021.  Scoop de jour.

The Albatross has been in sad shape for some time.  There was talk in recent years that it was a habitat for vagrants while others said that it was still being rented to guests who didn’t mind the rough interior. Residents of the area told us that renters continued to stay there since they may have found the derelict situation to be charming and/or just plain affordable.

A couple of years ago we heard that the owner wanted to convert to condos.  And then, most recently, we heard that the owner was hanging on but wanting to sell.

The news headline above was passed onto us by a resident of Ocean Pathway. If any of you have more information, please share with Blogfinger. Anonymity is guaranteed.

A few years ago we had this to say on Blogfinger:

“Why can’t these old hotels succeed as they did in the past?  The Manchester Inn seemed successful, but the owner wanted condos….and then it burned down. Single family homes resulted.

Other hotels in town just deteriorated like the Whitfield which was demolished and became single family homes.

One hotel on Ocean Avenue recently tried to become a drug rehab center, but that wasn’t going to happen.   And yet others have become condominiums with pseudo-Victorian facades and no parking, increased congestion, and no character.

We don’t know what is in store for the Albatross, but Neptune’s elected officials should owe their allegiance to the citizens of the “historic district” and not to developers.

The ideal should be a historic town that brings comfort and beauty to the residents and the visitors. It should be a place with honesty, light and air. It should attract art, music, children, flowers, teenagers, yard sales, dinner on the porches, bicyclists, film festivals, ice cream, theater, girls in summer clothes, good eateries, diversity, and more….not trash and scum in Wesley Lake, not politicians in the shadows, and not cigarette butts on the ground.

Too bad for the owners, but the dying old hotels should revert to single family homes. Why did the Township bother to write a master plan?

And what will happen to Ocean Grove in the future—maybe it will become like Ocean Grove, Australia, which now bears no resemblance to Osborne’s dream. It’s a surfers’ town now.

Maybe that’s OK. Some wouldn’t care if our Grove were to drift away to become something else.   At least let’s hope for quiet nights on the Pathway.

BLOSSOM DEARIE:

Paul Goldfinger. Ocean Grove hardy hibiscus. Bloom is 10 inches in diameter.  September 2021. Click to enlarge.

This isn’t actually a rose nor is it Irish, but what the hey: