How to take care of yourself and help others?

November introduced the Holm family to a variety of health-related wisdom, the kind you learn indoors, but take with you everywhere. We started with a first aid training event in our offices in Haapsalu and Tallinn, where we invited Merike Mets, a health care professional in emergency medicine, to carry out practical training. The theme was: how to take care of yourself and help others. Now, to anyone thinking that, while a training event like that might be useful, it is also likely to be pretty dull, you are gravely mistaken. It all depends on the teacher. Merike’s method was to re-enact real-life situations and there was plenty of humor to take the edge off. This really helped drill in some of the more complex but important points. The Holm family now know how to immobilise a fracture using the tools at hand, and how and when to help a friend using the Heimlich maneuver (and not fall over while doing so). We now know that clean water is the first substance to use for cleaning a wound and there is no need to panic and drown an open wound in disinfectant. We learned what to do if someone suddenly collapses and picked up much more useful information for life’s unexpected situations. We also established that we would be happy to see the trainer return to help us reinforce what we learned and acquire new knowledge and skills.

First aid training was not the end of our health-related education in November. Eyes are the most important tools for any office worker. How often do you take care of those valued assets? Unfortunately, most of us have to admit that we do not think about eye health very often. Sure, when eyesight deteriorates, we know to go and get new glasses fitted, but we often fail to acknowledge that there is much more to the wellbeing of our eyes. Pere Optika came to our rescue with information, knowledge and special equipment. An ophthalmologist from this well-known Estonian optics company taught us all about what someone working with a computer ought to know and keep in mind about eyes. One of the main concerns accompanying computer work is dry eyes. By checking the condition of their eyes with special equipment, everyone was able to find out the condition of their eyes and receive instructions on what to do next. If anyone now feels that they would like to have their eyes checked, we can recommend Pere Optika’s ophthalmologists based on our recent experience – they have two shops specialising on problems related to dry eyes, one in Tallinn at Tartu mnt 18 and the other in Tartu at Riia 2.

Did the dark autumn weather keep the Holm family indoors and away from outdoor fun? Not a chance. Together with a small group from Holm, we went on an inspiration hike. This has been a tradition of the marketing team for several years now. We headed for the Beach–Peraküla learning track in western Estonia. The weather was wonderful and Labrador Retriever Dora made the trip even more joyous. Everyone was able to complete the journey that took us close to small waterholes, along forest paths and sometimes along sand dunes on the seashore. We snacked on some delicious sandwiches and had hot tea to warm ourselves back up. An afternoon outdoor hike in the company of good colleagues brought us even closer and made us feel like a real family.