LOCAL
Wallowa.com
Wednesday, February 24, 2021
A3
Safeway receives COVID-19 vaccine through federal program
way pharmacy staff worked
with Wallowa Memorial Hos-
pital to coordinate distribu-
tion of the vaccine to those
individuals on the local wait-
list. Currently, senior citizens
are on the list to get a shot in
Wallowa County.
“We talked to the hospi-
tal — both Brooke Pace and
Ruthie Mann — and are coop-
erating with them to get as
many people covered as pos-
sible,” said Nancy Stangel,
pharmacy manager at Enter-
prise’s Safeway. “They have a
long list. We’re trying to work
together to get people covered
as quickly as possible.”
Stangel said the Safeway
When the letters fall off of the page
Catherine
Matthias helps
people conquer
the visual chaos
of Irlen Syndrome
By ELLEN MORRIS
BISHOP
For the Wallowa County
Chieftain
JOSEPH — In 2018,
Joseph children’s writer Cath-
erine Matthias suffered a fall.
She hit her head, hard, and
had a brain concussion.
“After that,” she said, “I
couldn’t stand, and I couldn’t
handle glare or bright lights.”
But Matthias, whose
grandson suffers from Irlen
Syndrome, recognized these
effects as symptoms of the
same little-known brain
disorder.
“Irlen Syndrome is not a
vision problem, it’s a brain
processing problem,” Mat-
thias said. “It’s a perceptual
disorder caused by the brain’s
inability to process specifi c
wavelengths of light.”
“People who have this
syndrome get headaches.
They get nauseous, or dizzy,”
she said. “They may look at a
page and what looks like an
orderly column of numbers
or letters to you, may appear
to them as random fi gures
spread all across the page.”
Irlen Syndrome sufferers
often have trouble reading
conventional text — black
type on white paper. Instead
of nice, orderly text, they see
swirls of sentences, or letters
that move, appear in columns,
vibrate or literally fall off the
page.
Matthias is now a certifi ed
Irlen Syndrome screener. But
her personal experience made
her acutely aware of the dev-
astating effects that this rarely
recognized condition, found
in an estimated 16% of peo-
ple across the globe, can have.
Her book, Word Gob-
blers, about recognizing and
helping children (and adults)
with Irlen Syndrome will be
published in mid-March. It is
illustrated by local artist Joan
Gilbert.
“It’s different for every-
body, and it can be very sub-
tle,” Matthias said. “For about
50% of people who have it,
it’s genetic. For the other 50%
it’s usually brain injuries. It
can also be triggered by high
fevers or certain viruses.”
Ellen Morris Bishop/For the Wallowa County Chieftain
Catherine Matthias is a children’s writer who has Irlen
Syndrome and also is an Irlen screener. Her book about the
condition, Word Gobblers, is due out in mid-March 2021.
The cause of Irlen Syn-
drome, Matthias noted, is
that the brain is not process-
ing certain light waves. And
those lightwaves (colors) are
different for different people.
As the brain starts building a
picture of a written page or
other subject, it’s not making
any sense because some of
the wavelengths (colors) are
missing. Consequently, peo-
ple with Irlen Syndrome have
brains that are sort of hyper-
active, trying to make sense of
incomplete pictures.
The solutions for Matthias
and others with Irlen Syn-
drome include placing col-
ored fi lters on top of pages
of text or printing text out on
colored paper. But the best
thing, Matthias said, is wear-
ing a pair of glasses or con-
tact lenses with multiple color
fi lters that are specifi cally
designed for the individual’s
needs.
Matthias now wears a
pair of specially prescribed
glasses with fi ve different
color fi lters. The glasses also
are designed to cut down on
glare from the sides and top.
She wouldn’t go anywhere
without them.
“The glasses are not a
cure, Matthias said. “You
cannot cure this. All you
can do is ameliorate it. The
glasses aren’t really colored
to the observer, and they don’t
change colors you are see-
ing. But they do they make
what you see more true to life
because your brain is not try-
ing to make sense of chaos.”
As a certifi ed Irlen Syn-
drome screener, Matthias uses
10 different colored fi lters to
determine which colored fi l-
ters work. There are several
hundred combinations. Diag-
nosticians who can actually
prescribe the color combina-
tions for glasses have more
than 100,000 options to meet
the needs of each individual.
“I had a friend from Port-
land, who’s a successful
photographer, painter and
writer, coming to visit and I
explained that I needed some-
one without Irlen Syndrome
to test,” Matthias said. “We
went through the test and I
don’t remember which color
it was, but we were going
through colors and I put a
color over her page, and she
burst into sobs. And I’m
thinking ‘What have I done
to my friend?’ And she fi nally
looked at me and said, ‘My
entire childhood makes sense
now.’”
For more information
about Irlen Syndrome and
the Irlen Institute, visit https://
irlen.com.
To contact Catherine Mat-
thias for questions about a
screening or diagnosis, visit
her website: CatherineMat-
thias.com.
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AR
ertson’s pharmacies except for
a couple are part of the federal
partnership that started (two
weeks ago) with the shipment
from the federal government
to the pharmacies,” said Jill
McGinnis, director of com-
munication and public affairs
for Safeway.
McGinnis said the Safe-
STAY
WARM
YE
Ellen Morris Bishop/For the Wallowa County Chieftain
On Monday, Feb. 22, 2021, a Safeway pharmacist administers the fi rst shot of the Moderna
COVID-19 vaccine to a person referred to Safeway by Wallowa Memorial Hospital.
W
ENTERPRISE — Wal-
lowa County residents have
another outlet where they
will be able to get COVID-
19 vaccinations as they are
distributed.
Safeway in Enterprise, as
well as many other retail phar-
macies, have begun receiv-
ing doses of the COVID-19
vaccine through the Federal
Retail Pharmacy Program.
According to the Oregon
Health Authority website,
“The partnership is a collab-
oration between the Centers
for Disease Control and Pre-
vention (CDC), states and
territories, and 21 national
pharmacy partners and inde-
pendent pharmacy networks.
Shipments arrived on Feb.
10 at 127 retail pharmacies in
Oregon.”
Enterprise’s
Safeway
store received 100 doses two
weeks ago, and was slated to
receive another 100 last week
before nationwide inclem-
ent weather issues delayed
the shipment. More doses are
expected to arrive this week.
“All of our Safeway/Alb-
nership with Safeway to work
(through) the waitlist that we
have.”
Stangel praised the efforts
put forth by the hospital staff,
and said the staff has played
a key role in helping coordi-
nate people for immunization
at Safeway.
“They’ve been doing a
great job. They have a great
team set up,” she said. “I
appreciate all they have been
doing, and appreciate them
working with us to try and
help out.”
As of Monday afternoon,
Feb. 22, there have been 1,183
fi rst doses administered in the
county, and 670 individuals
have received both doses of
the Moderna COVID-19 vac-
cine. There are 594 people on
the county waitlist.
Overall, there have been
142 cases of COVID-19 in
the county since the start
of the pandemic last year,
including 40 this month.
To signup online for a vac-
cine through Safeway (when
it’s available) visit www.
safeway.com/covid-19,
or
call WMH at 541-426-5437,
if you’re 65 or older, to be
added to the waitlist.
pharmacy having the avail-
ability to vaccinate gives resi-
dents another option of where
they can get inoculated.
“In talking with the hos-
pital they have been doing an
awesome job to help vaccinate
our community and county,
but there are always a few
people who can’t make it,” on
the hospital vaccination clinic
days, Stangel said. Those vac-
cination clinics have been on
Tuesdays and Fridays when
the vaccine is available.
“We were able to call 50
people at the top of our wait-
list and instruct them to call
Safeway,” Brooke Pace,
communications director at
WMH, said of how the col-
laboration worked from the
hospital’s end.
Having an additional loca-
tion that can immunize will
help speed up the process of
getting shots to those who
want them, Pace said.
“This is a great way for us
to work through the list at a
faster pace, especially if we
get to a situation where both
Safeway and the hospital are
receiving shipments,” she
said. “We’re hoping that we
will continue to work in part-
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By RONALD BOND
Wallowa County Chieftain
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