A Year In the Life: 2023-24
A brief summary of my life being 27, and what next year might hold for me...
Hello everyone, Dylan here once again.
Today is March 14, 2024, a pretty special day in my life. It is my 28th birthday, and as such, we cap off another year on this planet. So I figure, why not go over the key moments of this past year and see what might be in store for me moving forward?
Firstly, we will start with my work. Over the past year, I’ve worked with the Niagara County Department of Health (NCDOH) as their disability specialist, a position created from a grant provided by the National Association of City and County Health Officials (NACCHO). This position was created in order for NCDOH to evaluate their emergency preparedness plans with regards to people with disabilities and/or access and functional needs (DAFN) as well as stimulate partnerships with agencies and organizations that work with these individuals, some of which were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
As part of this work, I identified that the communication aspect of things was lacking. In particular the risk communication plan had data going back to 2010 or thereabouts, where the landscape of communications was different than it is now. Whereas before people did not readily have cellphones, now people are essentially glued to them. As a result, it was worth getting updated data by surveying the people of Niagara County.
This led to the development of a community engagement survey. Not only did this survey aim to evaluate best communication practices, it also served to determine the overall emergency preparedness level of the county, as well as determine the needs of the DAFN population, as well as get some data on COVID, especially long COVID, of which data is just starting to come out.1 The findings from this survey were presented in a poster for the 2023 New York State Public Health Corps (NYSPHC) fellows summit, and a more comprehensive data set will be made available for the 2024 Preparedness Summit, which will occur in about 10 days time.
By the way, you can check out my coverage of the fellows summit here:
2023 NYSPHC Fellowship Summit - A Review
Hello everyone, Dylan here again. From the 11th to the 13th of December, the Niagara County Department of Health fellows as well as I took to Albany, NY to attend the 2nd annual New York State Public Health Corps (NYSPHC) Fellowship Summit. The summit focused on the theme of “Building Partnerships That Strengthen Public Health”, with the additional hope …
In addition to the survey and fellowship summit, I took part in the 2023 Preparedness Summit in Atlanta back in April. This whet my appetite into the vast realm of public health, and sort of led me to seek out more people like me, who have stories to tell and tools to share. One of the tools that was particularly useful was the Hidden Disability Sunflower, which I’ve talked about in some depth before on this blog. Through some convincing Niagara County signed on to the program in February, and they should be launching it soon. I’ve also convinced the University of Buffalo to take a look at this, as well as the NFTA (in particular, the two international airports that serve my region, Buffalo Niagara International and Niagara Falls International).
Two other events of note have occurred in my time with Niagara County - first, we performed an exercise to test some of the aspects of our emergency plans, as well as utilize some new tools, including the PocketTalker (a hearing amplification device) and the PockeTalk (a pocket translation device). Second, I began to take part in a public health essentials course hosted by Cornell University through their eLearning software, eCornell.
This leads to a nice segue into the next aspect of my life, which is my education. The big thing here was that in February I was awarded with the masters degree in physics, while working on a PhD. I feel having this is an accomplishment. Progress is still being made towards the PhD in physics, however, after getting that, I will need to figure out where I will go for work (this would still have to be determined even if I decide that the PhD isn’t worth it).
Through UB (University of Buffalo) I did travel down to the 2023 Phenomenology Conference in Pittsburgh. There I met up with some of the friends I had made during the 2022 CTEQ conference, as well as receiving an idea of the state of the field in mid 2023.
Now to the more personal side projects/activities that I have taken part in:
I’ve really taken interest again in flying - this has been a thing whose interest has ebbed and flowed through my life. The interest really took off once I joined The Pilot Club, one of the premier virtual pilot clubs on the VATSIM network. In May 2023 I became host of the bush flights on Wednesdays, and later the host for Fly-in Thursdays.
I started The Autistic Muse, which is where I share things. So far, including this post, I have posted 29 times2 - where I’ve talked about roadblocks, started posting a novel that I wrote back in 2020-21, short fictional pieces, and a few other things.
In August 2023 I went up with the people at my house up to a cabin in the Adirondacks for an overnight stay. Although I was bit wary of going up there, since there was no internet, it proved to be a fun adventure. The highlight of that trip was the bonfire that we had during the night that lasted some 3-4 hours, despite the misty conditions.
After nine years of being out of the performing arts world I returned to ZPAC - not to perform, but to be part of the stage crew. I handled the spotlight for their show back in June.
I attended the Taste of Country back in June.
I started getting my foot wet into self advocacy - which came about through my work with the sunflower.
And of course, I had time to enjoy some other leisurely activities, like chess, cooking, the nightly grind of video games, and catching a baseball game.
That basically summed up the year in a nutshell. So moving on to 28… what things lie in the pipeline?
Well, I did apply for the Heumann fellowship, which would allow me to continue in a similar line of work to what I am doing now, albeit with a more research focus. It will be a while before I hear back as to whether I will be interviewed.
I am also thinking about attending SANYS's western region conference in Rochester, to be held June 6-7. This would allow me to connect with other people in this arena, as well as allowing me to continue the spread of awareness of the sunflower within my region.
With a couple of months left working with Niagara County, there is still much to do, including launching the sunflower officially (likely to happen after the eclipse on April 8). Public health never stops!
The novel that I mentioned previously, The Sound Empress, will continue to posted here, chapter by chapter, until it’s fully complete. This is anticipated to occur in the middle of June, at which point I will supply an eBook copy so you can read it offline in full.
One final thing that has been in my mind is attempting a half marathon.
That’s all - let’s hope 28 is a great year.
I’ll leave you guys with a nice pie - as it is also Pi day:
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The 2023 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) has questions related to Long COVID, however, the data from this edition has not been made available yet at the time of posting.
Technically, 30, if you include the “Coming soon!” post that Substack creates when a stack is created.