Reliable, Trustworthy Reporting, Capturing The Heartbeat Of Our Community
Reliable, Trustworthy Reporting, Capturing The Heartbeat Of Our Community
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A day before a 39-year-old Plainview man was scheduled to find out his fate in Antelope County District Court, Christopher Beltz requested a continuance. According to court records, Beltz petitioned for a continuance because his attorney required emergency abdominal surgery on May 24 and was unable to attend the hearing. Antelope County Attorney Joe Smith did not object to rescheduling the May 27 court case. District Judge Michael L. Long ordered Beltz to appear for sentencing on Aug. 26. Beltz...
There's something humbling about realizing your world can shrink to the size of an elevation pillow. Since my left knee replacement surgery on May 7, life has become a carefully choreographed routine of ice packs, physical therapy appointments, medication alarms and trying not to spill tea while balancing a laptop on one leg. The right knee was replaced back in December, so at least this time I knew what I was walking into - eventually literally walking into. Experience helps. The first knee...
In my role as a hospitalist, I am always happy when a patient is healthy enough to be discharged. A resounding majority of people want to go back to their home after they leave the hospital. What we do not want is an unsafe environment leading to repeat injuries resulting in a hospital readmission. At discharge we can have members of the Home Health team perform a “Home Safety Evaluation”. Physical Therapists, occupational therapists and sometimes speech therapists will evaluate a per...
In a season that celebrates hope and new life, Brooke Bartak-Jensen - a Ewing native who lives in Omaha - is living her own version of a miracle. Two days after tying balloons for her daughters' birthday party, Bartak-Jensen's body began to shut down. What started as a sore finger turned into a medical catastrophe - sepsis, a rare blood-clotting disorder, and flesh-eating infection - that left doctors giving her just a 1% chance to live. Before the first weekend in November, two days before goin...
One goal for 2026: Read more books. I finished three (gasp!) in 2025. That’s a far cry from the 50 to 60 books I read annually during my teaching years. My reading days began dwindling when I started working at the newspaper in 2013. The upside: I read a lot more newspapers and professional articles related to the media industry. I miss reading. I miss finding myself immersed in setting and characters and plot lines. I miss whodunits and true crime novels, my favorite genre, which began years a...
As we look forward to a new year, we reflect on the stories that defined our region in 2025. Articles in this list - and the rankings - are based on page views from summerlandadvocate.com. 1. Hometown Hero: Summerland freshman uses SkillsUSA training to save infant's life As an eighth-grade student, Taelyn Nilson learned CPR and won a state title in Job Skills Demonstration at the Nebraska SkillsUSA Middle School Conference. In December 2024, Nilson used those skills to save the life of an... Full story
I think my days of being super woman may be drawing near. After having knee replacement surgery on Dec. 4, and returning home on Dec. 6, I had a couple days to put this week's edition together. I'm not going to lie: it was a struggle. And here I thought I was invincible, could tackle any obstacle thrown in my path. I probably still can ... just at a slower pace. Working from a recliner is not like working at a desk. And, trying to stay awake between scheduled medicine intervals was tricky, but I...
T-minus eight days and counting. By the time you read this, my surgery date will be closing in. A little more than two and one-half years ago, I replaced my right hip. The procedure went smoothly, recovery went smoothly and, by July, walking felt natural again instead of looking like I was auditioning for a hobbling contest. Within months, though, my knee — the joint I originally suspected was the troublemaker — flared up. Swelling. Lost motion. Grinding pain. Eventually, I couldn’t straighten my leg when I went to bed. After pushing throu...
Antelope Memorial Hospital welcomes the addition of Kimberly Wiese, APRN, to its medical staff. Originally from Bradshaw, she attended McCool Junction High School, graduating in 2007. She attended college at Central Community College, graduating in May 2014 with her LPN degree. She then began working at Columbus Community Hospital in surgery in June 2014 and in labor and delivery in August 2018. While working at CCH, Wiese went back to college at CCC in to acquire her Associate Degree in nursing...
As the recent stench of war grew stronger, I noticed once again how much we love our machines, be they bunker-busting or surgical, life-saving or high-earning, analog, digital or artificially intelligent. But what happens when our doodads and thingamajigs act human … you know … err? To wit: Last week in this space, the modern marvel autocorrect changed one letter in one word (“defund” to “defend”) in one sentence, in one paragraph of an entire 750-word commentary. The “correction” altered the en...
Molly Pofahl had big plans for the $370,000 in federal money awarded to the East Central District Health Department in March. They would use the money to provide cleanup for homes with high lead levels in Boone, Colfax, Nance and Platte counties, said Pofahl, the department’s chief public health officer. They could make it easier for people living in the district’s rural areas to get vaccinated. She planned to get training for her staff to better teach central Nebraskans about preventing infections. Lessons learned during COVID-19 informed the...
Oh, Robert Burns, you nailed it—paraphrasing “To a Mouse,” the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry. It started Friday when I let Scott’s call go to voicemail while I was talking to another publication during a run through Ewing. Before hitting the bank, I check the message: “Call me!!!” Trouble. Scott never uses exclamation marks. I call back. Voicemail. Again. This time, he answers—barely. “Meet me (phone cuts out)... home... (phone cuts out) doctor... (phone cuts out) help.” The...
Ruby Jenkins' name symbolizes love, strength, and protection-qualities she has embodied since birth. Born without pulmonary arteries entering her heart, she underwent open-heart surgery at four months old. Now, as she celebrates her third birthday on Valentine's Day, Ruby's resilience shines as brightly as the gemstone and great-grandmother she shares a name with. On a recent Friday afternoon, Ruby sang the ABC song and serenaded her mom, Jolene, with "The Wheels on the Bus." "What she does now...
I’ve been in a bit of a funk this past week. After a meditation session, some of the reasons became clear. This Friday would be Mom’s 87th birthday. If she were earth-side, we’d have Italian food - either lasagna or pizza - and wine, even if it meant a bottle of inexpensive “FWP,” or fine wine product, like her sisters refer to it. In April, she will have been gone 10 years. It seems like yesterday I held her hand as she slipped away, taking her last breath. A second reason for the blues: I...
In the summer of 2002, Margaret Stamp returned home to Sarpy County from college four weeks after her 74-year-old grandmother, Phyllis Behm, had died from a short battle with colorectal cancer. Stamp found her dad, Mark Behm, a former northeast Nebraska county attorney and private practice lawyer, wincing in pain on the living room floor. Stamp described him as in shape and thin. She said he looked healthy and didn't drink or smoke. But that weekend, Stamp's father was doubled over, and he told...
When many people hear the term plastic surgery, images of Hollywood stars trying to fight back the effects of aging come to mind. It is easy to assume that plastic surgeons just deal in vanity. However, that would minimize everything that these talented surgeons accomplish with their scalpels. The term "plastic surgery" comes from the Greek term "Plastikos" meaning "to shape or form." Plastic surgeons work to form or change the outward appearance of people for a variety of reasons. They work on...
The human body is composed of a typical pattern of anatomy, yet every structure varies in form from person to person. For example, humans develop with a standard set of defined muscles, yet the shape and mass of each muscle varies significantly among individuals. Sometimes, "anatomical variations" develop – that is, anatomical structures that do not conform to the typical range of regular morphology (for example, an entirely separate "extra" muscle that develops in one person). Human anatomy i...
The Kansas City Royals game played through the car radio as Jeff Hovden drove south on a Friday night. Jeff and his son Jack had tickets for the next day. During the drive, the broadcast team noted the strong Omaha contingent in attendance, many sporting jerseys with the name "Bohm" across the back. The next day the Hovdens experienced it in person. "It was pretty impressive," said Hovden, a Phillies fan and car wash soap salesman from Vermillion, South Dakota. The "Bohm" on the many jerseys...
Lung cancer is the second most common cancer (not counting skin cancer) in both men and women, only behind prostate in men and breast in women. Although it is the second most common, it remains the leading cause of cancer death in America. Approximately one in five cancer deaths a year are attributed to lung cancer. More Americans die every year of lung cancer than colon, prostate and breast cancer combined. Lung cancer is considered a silent killer and is often diagnosed at a late stage, when t...
Doctors are taught medical terms and jargon in medical school like a secret code. Many medical terms are rooted in Greek and Latin. Over the course of our training, these words become second nature and we become fluent in this medical "language," although we are also expected to talk to our patients using simple terminology. However, most specialties in medicine still use the original Greek and Latin roots for their names. Once you know where these names come from, everything makes sense. Most...
As husband and wife urologists, we talk a lot about the urinary tract and how it affects our patients. In women, the most common urinary concern is incontinence, or the involuntary leakage of urine. There are several causes and many treatment options exist depending on the type. The two main types of urinary leakage in women are urge urinary incontinence and stress urinary incontinence. For women with urge incontinence, treatment is aimed at improving quality of life disrupted by overactive...
Blood may be thicker than water. It's the fluid of life, an essential force providing a constant flow of resources and creating energy. For Jesse Thiele, son of Jim and Leenda, the constant flow slowed to a trickle on a fateful September day in 2016. Thiele, then a fifth-grade student, was at home in Clearwater on Sept. 29, working on a math worksheet, alongside older brothers Eli and Alex. Alex and Jesse took a break, which turned into a wrestling match. "I still had a pencil in my hand,"...
As we approach the end of our 22nd season, I would like to thank our audience for trusting us to bring them health information that is current and accurate. There are many doctors out there who cannot make the same claims as the Prairie Doc’s and I would like to take this opportunity to help sort out those charlatans and quacks from trusted sources of health information. While tasty and refreshing, I would not trust Dr. Pepper for medical advice. Nor would I trust Dr. Evil from Austin Powers, de...
There is an old joke where a man walks into his doctor’s office and says, “Doc, it hurts every time I do this. What should I do? To which the doctor replies, “Simple, don’t do that!” While the advice seems trite and maybe even insulting, like most jokes, there is some truth in it. Pain is one of the ways your body tries to protect you from even worse injury. Pain tries to keep you from walking on a sprained ankle or lifting things with a broken arm. In those cases, the advice from the doctor is...
As a general internist who does primary care for adult and elderly patients, I talk to patients a lot about arthritis and joint replacement surgery. This type of surgery, also known as arthroplasty, is one of the most common types of elective surgery done in the United States. Knees, hips and shoulders are the most frequently done arthroplasties, and most of those surgeries are done for severe osteoarthritis. Osteoarthritis, the most common type of arthritis, is due to wear-and-tear of the...
