Health, Doctors and Common Sense

Heidi Miller kisses her son Mitch Ball as he undergoes his daily ventilator treatment. Miller spends three hours every day crushing pills, operating medical equipment, and feeding and bathing Ball. The routine became necessary last fall, when Ball’s Duchenne muscular dystrophy worsened, forcing Miller to quit her physical therapist assistant job to care for him.

For Mitch Ball, breakfast is a dizzying array of medication and cans of high-protein liquid formula, poured or pumped into his stomach through a tube.

Afterward comes a 20-minute breathing treatment, then the grooming and the cleaning of the tubes and other circuits that keep the 24-year-old Citrus Heights resident alive.

In what seems like an exhausting three-hour ordeal each morning, Heidi Miller, Ball’s mother, crushes pills, operates medical equipment, feeds Ball and bathes him in bed.

Mother and son consider the tasks part of a daily routine since last fall, when Ball’s muscle-degenerating illness worsened, forcing Miller to quit her physical therapist assistant job to care for him.

With the household income almost halved, Miller, a divorced single mother of two young men, suddenly found herself in a tenuous financial situation and two months behind on her mortgage payment. Ball’s 19-year-old brother Brett is in college.

The family is not yet in danger of losing the single-story Wooddale Way home, which is fitted with ramps and roll-in showers to accommodate Ball’s needs. But Miller said she just can’t keep up, especially with hefty bills that include a $470-a-month payment to maintain health insurance through her former employer. The house is also in need of repairs.

The situation prompted Amy Bush, Miller’s friend, to mobilize a fundraiser. Bush, a vice president of a mortgage firm, had raised Ball’s service dog, which Ball received a year ago from Canine Companions for Independence, a nonprofit organization.

Miller initially struggled with the idea of a fundraiser for her and her son.

“There are so many people out there who need help,” she said.

Ball was diagnosed at the age of 4 with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a genetic disease that wastes away the muscles over time. Those afflicted with the illness rarely live past the age of 30.

By 8, Ball was in a wheelchair. At 24, Ball can barely move his body. He has just enough strength to drive his power wheelchair and move a computer mouse.

Last year, Ball’s breathing and swallowing muscles started giving way. He underwent a tracheotomy and feeding tube surgery, and now relies on a ventilator to breathe.

Her son’s need for round-the-clock care limits Miller’s ability to go back to work.

Miller has repeatedly sought a bank loan modification that would lower her monthly mortgage payment of $2,226 by a few hundred dollars, but without success.

Miller wrote the bank a letter in February, explaining how the surgery last August and Ball’s new reliance on a ventilator have altered their financial situation.

“In the last couple of months my life has changed completely with my son’s illness,” Miller wrote. “Prior to the most recent changes in my son’s health, I was able to work full time and provide for my family.”

As an in-home caregiver, Miller receives about $2,800 from the state each month, an amount that will soon be reduced with the state budget cuts. Moreover, Miller doesn’t get the state benefit when Ball is hospitalized.

“This disease is unpredictable and you never know when there will be a need for Mitch to be hospitalized,” Miller wrote.

Bush said Nfinit Solutions, a real estate consulting firm, is working for free to help Miller negotiate with Bank of America on the loan modification.

A bank spokesman, Rick Simon, said Friday that the request is under review and the bank is hopeful for a “possible workout.”

Meanwhile, Miller said she’s being hit with penalty fees for being late on her mortgage payments.

Laden with the financial stress, Miller said she has lost weight.

But if Miller was overwhelmed, she didn’t show any signs of it on Thursday, as she busied herself with Ball’s morning care routine.

Ball lay in his bed under a blue-and-white comforter, while Lynelle, the yellow Labrador service dog, lazed at the end of the bed, snoring every so often as she dozed off.

While his mother feeds and treats him with medication and machines, Ball watches “The Price Is Right,” a television game show. He joined contestants in guessing the price of items. Ball said he wants to get on the show, either as a spectator or a contestant.

In April, Bush offered Ball and Miller a vacation at her time-share resort near San Diego. Ball said they were able to get tickets to the show. But to attend the show, they had to arrive early in the morning, giving them no time to complete the morning routine.

Ball said he was slightly disappointed, but there was so much “other fun stuff to do on our vacation it was OK.”

Also, “there are other harder things I have to deal with,” he said.

On Thursday afternoon, Ball met with a counselor at the state’s rehabilitation center to see about getting a job.

“I wanted something in graphic design because I’m very artistic, and anything to do with computers,” Ball said.

Ball attended an art and new media course at American River College briefly, before it got too difficult for him to paint or design.

A Van Gogh fan, Ball even painted a replica of one of the artist’s most popular works, “The Bedroom at Arles,” which hangs in his bedroom, along with a copy of “Starry Night.”

The job counselor said workers’ compensation will not cover a caregiver if Ball is hired, which might hinder Ball from getting a job.

Still, Ball remains optimistic that something will work out.

Ball and his mother said the period following his tracheotomy and feeding tube surgery, after he came home from a two-month stay in hospital, was one of the most trying.

The thought that he was always going to be sick and that he would always have to be on a ventilator got to him.

“I felt very hopeless,” Ball said. “I would cry at the drop of a hat.”

Relying on his Christian faith and a psychiatrist’s help, Ball said he’s overcome his depression and is learning to take things in stride.

On his blog, Ball describes himself as a typical guy with an atypical body.

“No, it’s not covered in colorful tattoos or piercings in bizarre places,” he writes.

“In spite of all the challenges I face day to day I live each day to the fullest and look forward to the future,” he writes. “It isn’ t always easy but having a positive outlook is something I strive for everyday.”

How to help

If you would like to help Mitch Ball and his mother, you can send a check made out to the “Mitch Ball Gift Account,” 3000 Lava Ridge Ct., Suite 200, Roseville, CA 95661.

Or visit his Web site.

With his service dog Lynelle opening the door, Mitch Ball leaves the state Department of Rehabilitation Wednesday after a job search.

BRYAN PATRICK bpatrick@sacbee.com
Mitch Ball lies in bed with his dog Lynelle at his Citrus Heights home. Ball said he’s overcome the depression born of his illness, with the help of his Christian faith and a psychiatrist, and is learning to take things in stride. He describes himself as a typical guy with an atypical body.

Tags: Home Care, Mom Son

Read Users' Comments (0)

Nearly a million Californians, perhaps hundreds of thousands more, cross the border to Mexico every year because they cannot afford the rising cost of health care in the United States, according to UCLA researchers.

The study by the school’s Center for Health Policy Research, published Tuesday in the journal Medical Care, affirms what has long been suspected – that the untamable cost of medicine is forcing many, particularly Latino immigrants, to look outside California for medical and dental care. As casualties from the recession rise and as budget-strapped government programs eliminate health services, more people are expected to head south to fill prescriptions, get teeth fixed or undergo care for chronic illnesses.

According to the study, at least 952,000 California adults – 488,000 of them described by the study as Mexican immigrants and about a quarter as non-Latino whites – head south annually for their medical, dental and prescription services.

The number seeking care in Mexico may actually be much larger, because findings are based on 2001 data from the California Health Interview Survey and do not take into account today’s higher rates of unemployment and the increasing rate of the medically uninsured.

“We suspect the number has grown by leaps and bounds,” said Gil Ojeda, executive director of the California Program on Access to Care, which is housed at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health.

The recession has left many people out of work and without health insurance. About 6.6 million Californians were medically uninsured in 2007, and Latinos are twice as likely as whites to be without insurance, according to the California HealthCare Foundation.

What’s more, deep cuts in the state budget mean that fewer people can benefit from government health programs. This summer, the state plans to eliminate the adult Denti-Cal program.

“What’s going to happen is that a lot of people are going to cross over the border to get their dental care,” Ojeda said.

The UCLA researchers said their study is the first large-scale data analysis ever published on U.S. residents crossing the border for health services.

“Until now, no one had a really good sense of how common this was,” said Steven Wallace, the study’s lead author and associate director of the UCLA health research center.

The vast majority travel to Mexico from Southern California, although about a fourth are from Central and Northern California, according to the study.

“They’re not crossing the border because they have the flu,” Wallace said. “It’s the more significant illnesses. It’s for chronic conditions and types of medical care that require more extensive testing and consultations.”

While the study did not compare costs for services on both sides of the border, the leading motivation for crossing into Mexico was to save money, particularly among medically uninsured immigrants, Wallace said.

Non-Latino whites crossed the border to take advantage of lower pharmaceutical prices, researchers said.

Tags: Cal Program, California Adults, California Healthcare Foundation, California Program, Chronic Illnesses, Cross The Border, Deep Cuts, Government Health Programs, Health Interview Survey, Health Policy Research, Journal Medical, Latino Immigrants, Leaps And Bounds, Mexican Immigrants, Mexico Study, Prescription Services, S Center, School Of Public Health, Uc Berkeley, Ucla Researchers

Read Users' Comments (0)

Lucas Myers, 16, has given nearly 10 gallons of blood and plasma at
BloodSource since last fall. He donates every Saturday. Myers said
he’s motivated by the trials of a girl at his church who has leukemia.

Needles don’t faze 16-year old Lucas Myers.

He’s been donating blood and plasma since last fall, and now he’s four pints short of 10 gallons – a notable achievement, considering it takes most adults 13 years to reach that volume of giving.

Every Saturday at 6:30 a.m., when phlebotomists at the midtown BloodSource draw from the same spot on his right arm, he just thinks about the little girl at his church with leukemia.

“Sophia has to get needles up her arm too. I’m sure she doesn’t like it, but she doesn’t have a choice,” he said. “So that’s what helps me do it.”

But it’s not all martyrdom.

It’s been fun, too. Myers always arrives at BloodSource with his dad, Gary, who’s donated about 170 gallons since college. The two have contests to see who can finish fastest. Lucas Myers has only won a couple times, but phlebotomist Elaine Smyth said that’s no measure of his enthusiasm.

Dad has bigger veins.

Smyth, who has worked at BloodSource more than 10 years, has never seen anybody reach 10 gallons at age 16.

Because he’s donating plasma, not whole blood, it’s not as debilitating for Myers as it might sound. His blood is spun around in a centrifuge to separate the plasma from red blood cells, which are put back through the needle and into his bloodstream. Plasma regenerates in about 24 hours.

Regular donors have to wait four weeks before they donate plasma again, but Myers has doctor’s approval to do it every two days through a frequent donor program.

It doesn’t leave him too tired or sore to be a normal 16-year-old. After Saturday’s donation, Myers went on a bike ride. At school, he’s on the football and basketball teams.

Myers, it seems, has lived most of his young life doing things ahead of schedule. He skipped sophomore year and next month will graduate from Sacramento Adventist Academy.

He’s already found a place by Walla Walla University in Washington where he can donate in the fall while he studies to become a physical therapist.

The inconveniences of Saturday morning donation – going to bed early on Friday, avoiding fatty foods – are nothing compared to the inconveniences of disease, Myers said.

“There’s people out there who don’t have the time for cancer or stomach ulcers,” he said. “It’s difficult for them, and this isn’t difficult for me. That takes away the excuses for me.”

Along the way Myers has spread the word about donation opportunities. He and his sister organized a blood drive at school, and almost a third of the students made donations. And every Saturday after donation, he goes to church, where he can see Sophia, who’s in remission now.

She always gives him a big hug. “It’s just nice to know there’s blood out there for her, and people like me that give their time,” he said.

Read Users' Comments (0)

People visit loved ones at cemeteries on Memorial Day weekend, bringing flowers for the built-in vases and adding some water. Standing water. You know what that means.

Mosquitoes.

But not this year. The Sacramento-Yolo Mosquito Vector and Control District has spent $12,500 to get local cemeteries to use crystals that turn the water into gel, preventing mosquitoes from breeding.

Water crystals are super-absorbent polymers that look like white grains when dry. When water is added, the crystals’ chemical structure traps it until they’ve expanded to resemble gel ice cubes. As the flowers use the water, the crystals go back to grain form.

There are an estimated 247,000 in-ground vases in more than 37 cemeteries in Sacramento and Yolo counties – plenty of places for mosquitoes to breed and spread West Nile virus, district spokeswoman Luz Rodriguez said.

The crystals pick up dirt and don’t look as nice as water, cemetery officials say, and people are picky when it comes to honoring grave sites. Ray Young, the district manager of Fair Oaks Cemetery, said he has some die-hards who pour out the crystals every time they visit.

“They think it looks icky. That’s the term,” he said.

The cemetery still promotes the crystals – religiously. Workers post signs to educate visitors and check vases to make sure the crystals are in place every month. If a family doesn’t comply, Young said, he calls them and tells them why it is important.

“We don’t really want anybody to get sick,” he said.

The season for West Nile isn’t in full swing yet, and no human cases have been reported in the state so far. Last year, 15 people died and 445 were infected in California, according to the control district.

Thirty cemeteries in Sacramento and Yolo counties are participating in the program, Rodriguez said.

Tags: Cemetery Officials, Chemical Structure, Die Hards, Fair Oaks Cemetery, Full Swing, Grains, Grave Sites, Memorial Day, Memorial Day Weekend, Mosquito, Mosquito Control, Mosquitoes, Sacramento Yolo Mosquito Vector, Spokeswoman, Super Absorbent Polymers, Vases, Vector Control, Water Crystals, West Nile Virus, Yolo Counties

Read Users' Comments (0)

Steve Larsen, a former Davis resident and triathlete, died Wednesday in Oregon. Medical examiners blamed sudden cardiac arrest.

Every time an elite athlete dies suddenly from heart failure while competing – and thankfully, that doesn’t happen often – disbelief and concern are the dominant reactions.

Such was the case Wednesday when triathlete, former professional cyclist and ex-Davis resident Steve Larsen, 39, collapsed and died on a track in Bend, Ore., during interval training with 40 other runners. Medical examiners ruled the death the result of sudden cardiac arrest; an autopsy is pending.

“I don’t know a fitter human being,” fellow triathlete Matt Lieto told the Bend Bulletin. “I always thought of him as invincible.”

Larsen’s death, coming not so long after the sudden cardiac arrest deaths of Ryan Shay during the 2007 Olympic Marathon trials and Adam Nickel just after finishing 18th in the Little Rock (Ark.) Marathon in 2008, has made some wonder about the health and safety of athletes in endurance sports.

Those raising concerns also point to the 1984 death of so-called running guru Jim Fixx, who wrote the best-seller “The Complete Book of Running” and dropped dead on the road of cardiac arrest.

Medical researchers and exercise scientists have long studied the effects of exercise on the heart.

A study presented this month at the International Conference of the American Thoracic Society in San Diego showed that marathon runners’ heartbeats and ventricle pumping capabilities had abnormalities immediately after the race. But follow-up tests by University of Manitoba (Canada) researchers showed the runners had no signs of permanent injury to the heart.

The study rebuts a 2006 study in the journal Circulation that showed heart abnormalities among 60 non-elite participants in the Boston Marathon.

While tests on Larsen’s heart are pending, nearly all the other athletes who have died suddenly were later proved to have preexisting genetic conditions, such as an enlarged heart or a coronary artery anomaly.

Dr. Barry Maron of the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation, who has studied sudden death in athletes for three decades, says about 125 athletes under age 35 succumb to sudden cardiac death every year.

In many cases, athletes had no previous indication of heart problems. Even those who had been alerted to heart abnormalities – such as Shay, who was diagnosed with a slightly enlarged heart when he was 14 – were given clearance and clean bills of health from physicians to pursue endurance sports.

Toxicology tests on Shay, who was 28 when he died Nov. 3, 2007, at the five-mile mark of the Olympic trials, determined that he had an irregular heartbeat from an enlarged and scarred heart. The scarring, doctors said, looked as if it was an “old” injury to the muscle. Shay had pneumonia when he was 14, but doctors aren’t sure whether that was a cause of scarring.

“Tough scars can set up abnormal electrical currents,” Dr. Paul Thompson, a Hartford cardiologist specializing in heart disease among athletes, told the New York Times in 2008. “If normal conductivity gets blocked, it can result in fast, abnormal rhythms, and a person can die.”

Experts, therefore, say Shay’s death could not be linked to the so-called athlete’s heart syndrome – undetectable hereditary conditions like a thickening of the muscle called hypertrophic cardio- myopathy.

That condition first gained national attention in 1990 when Loyola Marymount University star basketball player Hank Gathers collapsed and died during an NCAA tournament game. NBA player Reggie Lewis, 27, died three years later of a condition similar to Shay’s – an enlarged and scarred heart. Nickel, the Arkansas marathoner, was later found to have artery dysplasia, a narrowing of the arteries that restrict blood flow.

The doctor who performed Nickel’s autopsy, Charles Kokes, told the Arkansas Democrat- Gazette that an electro- cardiogram could have detected the condition.

American Heart Association guidelines for cardiac screenings for young athletes (high school age) call for an extensive medical history questionnaire and tests that check for high blood pressure and heart murmurs. Some medical professionals believe it should include a more thorough heart test. An Italian study in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology reported that EKGs can reduce the risk of sudden cardiac death by nearly 90 percent. (Italy has had routine EKG screening for athletes since 1982.)

In the United States, the National Basketball Association in 2007 started echocardiograms and EKGs for all players.

But most doctors say that endurance athletes don’t need EKGs unless their doctors find reason to suspect problems.

A study from French researchers released Wednesday showed a link between people with an excessive increase in heart rate prior to engaging in exercise and those at risk of sudden cardiac death at a later point.

“Few measurements in medicine are as inexpensive and as easy to obtain in large general populations as to measure the heart-rate difference between resting and being ready to perform an exercise test,” said Dr. Xavier Jouven from Hopital Europeen Georges Pompidou, Paris, in a statement.

The researchers followed non-elite athletes (7,746 male civil servants) for 23 years. They compared resting heart rate with that measured just before they rode a stationary bicycle. Eighty-one of the subjects died from sudden cardiac death during the two- decade followup.

Experts caution that the number of sudden deaths during endurance sports still is small. The Boston Globe reported that for every 1 million marathon racers, four to eight die each year. For triathletes, the numbers jump to 15 out of a million. The increase, posits Minneapolis Heart Institute researcher Dr. Kevin Harris, might have to do with problems from cold water in the swimming portion.

There is some good news on the research front, though: Stanford University researchers found that runners ages 50 and older had significantly less heart disease than non-runners and showed a lower number of physical disabilities as they aged.

Noted local athlete Steve Larsen has died.

Read Users' Comments (0)

If you’re like many Americans these days, chances are you’d like to slim down and improve your health.

Last month, AARP launched the Fat 2 Fit Community Weight- Loss Challenge (www.aarp.org/health/ healthyliving/fat2fit/), an online program to help you lose weight. You may recall from an earlier column that the brains behind Fat 2 Fit is our own regional hero Carole Carson, the Nevada County dynamo who in 2004 inspired 1,000 people in Nevada County to lose a collective 8 tons!

Carole garnered national recognition for her success in Nevada County and published her story in the book “From Fat to Fit: Turn Yourself Into a Weapon of Mass Reduction!” Last year, she began working to create a similar opportunity for a broader national audience – the AARP. Her incredible Web site challenge was launched April 15, and she set a goal of registering 5,000 people to collectively lose 20 tons together.

Is this program for you? It’s free and open to all ages. All you need is the commitment and determination to lose weight and get healthy. Just go online and join the Weight-Loss Challenge now.

On the Web site, you’ll find lots of tips and tricks to lose weight. And by making a commitment to your own great health, you’ll also find yourself with more energy, lower blood pressure, better strength and a better mood – not to mention a reduced risk of heart disease, diabetes, cancer, arthritis and dementia.

Another feature of Carole’s AARP program is the chance to access a Q&A with the Fat to Fit advisory board, of which we are members. Also on the board are Dr. Michael Roizen, who has co-authored numerous books with Dr. Mehmet Oz; and Dr. Harry Lodge, who co-authored “Younger Next Year.”

In Carole’s words:

“The Challenge provides support for an adventure designed to help you achieve fitness beyond your wildest dreams. … You’ll connect with teammates who will support you and whom you can support. You’ll be encouraged to find foods you love to eat that won’t pack on pounds and to find exercises you love to do. This vast support group can help you go from fat to fit.”

So go ahead and take the challenge, and find yourself getting FIT:

F: Find inspiration, information, cooking tips and advice from experts to help stay on track.

I: Individualize eating and exercise routines so new, healthy habits can be developed and sustained.

T: Team up with others to give and receive support in their fitness adventure.

Together, we can do anything we set our minds to, so set your sights on vibrant health this year!

Read Users' Comments (0)

Everybody gets so jittery about the caffeine content of coffee. So they forgo their cup o’ Joe and often substitute some other libation they believe won’t give them the caffeine shakes.

But the U.S. Department of Agriculture recently reported that caffeine derivatives often are liberally used in energy drinks and dietary supplements. Let’s take a look at three of the more popular “botanicals” that’ll give you a buzz.

1. The Agricultural Research Service says an 8-ounce cup of coffee contains 95 milligrams of caffeine. Of the 53 energy drinks and dietary supplements the agency studied, how many of those products met or exceeded coffee’s caffeine content?

a) 13

b) 33

c) 53

d) none

2. Guarana, a plant found in the Amazon basin, is the most frequently added caffeine-alternative extract. According to a study in the journal Pharmaceutical Biology, how much more caffeine does guarana have than coffee beans?

a) same amount

b) twice as much

c) five times as much

d) 25 times as much

3. Yerba mate, a species of holly from South America, contains about one-third of the caffeine of coffee, according to a Health Canada study. Which celebrity has NOT touted yerba mate as a supplement?

a) Madonna

b) Moby

c) Matt Dillon

d) Miley Cyrus

4. Among the claims that yerba mate enthusiasts cite is that it helps to … what?

a) restore youthful hair color

b) jump-start the male libido

c) whiten teeth

d) improve long-term memory

5. True or false: Green tea contains no caffeine.

6. For those who want the biggest buzz for the buck, which energy drink contains the most caffeine per ounce, equivalent to downing a maximum strength No-Doz tablet?

a) Red Line Power Rush

b) Blow

c) Ammo

d) Charge! Super Shot

ANSWERS: 1: c; 2: b; 3: d; 4: a; 5: false (35 mg in 6 oz.); 6: c (171 mg per oz.).

Sources: U.S. Department of Agriculture; www.nutritiondata.com; Health Canada; www.brainready.com.

– Sam McManis

smcmanis@sacbee.com

Read Users' Comments (0)

If you have questions about the practices of your managed-care coverage, ask the experts at the state Department of Managed Health Care.

My health plan allows only a $2,700 cap on coverage for my medications. However, just for the month of January, the cost was $704, so I will never make it to the end of the year. I showed one of my doctors the price for a generic medication, and he thought the price was way out of line. I am so confused. I have changed all my meds to generics and use the mail-order pharmacy, and yet I still cannot manage. Where are these $4 prescriptions that I keep hearing about? I have fibromyalgia, so I do take several medications, but I sometimes just want to stop all of them.

– Marsha in Modesto

You are not alone in your confusion. In California, there are many health plans, and each health plan has different types of coverage designed to meet the needs of a diverse consumer base. Although we would need more information from you to be certain, it sounds like the health plan product you have selected is not going to meet your ongoing needs.

Most health plans require some kind of qualifying event, such as the loss of a job or a change in marital status, before you can switch products outside the open enrollment period. However, that shouldn’t stop you from contacting your health plan’s member services department and asking it about other types of plans that are available to you. Explain your situation and your concerns, and there’s a good chance that they’ll have a plan better suited to meet your specific needs. Ask questions now so that when open enrollment does arrive, you’ll be ready to switch plans if you need to.

There are $4 prescription programs out there in some retail-store pharmacies, but not all medications or dosages are included in these programs. In fact, most of the prescriptions included are the most common and least expensive medications. While these programs are a great benefit to a lot of consumers, the types of medication are limited. Contact your local pharmacies directly and ask if any of your medications are included in the program.

Another option you should explore is whether your health plan’s mail-order prescription service offers 90-day supplies of any medications that you will be taking for an extended period. The co-pay obligations are generally lower when you order a 90-day supply through the mail.

One other option is to check with an online prescription drug assistance site. There are several sites on the Internet that can show you how to receive medications at steep discounts, but with most of these sites, you have to fall below certain income levels to qualify.

Consumers needing assistance with their health plans can call the Department of Managed Health Care toll- free at (888) 466-2219 or log on to www.healthhelp.ca.gov.

Read Users' Comments (0)

Charlotte ter Haar, far left, and Hilary Teaford, far right, are organizing a run to aid African families.

As Davis High School cross-country and track distance runners, Charlotte ter Haar and Hilary Teaford are used to competing in races, not organizing them.

So you can excuse them for being a bit frantic as they prepare to launch a benefit run – Rays of Hope 5K and Kids Run – on May 30 at Davis Community Park.

The race, which serves as ter Haar and Teaford’s final requirement for Girl Scout Gold Awards, benefits a sister troop in Tikoe, Lesotho. Specifically, they want to send solar cookers to families in the southern African republic.

Because they are runners, the 16-year-old juniors on Davis’ CIF Sac-Joaquin Section winning team thought a race would be a natural fundraising vehicle. They didn’t realize the bevy of logistical and financial challenges that lay ahead.

“It’s been a lot of work, but we’re totally committed,” ter Haar says. “We had so many permits to get and make sure we rented the field before anyone else, and opening checking accounts and filling out grant applications.”

That’s not to mention setting up a Web site (www.raysofhoperace.com) and a PayPal account for entrants, coordinating with contacts in Lesotho, and finding a timing system within their budgets and learning how to use it.

“But our biggest problem at the start was getting enough money to (organize) the race,” ter Haar says. “We figured, if we had to, we could pay for (expenses) from race entries, but we’d like to use as much of that money as possible for the solar cookers.”

The girls say that, with a week to go before the race, it has all come together. All they need now is for Sacramento-area runners to come to help the good cause. The cost for the 5K is $15, cheap by road-race standards. The Kids Run is $5.

“We’re looking at an OK response right now, but we want a big crowd,” she says.

With a little help from Davis High cross-country coach Bill Gregg and assistant Tracy Bennett, they are logistically ready. Bennett loaned the girls a timing system he developed and taught them to run it, which saved them about $2,000 had they been forced to rent equipment.

One thing ter Haar and Teaford didn’t need help on was figuring out the course. It’s a fast, flat (everywhere in Davis is flat) loop course that winds through Davis’ greenbelt and through two parks.

“It’s a run we do on the cross-country team on recovery days that we call the ‘Dog Loop,’ because there are statues of dogs (on the greenbelt),” ter Haar says. It’s a little short of three miles, so we had to add a little bit to make it a 5K (3.1 miles).”

Read Users' Comments (0)

Nurses Lori Marshall, left, and Mary Ann O’Connell place Rema Cantorna of Sacramento into a hyperbaric chamber at Mercy San Juan Medical Center for oxygen therapy. It is used to help patients suffering from slow-healing wounds and other ailments.

Spending two hours daily flat on your back in a hyperbaric chamber is no one’s idea of a good time.

One look at the restrictive steel-and-glass tube, which resembles a cross between a space-age sleep pod and a coroner’s table, is enough to give even the calmest patient the screaming claustrophobic fantods.

For Dr. Sandra Johnson, a family physician from Davis turned skin-graft patient at Mercy San Juan Medical Center, it proved even more of a burden – but ultimately a blessing.

Johnson couldn’t wear her glasses during the 60 daily sessions she underwent to treat a nasty and persistent frostbite wound on her right hand. Therefore, watching the wall-mounted TV was out. Hearing aids were not allowed, either, so Johnson (who is partially deaf) couldn’t listen to the TV audio.

Worse, though, was the confinement. Johnson is an active, energetic person who doesn’t know the meaning of repose. Being entombed for so long, with nary a distraction, was maddening.

“I started working out before the treatments,” Johnson says. “That took some of the edge off.”

Yet all the discomfort was worth it to Johnson, who has temporarily lost the use of her right hand after a snowboarding-related frostbite accident in 2008 that withered away skin and tendons. Seven skin graft surgeries in a year had failed to “take,” such was the extent of Johnson’s suppurating tissue damage and scarring.

At last, a specialist recommended hyperbaric oxygen therapy, a procedure in which 100 percent oxygen is pumped in at higher pressure than normal.

Forget the hyperbolic talk of hyperbaric “miracles” from decades ago. Recently, chamber therapy has been shown to be effective for a variety of ills, including bone infection from cancer radiation, decompression sickness (”the bends”) and decomposing tissue.

Repeated high doses of the pure oxygen pumped into the hyperbaric chamber over several months have finally enabled the eighth skin graft operation on Johnson’s right hand to heal.

“I could really tell after a session,” Johnson says. “It’d get a little bit better each time. It was amazing: I’d go in, and the skin was kind of a dusky color, grayish, and I’d come out and – poof! – pink.

“In that short of time, you could see the difference. And I could even feel it. It kind of burned and tingled in there.”

Johnson still is several months away from surgery to graft tendons from her feet onto her hand to regain movement, but getting the wound to heal was a huge first step.

What the oxygen-rich environment did for Johnson, says Mercy San Juan hyperbaric therapy medical director Dr. Richard Stack, was nothing less than bringing tissue back from the dead. “We’ve done some miraculous work,” Stack says. “It’s something doctors don’t always think about, or think about it too late, when nothing will fix (the wound).

“Acutely, in cases like Dr. Johnson’s, the circulation is compromised. It does bring in oxygen to the tissue, which helps reduce permanent injury. If it involves infection, oxygen will retard some infection growths. There are properties (in hyperbaric treatment) that inhibit bacteria. Oxygen also can reduce tissue swelling, which helps improve the profusion of tissue.”

Many hospitals in the Sacramento region are equipped with at least one single-person hyperbaric chamber, though only Travis Air Force Base and a hospital in Chico have a hyperbaric room that can accommodate more than a patient at a time.

First used in the early 1900s, the chambers have fallen in and out of favor in the medical community. Their use is currently on the upswing but not always for the intended – and medically prudent – purpose.

The Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society lists 13 conditions that pure oxygen therapy can effectively treat, from bone infection to carbon monoxide poisoning.

But the lure of pure oxygen also has encouraged others to use it for dubious means.

“Michael Jackson hopped in one years ago,” Stack says. “Things like that don’t help medical science much. A lot of the sports teams with players with muscular injuries that take a period of time to heal the damaged muscle have their own chambers. They put the players in there to try to speed up the healing, but studies haven’t shown that it helps.”

Lately, private physicians using hyperbaric chambers have used the therapy on patients suffering from conditions as varied as autism to multiple sclerosis, stroke and fibromyalgia. No long-term research has documented any remedy for such conditions, and most insurance companies won’t cover the cost for hyperbaric use that is not proven effective.

The lack of randomized large-scale studies has been “a persistent criticism of hyperbaric medicine … for several of the primary indications,” according to a report in the November issue of the journal Emergency Medicine.

Mercy’s Stack acknowledges that fact, adding that it’s one reason the procedure is not used more often.

“The government and insurance (companies) always want you to re-demonstrate your efficacy. The standards now are randomized placebo study, but you really can’t do that with hyperbaric. You can’t give a patient placebo oxygen pressure. And you can’t just do studies with hundreds of patients. So there’s skepticism still, but we who do wound care see the benefits time after time.”

Many of the Mercy patients who have received help suffer from chronic conditions such as diabetic ulcers or have scarring after radiation treatment for cancer.

Patient Rema Cantorna has undergone daily hyperbaric treatments for a skin disease brought on after kidney failure. “I think it’s helped my skin,” she says. “It looks better.”

And Cantorna says she doesn’t mind so much the close confinement and inactivity in the chamber.

As she settled in for a two-hour session, the 59-year-old Sacramento resident had the television mounted above her tuned in to a block of old “Cosby Show” episodes, which she could hear even in the enclosure.

“You get used to it,” she says.

Cherie Smith, nurse manager of the Mercy hyperbaric oxygen program, says she tells patients to relax and breathe deeply.

“Valium helps, too,” Smith says. “We try to help people work through the claustrophobia, the squirming and sweating. Sometimes, people refuse to take the Valium the first time, but then they’re OK with it after that. It’s only a small percentage who can’t do the HBO (therapy).”

Johnson says that whatever inconvenience the chamber may provide is offset by the benefit. “I’ve had 13 surgeries in all,” she says. “After a while, I was pretty frustrated and thought we needed to look at my condition a different way.”

Like, from the inside of an oxygen chamber.

Dr. Sandra Johnson suffered severe frostbite. Skin grafts wouldn’t heal – until she started daily hyperbaric treatments.

Dr. Sandra Johnson suffered severe frostbite. Skin grafts wouldn’t heal – until she started daily hyperbaric treatments.

Read Users' Comments (0)