UpNorth HealthWatch 02/2004

CMYK

I’M A RETIRED TWIN

CITIES

NURSE,

and I’d never seen such great care.

My husband Gerald and I were visiting the Brainerd area this past summer when he started to experience gastrointestinal bleeding.

He was brought by ambulance to the intensive care unit at St. Joseph’s Medical Center.

We were amazed by the level of care and attention he was given—I was a nurse for 33 years, and I never saw anything like what I saw at St. Joseph’s.

Compassionate Care

Peace of Mind

We didn’t know at the time that St. Joseph’s is the Lakes area’s largest hospital, with 100 specialists and over 900 nurses, technicians and support staff. What we did know from the minute we entered the hospital was that we were in capable and compassionate hands.

We’re moving to the Brainerd area next summer, and are eager to be part of a community with such natural beauty and high quality of life. It also gives us great peace of mind to know that St. Joseph’s is there to look after the most important thing of all, our health.

Gerald was checked on so frequently, and the doctors and nurses were wonderfully polite, knowledgeable and informative.

They always told him what was happening next, and they made sure he understood everything. They were also upbeat and full of good humor, which Gerald really appreciated. Everyone at the hospital treated him as though he was a friend, even though he was a total stranger.

Kim Rosencrantz Retired nurse

Where patients come first.

Brainerd, MN • www.sjmcmn.org

36

New procedures Varicose vein removal Page 5

A day in the life ...

Of an ambulance crew Page 9

FEBRUARY 2004

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pediatrician Allan Liberthal, said it helps reduce the amount of antibiotics being taken perhaps unnecessarily. Patients are given a backup prescription of sorts, but are told to delay filling it for about a day or so to see if the condition improves without drugs.

“It’s pretty clear that ear infections are over-diagnosed and there’s been a certain amount of otitis phobia, where families and physicians are so afraid of ear infections that they go ahead and treat,” said Liberthal, who helped form the new guidelines. “One of the key points of the guidelines is that you don’t have to be afraid of most ear infections.”

Skeptics however, said ear infections should be solved quickly to prevent potential but rare side effects, including damage to the eardrum, or the development of more serious conditions, such as meningitis or brain abscess.

“I’m not an advocate of that,”Edwards said of the “watchful waiting” philosophy. “The only time I don’t treat is if there’s fluid behind the ear that is not causing the child any symptoms ... I’m not faulting those who do (adopt ‘watchful waiting’). Ear infections are one of the most controversial areas in medicine - you’re never going to find 100 percent consensus.”

According to the American Academy of Family Physicians, children may be more prone to ear infections if they: - Have allergies with nasal congestion - Were born prematurely or with a low birth weight - Use a pacifier - Take a bottle to bed - Are around people who smoke

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Ear infections

Story/Kimberly E. Mock Photos/Allen Sullivan Morris News Service

WATKINSVILLE, Ga. — It’s as common a childhood bane as chicken pox and head lice, is often accompanied by severe pain and is at the center of a new debate over treatment.

It’s the ear infection, the painful school-age malady that accounts for 30 million doctors’ visits each year - and numerous debates over its causes and remedies.

According to Dr. Bo Edwards, a northeast Georgia pediatrician, ear infections are common in young children, although their causes and subsequent treatments are questioned among members of the medical community at large.

Commonly formed by a bacteria buildup or a virus, Edwards said ear infections most often are characterized by an inflamed eardrum and the presence of pus or fluid behind the ear.

“About 70 percent of children will get at least one (ear infection) by the time they are 1 year old,” said Edwards. “Some are more prone than others, and a lot of that has to do with their anatomies or their environment.”

Edwards said children younger than age 2 are most at risk because their ear tubes are

34

more angular than older children’s, which facilitates the retainer of the germs that can cause infections.

Kids who suffer from allergies and those exposed to secondhand smoke are also more prone to develop ear infections.

But while doctors usually can come to some consensus on how ear infections are caused, their treatment is hotly debated in the medical community.

In recent years, some doctors have ascribed to a philosophy of “watchful waiting” when it comes to the treatment of possible ear infection.

“Watchful waiting” typically encourages doctors to delay the use of antibiotics to see if patients with mild or asymptomatic earaches recover without the use of drugs.

Antibiotics, which commonly are prescribed for ear infections, can cause stomach upset and diarrhea in children.

Many doctors also are recommending ear tubes be inserted into the ear drums of children who get frequent ear infections.

Ear tubes, or tympanostomy tubes, keep the

middle ear clear of fluids, which often facilitate infections.

“When you look at ears, there is actually a continuum of findings,” said Jonathan Finkelstein, assistant professor of pediatrics and ambulatory care at Harvard Medical School. “There is the flagrant dramatic infection that everyone would agree on. The eardrum is bulging and there’s pus behind it, and the kid is screaming. Ten out of 10 of us would say ‘There’s an ear infection.’

“Then there are ears which are more subtle in their findings, where the diagnosis is less clear. The eardrum is slightly inflamed and there’s a little bit of fluid, and the kid has been uncomfortable on and off, but not screaming in pain. Whether you call that an ear infection or just a little bit of fluid in the ear with a cold, which is also what it could be, that’s where the judgment comes on.”

Guidelines for “watchful waiting” will this year be outlined by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Family Physicians.

Proponents of the strategy, like California

L A K E S

Doctors changing how they treat plague of youth

I M A G I N G

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C E N T E R

. . . . . .

Dr. B.O. Edwards Jr. examined an ear of 9-month-old Maddox Smith.

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Who we are Publisher — Terry McCollough Advertising Director — Mary Panzer Editor — Heidi Lake Copy Editors — Roy Miller, DeLynn Howard Graphic Designer — Cindy Spilman HealthWatch is a quarterly publication of The Brainerd Daily Dispatch.

Read HealthWatch online at www.upnorthhealthwatch.com

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For advertising opportunities call Mary Panzer at (218) 855-5844.

E-mail your comments to heidi.lake@brainerddispatch.com or write to: Heidi Lake PO Box 974 Brainerd, MN 56401

From the Editor

Continued from Page 19

Every time January rolls around off the couch and onto the treadI find myself striving for a differ- mill. ent goal.

In this issue, some of the stories Watch less television. Work out that intrigued me include eating more. Eat healthier. I don’t know healthy, even at fast food restauif my New Year’s resolutions have rants, and how to sit properly at ever hung around long enough my computer, decreasing the to see the light of February. chance of having lower back problems.

This year I’ve put my foot down.

I decided not to make a resolu- Hopefully this issue of tion.

HealthWatch inspires you to be a healthier person as well.

I’m just going to continue writing for HealthWatch and hope Heidi Lake, the stories inspire me to get up Editor

®

chair altogether. Sitting on a stability ball, a large, inflatable ball, forces people to sit at a 90-degree angle.

“If you slouch while you’re on the ball, you’ll fall off,” McCarty said.

McCarty said office chairs are hard to come by in some corporations in California, because everyone sits on stability balls.

Closer to home, patrons of the Hallett Community Center use the balls to stretch and workout.

Eating right is another way to achieve a healthy lifestyle. The Hallett Community Center offers a nutrition program where employees are asked to keep track of what they eat for three days. The logs are then given to McCarty, who assesses the information, explains any risk factors the individual may face and gives nutritional guidance to those who need it.

The cost of the health enhancement seminars varies on how many sessions are needed. The cost to have McCarty come into a business and give one session to employees about a wellness program is $50, two sessions is $90, three sessions is $130 and four or more sessions are $40 each.

In the end, McCarty said no matter how much encouragement employees get at their workplace, they have to commit themselves to a given program or lifestyle on their own.

“You can educate all you want, but it’s up to the individual employees to change their lifestyles,” he said.

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Chocolate Marbled Cheesecake 3 packages (8 ounces each) light cream cheese, softened 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons sucralose, granular form 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 3 eggs 12 (3.3-ounce bag) sugar-free chocolate candies, unwrapped 1 tablespoon milk 1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Wrap bottom of 9-inch springform pan in aluminum foil, extending foil at least 2 inches up side of pan.

Prepare Shortbread Crumb Crust.

2. Beat cream cheese, sucralose and vanilla in large bowl until well blended. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Set aside 1/2 cup batter; spread remaining batter on prepared crust.

3. Break chocolates in pieces; place with milk in small microwavesafe bowl. Microwave at high 30 seconds; stir. If necessary, microwave at high 10 seconds at a time, stirring after each heating, until chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth when stirred. Stir reserved batter into chocolate mixture, blending well. Drop chocolate mixture by teaspoonfuls on surface of vanilla batter; gently swirl with knife or metal spatula for marbled effect.

4. Place cheesecake pan in shallow baking pan with 1- to 11/2-inch sides; place in oven. Add water to baking pan to depth of 1/2 to 3/4 inch. Bake 40 to 45 minutes or until center is set. Remove from oven to cooling rack. Immediately loosen cake from sides of pan. Cool to room temperature. Cover; refrigerate several hours or until completely chilled. 12 servings.

Shortbread Crumb Crust: Heat oven to 350 degrees. Combine 11/4 cups cookie crumbs (made from sugar-free shortbread cookies), 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) melted butter and 1 tablespoon granular form sucralose in medium bowl. Press on bottom and 1/2-inch up side of 9-inch springform pan. Bake 8 to 10 minutes.

Peanut Butter Cup Flecked Ice Cream Pie 1 1/2 cups salted or unsalted finely crushed pretzels 3/4 cup (11/2 sticks) light margarine, melted 2 tablespoons sucralose, granular form 12 (3.3-ounce bag) sugar-free, miniature peanut butter cups 1/2 gallon sugar free vanilla ice cream, softened Peanut Butter Cream Sauce (optional, recipe follows) Miniature peanut butter cups for garnish, if desired 1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Combine pretzels, margarine and sucralose in medium bowl; press mixture on bottom and up side of 9-inch pie plate. Bake 30 minutes or until firm. Cool completely on wire rack.

2. Remove wrappers from peanut butter cups; cut in small pieces.

Stir peanut butter cup pieces into softened ice cream. Gently spread ice cream mixture in prepared crust. Cover; freeze 4 to 6 hours or overnight.

3. To serve: Allow pie to soften slightly; cut into slices. Drizzle each slice with about 2 teaspoons Peanut Butter Cream Sauce if desired. 12 servings.

Peanut Butter Cream Sauce: Unwrap and chop 12 (3.3-ounce bag) sugar-free, miniature peanut butter cups; place in medium microwave-safe bowl. Stir in 1/3 cup light cream. Microwave at high 1 minute; stir. If necessary, microwave an additional 15 seconds at a time, stirring after each heating, until peanut butter cups are melted and mixture is smooth when stirred (some peanut pieces may remain). Stir in 1 teaspoon vanilla extract. Cool slightly. About 2/3 cup sauce.

Following the TriVex procedure, there often is significant bruising, but after about three weeks, legs look normal again. Patients should consider taking a couple days off before returning to their regular routine.

New procedures make varicose vein removal easy

Story/Heidi Lake

AITKIN — If you don’t have them, chances are you’ve seen them on someone else. Winding, bulging, unsightly looking veins making their way down a person’s leg.

Twenty-four million Americans suffer from ugly, and many times painful, varicose veins. The condition is potentially dangerous, and if the bulging veins go by untreated, eczema, inflammation, twisted veins, aching pain or even leg ulcers could be the result.

Mon.-Fri, 8:00-5:30, Sat. 9:00-1:00

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to the heart using one-way valves. When these valves don’t open and close properly, blood can gather in the veins, causing them to become enlarged, or varicose. The high blood pressure in these veins is what causes the discomfort.

“Normal blood pressure when you get it checked is 120 over 80,” Dr. Paul Severson said.

“Pressure can be up to 300 in (varicose veins in) legs.”

Treatment for varicose veins used to require up to 30 incisions and caused a lot of pain, scarring and significant recovery time.

Today, there are a handful of minimally invasive treatment options for varicose veins requiring little pain and recovery time.

Last year, Severson and Dr. Timothy LeMieur, surgeons at Aitkin’s Riverwood Healthcare Center, learned a new technique in treating varicose veins. Transilluminated Powered Phlebectomy, or TriVex, is a minimal-

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Under normal circumstances, varicose veins may be slightly uncomfortable, causing itching or burning after standing long periods of time, in which case compression stockings are prescribed to be worn during daily activities. Stockings provide relief to any symptoms the person may feel, and may even slightly delay the progression of varicose veins, but they don’t cure the underlying problem.

Dr. David Knighton, a vascular surgeon from Abbott Northwestern’s Specialty Care Center in Sartell, said 80 percent of women get varicose veins after they’ve given birth to their first child otherwise getting varicose veins is genetically determined. Knighton said standing on concrete and crossing your legs a lot are myths he often hears about the cause of varicose veins.

Malfunctioning valves inside the veins create varicose veins. After arteries carry blood throughout the body, veins bring blood back

ly invasive procedure that causes little discomfort and leaves a slim chance for varicose veins to return.

“Treating varicose veins was not sought after by the public (in the past),”Severson said.

“Now people are showing up like crazy.”

Before the procedure, a patient is required to walk for about 30 minutes, getting the blood pumping at a good rate. This causes blood to pool in the varicose veins, in turn, making them pop out. The enlarged vein is then traced on the patient’s leg with a black marker.

The patient is then given an anesthetic and is moved to the operating room.

In order to find out which vein is the source of the problem, an ultrasound is done in the groin area, where the main saphenous veins are located. Severson said in most cases, one saphenous vein causes bumps all over the leg by effecting the smaller veins that branch out

Diabetics can still have their chocolate cake and eat it too Story/Morris News Service LUBBOCK, Texas — If you are among the estimated 17 million people in the United States who have diabetes, sugar-free chocolate is a terrific alternative to regular chocolate.

It has the same taste, but without the sugar and with about 19 percent fewer calories.

Sugar is not off limits to people with diabetes, but it must be consumed in moderation. Some sugar-free chocolate is sweetened with lactitol, making it a good choice for people with diabetes and others watching their sugar intake.

Here are some recipes to help you enjoy your chocolate safely: Polka Dot Shortbread Bars 12 (3.3-ounce bag) sugar-free chocolate candies, divided 3/4 cup (11/2 sticks) butter, softened 7 tablespoons sucralose, granular form* 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour 1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 8- or 9-

inch square baking pan. Remove wrappers from chocolates; chop 10 chocolates in 1/4inch pieces. Set aside.

2. Beat butter, sucralose and vanilla until well blended. Gradually beat in flour. (Dough will be crumbly, but moist.) Stir in chocolate pieces. Pat dough into prepared pan.

3. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove from oven; immediately cut into bars. Cool completely in pan on wire rack. Remove bars from pan; place on sheet of waxed paper.

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Using as few as two tiny incisions in problem areas, varicose veins are removed by inserting a flashlight-type instrument in one incision to illuminate the leg to make veins appear. A suction device is inserted in the other incision, to cut and remove the bulging veins. (Above photo by Nels Norquist)

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Remove wrappers from chocolates; cut in small pieces.

Lightly grease cookie sheets.

2. Beat margarine, sucralose, granulated sugar, egg and vanilla in large bowl until well blended. Stir together flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt; gradually add to margarine mixture, beating until well blended. Stir in chocolate pieces and nuts. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto prepared cookie sheet.

3. Bake 5 to 7 minutes or until cookie drops spring back when touched lightly with finger.

Cool slightly; remove to wire rack. Cool completely. About 2 dozen cookies.

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conscious enough to hear and understand suggestions such as “You will feel strong and healthy after surgery” or “You will feel calm and relaxed when taking the test,” without applying his or her usual skepticism. If the suggestions are helpful, the theory goes, they may become a part of the person’s subconscious memory.

“This is all happening beneath the level of consciousness, so the suggestions are not something the person has to think about or remember,” said Marc Schoen, a Los Angeles psychologist and assistant clinical professor at the UCLA School of Medicine who has used hypnosis for more than 20 years.

Like other therapists who specialize in hypnosis, Schoen has treated everything from social anxiety to pain from cancer and cancer treatment. Typically, he works with people once a week for six to eight weeks. When effective, the therapy blunts emotional overreactions to a particular person, situation or drug side effect, say, that normally would intensify pain, interrupt sleep or otherwise trigger anxiety. With practice, many people learn to do this on their own. In effect, they adapt the therapist’s methods to put themselves into a brief trance, reinforcing suggestions or thoughts they’ve found helpful dur-

Better get a

ing a session — self-hypnosis.

Schoen also may use traditional cognitive therapy, in which people learn to consciously identify these same emotional triggers, then avoid them altogether (if possible) or calm themselves before getting upset. But when hypnosis is successful, he said, no conscious mental effort is necessary to short-circuit a painful emotional reaction. “It just doesn’t happen; you don’t feel the same fear, the same apprehension,” he said. “In that sense, it’s a form of desensitization.”

Henry Polic II, a movie and TV actor in his 50s best known for his work in the 1980s series “Webster,” got a referral to Schoen last summer during treatment for malignant skin cancer. Polic was on a drug and radiation regimen that caused a paralyzing nausea, plus swelling blisters in his mouth so severe that he had trouble speaking and swallowing. While hypnotized, the actor imagined himself in Key West, Fla., at sunset, as he remembered it from a vacation years ago. Meanwhile, Schoen was informing him that the water washing on the sand was clearing his body of illness and relaxing his tissues. It took a few sessions, but the swelling dropped by about half, Polic estimated, and the blisters near the back of his throat disappeared. “Gone, and I mean gone; I could

swallow again,” he said. “I have no idea how that happened, but it did.”

Nor does anyone else know. Distraction may play an important role, some doctors say.

It’s well known, for instance, that the brain can virtually shut down pain signals when preoccupied; many athletes and soldiers have known the surprise of suddenly discovering a cut or wound once the fray is over, well after suffering the injury. If nothing else, those who respond to hypnosis have learned to escape into their imaginations for a time. But there’s more going on, and many psychologists argue that it has to do with the placebo effect, the self-fulfilling belief that a condition has been treated.

For cancer patient Polic, hypnosis has helped make the difference between living in misery and leading an active life, with the luxury of being able to laugh now and then. He doesn’t feel like a million bucks, but his skin isn’t burning and he’s not crippled with nausea. Using CDs of recorded hypnotism sessions, he has learned to put himself into a brief trance when needed, when side effects flare.

“I was never a skeptic of hypnosis, but I’m amazed so far at what a difference it has made,” he said.

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Dr. Paul Severson, a surgeon at Aitkin’s Riverwood Healthcare Center, performs about two TriVex procedures each week.

from the saphenous. When the malfunctioning saphenous vein is detected, a one-inch incision is made in the groin area, and the vein is severed and stripped from the leg through the incision.

The stripping method is similar to the old, more painful methods of varicose vein removal. Rather than stripping the saphenous vein and all of the smaller veins branching off the saphenous using many incisions, the TriVex method is less invasive.

With the main vein gone, surgeons make as few as two tiny incisions in the problem areas, usually the calves and shin part of the leg. A long, skinny instrument used as a flashlight is inserted through one incision, just below the skin making the leg look like it is glowing. The light illuminates the veins under the skin, allowing the surgeon to see which veins need to be removed. In the second small incision, a suction device with an oscillating end is inserted. Veins are dislodged, cut and then sucked out using this tool.

This technique is repeated until all of the varicose veins are removed.

Severson said the veins that can be seen in

Anesthetist Bryan Hunter kept tabs on the vital signs of a patient undergoing TriVex, a varicose vein removal procedure. (Photos by Nels Norquist)

arms and legs, the ones that often become varicose, only do 5 percent of the blood transport in the body, meaning it’s harmless to remove these veins. It’s the veins that can’t be seen through the skin, located deep inside the body, that do 95 percent of the work.

Patients go home following surgery with no stitches and experience slight pain or discomfort. There will be significant bruising, but everything will be back to normal within three weeks of surgery. Severson said patients should consider taking a couple days off before returning to their regular daily routine.

Severson said he does about two TriVex procedures each week, at Riverwood and the Minnesota Institute for Minimally Invasive Surgery at Cuyuna Regional Medical Center in Crosby.

While Severson and LeMieur are specialists in TriVex, providing training opportunities for surgeons around the Midwest interested in learning the technique, Knighton specializes in the VNUS Closure procedure.

Also done on an outpatient basis, Closure requires a local anesthetic. To fix the underlying problem causing veins to become vari-

cose, a small incision is made in the groin area and a thin catheter is inserted into the tip of the saphenous vein. The catheter delivers radio frequency energy to the vein wall, causing it to heat, collapse and seal shut. Once the vein is closed, blood flows through other healthy veins without missing a beat.

Knighton said eventually the body absorbs the closed vein and it disappears.

Before surgery, Knighton maps out the smaller, visible varicose veins that have branched out from the saphenous in the lower part of the leg. A tiny incision is made and instead of using the catheter to get rid of the smaller veins, they are removed with a special vein hook.

Knighton said three days following the VNUS procedure, patients shouldn’t feel any pain and can return to their normal daily activities.

“A lot of people shy away from having their veins fixed, but these new (minimally invasive) ways make a huge difference,” Knighton said.

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70 percent of people who have tried it say hypnosis has helped them to feel better or heal faster. Such reports have encouraged its use for everything from weight loss to smoking cessation, with varying results.

But is the evidence strong enough to justify sessions that can cost $100? Most doctors are skeptical. For every person who learns to manage chronic pain, they say, several others manage only a yawn or a shrug. To earn widespread respect, hypnotherapists are going to have to reach more people, more consistently.

“At this point, the therapy is certainly not well accepted by most physicians and surgeons,” said Guy Montgomery, an assistant professor of biobehavioral medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

The answer may be to teach hypnotizability, or suggestibility, as it’s sometimes called. In more than a dozen studies over the last decade, men and women of various ages demonstrated they could learn to fall into a hypnotic trance more easily and deeply.

“Now the idea is to find what is most effective in getting them there, from a low level of suggestibility to a higher one,” said Steven Lynn, a psychologist at the State University of New York at Binghamton who’s conducting a large federally funded study on the subject.

“You do that and you not only increase the

number of people who would benefit but also widen the range of its applications.”

Researchers long thought that suggestibility was a stable trait, like a person’s IQ or leaping ability, that couldn’t be improved on much. Yet there’s little evidence that it’s related to innate gullibility or a person’s imaginative powers. Personality isn’t a deciding factor either; researchers have found no strong relationships between hypnotic suggestibility and traits such as neuroticism, extroversion or intellectual curiosity.

Attitude does seem to matter — in particular, skepticism — and for good reason. Since an Austrian physician named Franz Mesmer first popularized the use of trance-like states as a method of treating anxiety and hysteria in the 18th century, the technique has appealed to all variety of charlatans and healers, as well as to Hollywood scriptwriters, who’ve had fun using it to brainwash, possess and otherwise manipulate characters and plot.

Psychologists trying to teach hypnotic suggestibility often start with a simple explanation of what hypnosis is and what it’s not. Being hypnotized does not turn a person into an automaton or a puppet, for instance; almost always it’s a mundane experience, as familiar as a daydream.

The therapist might have a person simply

stare at a spot on the wall, for instance, then gradually relax, feeling his or her arms getting lighter and lighter, as if the bones were hollow, say, as if connected to helium balloons. Highly hypnotizable people often are best at demystifying the trance. “You’re not losing control, like in the movies,” said climber Morton, who described her experiences in a recent issue of the American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis. “It’s more like you drift off a little. You’re temporarily distracted by a particular image or lost in thought, like when you drive home from work and arrive without remembering how you got there. It’s a very natural state, the kind we go into all the time, and it helps to think of it that way.”

Using imaging technology, neuroscientists have taken pictures of people’s brains during hypnosis. The snapshots show a decrease of arousal in the cortex, the brain’s manager and planner, and an increase of activity in areas involved in focusing attention. This makes some sense to psychologists who practice and study hypnosis.

While in the trance, a person is usually concentrating on bringing to mind some vivid image, which could account for heightened attention. The drop in cortical arousal accompanies a decline in moment-to-moment alertness. In effect, psychologists say, the person is

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Harnessing mind power

Story/Benedict Carey Photo Illustration/Stephen Sedam Los Angeles Times

Hypnosis transports some people beyond serenity and absorption to a state of pure silliness. A solemn voice whispering to relax, breathe deeply and imagine a waterfall can bring to mind high school seances, Ouija boards, Woody Allen routines.

Yet the very same technique, the same voice, can move others to climb mountains. After a fall on a climbing expedition that mangled her ankles, Priscilla Morton, a 48-year-old New Orleans social worker and mountaineer, discovered that she was afraid to step off the curb and onto the street, much less climb again.

Using a program of hypnosis, she was able to ascend to the 19,347-foot summit of Mount Cotopaxi in Ecuador. Self-hypnosis “was the only way I could deal with the fear, the cold, the steepness, the exhaustion,” Morton said.

Once mainly the province of entertainers, mystics and New Age healers, hypnosis is now gaining a foothold in mainstream medicine. At teaching hospitals such as those at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York and Harvard Medical School, hypnotists work with some surgical patients to help speed recovery. Many of the United States 1,000 or so certified hypnotherapists now get referrals from physicians on cases ranging from irritable bowel syndrome and heart disease to managing the pain of childbirth and cancer. In some studies, 50 percent to

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CROSBY — It’s the type of emergency call that would rock any seasoned medical provider to the core – a 5 1/2 month old infant is having a seizure and has stopped breathing.

Heather Nixon, a Cuyuna Regional Medical Center paramedic, and Tom Nixon, emergency medical technician, keep a calm and cool composure as they navigate their ambulance down icy, snow covered roads to the home in Irondale Township.

A call that originally came in as an individual having “difficulty breathing” has quickly escalated to an emergency that truly hits home with this married couple who also are parents of a 10 month old baby girl.

It’s just one of many types of calls where an ambulance crew must call upon all of their training to provide the best pre-hospital care possible.

Not only are Heather and Tom Nixon coworkers on the CRMC ambulance service, they’re also married. The couple, who met on the job nearly three years ago, typically work weekend shifts together when Tom isn’t busy with his schooling to become a physician.

It’s a Sunday afternoon at the CRMC where the Nixons are involved in many types of patient care. Since the ambulance service is run by CRMC, the crews spend their down time doubling as respiratory therapy technicians, providing breathing treatments to hospital patients. Each crew member is given a list of patients to tend to during their rounds.

Their first priority is to the ambulance and to take calls as they come in, Heather explains.

But while at the hospital, they are utilized to the fullest in the emergency room, birthing center, general hospital and also the adjoining Care Center.

“We do a little bit of everything,” Heather said.

With the consent of the Cuyuna Regional Medical Center, this reporter followed a CRMC ambulance crew during a snowy Sunday shift in mid-January.

This is just a glimpse into a day in the life of an ambulance crew.

3:13 p.m. — Tom makes his rounds providing breathing treatments to his list of patients at CRMC. He first makes a stop in the Intensive Care Unit to administer a nebulizer treatment to an elderly man.

“I wish I could get a dollar for every treatment I get,” the patient says to Tom. “I wish I could get one for every one I give,” Tom jokes back.

Walking the hospital’s hallway to the next room, Tom explains his personal history with CRMC. Not only was he born at the hospital, but his grandfather was a founding doctor there. Knowing the nurses on a personal basis since his childhood, he is affectionately known as “Tommy” throughout the hospital, he says.

It’s only natural Tom entered the medical field as his grandfather was a physician, his

mother is a nurse in Aitkin and his father works at Brainerd Regional Human Services Center.

3:35 p.m. — Finished with their first set of rounds for the evening shift, Tom and Heather retreat to a small office in the hospital’s basement that the ambulance crews call home, where they fill out paperwork for their respiratory therapy rounds. The couple met on the job, fell in love, got married and now have a child together. They currently live in Deerwood, a five minute response time from the hospital.

“She’s in charge,” Tom says, referring to his paramedic wife who happens to be a medical rank above him.

CRMC’s ambulance service area stretches from Longville to Garrison and from the Aitkin County line to the Crow Wing County landfill.

There are currently 19 paramedics and 15 EMTs on staff, most of whom make rounds in the hospital as respiratory therapy technicians. They also take on extra duties as assigned, including drawing blood, EKGs and lending a hand wherever needed.

“We’re jacks of all trades,” Heather jokes.

Kugel also said any of Caribou’s drinks that are made with milk also can be made with skim milk to help reduce calorie and fat content.

In comparison, a regular 12-ounce Caribou caramel latte has 230 calories and 33 carbs.

“In either case, it’s a dramatic reduction that will hopefully help our guests fulfill their (weight loss) goals.”

Along with trendy dieting comes a desire to start a fitness routine.

Randy Klinger, director of the Brainerd Family YMCA, says his organization sees a windfall of memberships at the beginning of every year.

“Without a doubt. Two of our biggest months of the year are September and January,”Klinger says, noting in September people want to get into a fall routine and back to school. Then in January many start working on their New Year’s resolutions.

“I refer to it as a rollercoaster ride of

fitness for individuals,” said Anita Travica, certified trainer and wellness director at the YMCA.

new routine should work gradually, Travica said, emphasizing people must be patient to see results and should set attainable goals for themselves.

“If it’s taken you 10 years to put it on, it’ll take a while to get it off.”

Travica encourages people to use the buddy system when exercising, stating when people workout together, they have a support system.

“That’s a really good motivator,” Travica said.

Merry Stern and Denise Sundquist, employees of the Brainerd School District, have found that theory to hold true. The two co-workers and friends participate together in a fitness program offered by the district to its employ-Denise Sundquist ees.

“I need to be fit,” Sundquist said.

“If I take care of myself I feel I can take better care of my family. It’s not Individuals who haven’t exercised on a all about losing weight.” regular basis or are just getting into a

“I need to be fit. If I take care of myself I feel I can take better care of my family. It’s not all about losing weight.”

At Select Therapy, we’ll develop an individualized care plan to get you better, faster -- for good. ✓ Emergency Medical Technician Tom Nixon listened to the lungs of a patient in the Cuyuna Regional Medical Center’s intensive care unit before administering a nebulizer treatment.

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Emergency Medical Technician Tom Nixon and Paramedics Heather Nixon and Keri Klang worked a Sunday shift on the Cuyuna Regional Medical Center ambulance. The ambulance service is owned and operated by CRMC.

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Bunless burgers — A wave of the future?

Fast food chains conform to latest dieting trends Each Cuyuna Regional Medical Center ambulance crew is responsible for checking inventory in their respective rig during their shift. Emergency Medical Technician Tom Nixon (right) is also responsible for the routine maintenance of each of CRMC’s three ambulances.

Story/Jenny Kringen-Holmes

CMYK

Menus at fast food restaurants are finally adapting to the low carbohydrate, low fat trends that seem to have taken over the dieting world.

And it’s only natural that companies have begun switching gears and moving in that direction to meet the needs of their customers.

Hardee’s recently introduced a low carb burger. Brainerd’s Hardee’s manager Loraine Garson explains the sandwich eliminates the high carbohydrate item — bread. It’s a hamburger with cheese, onion, tomato, mayonnaise, pickles, mustard and a reduced amount of ketchup, wrapped in lettuce.

It c o n -

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tains five grams of carbohydrates.

“It’s really good,” she said. “And it comes in single or double.”

Garson said Hardee’s also serves charbroiled chicken sandwiches for those counting calories.

The Subway sandwich chain isn’t new in appealing to the weight conscious, toting several sandwiches with six grams of fat or less. But, now Subway has added a low carb wrap using a tortilla made with wheat gluten, cornstarch, oat and sesame flour and soy protein. They currently serve two wraps with under 11 carbs per sandwich — the Chicken Bacon Ranch Wrap and the Turkey and Bacon Melt Wrap.

Beth Hailstone, manager of the Staples Subway, explained the rationale of the wrap.

“You’re losing the carbs on a wrap rather than the bread. The net carbs on Italian bread are 35 and on a wrap it’s 5.”

Subway also can make any sixinch sub into a carb-cutting wrap.

“We’re catering to the Atkins’ crowd and they’re going over quite well,” Hailstone said.

Caribou Coffee, which recently opened a location in northeast Brainerd, also is getting on the bandwagon, promoting low carb and low calorie

lattes.

Jeremy Kugel, director of marketing with Caribou Coffee’s headquarters in Minneapolis, said Caribou launched a new campaign Jan. 1 throughout its chain of stores offering drinks to appeal to dieters.

“We wanted to provide some help for our customers out there who are making a commitment to watch what they eat and drink in 2004.”

Caribou introduced a new line of syrups made with Splenda, a no-calorie sugar substitute.

Kugel said Caribou realizes there are different types of diets in their market so the company wanted to provide a solution for two different kinds of dieters — those cutting carbs and those cutting calories.

For “traditional dieters,” Caribou offers the Skinny’Bou, a lower calorie latte drink available in caramel or vanilla, with only 80 calories and no fat.

They also serve up the low carb Skinny’Bou latte also available in caramel or vanilla, with only 7 grams of carbs per 12-ounce drink.

Kugel said there was some internal debate about which drink would do better — the low carb or low cal — but they’ve found the lower calorie drink to be slightly more popular.

“We’ve had great consumer feedback on both drinks,” he said.

“When somebody needs their car jumpstarted they call us.”

4 p.m. — Tom and Heather walk through the ER out to the ambulance garage where one of CRMC’s three ambulances sits.

The ambulance service averages about two runs per shift, Tom says, but quickly emphasizes the word average.

“It’s a based-on-chance business,” he says.

Currently the crews work 8.5 hour shifts but will soon switch to 10 hour shifts. And because the ambulance service offers advanced life support, each crew must consist of at least one paramedic.

“We’re all just like a family,” Heather says of the ambulance crews, adding she enjoys the variety that working both in the hospital and on the street provides.

“It keeps things interesting,” she says. “And you acquire all of this knowledge.”

4:15 p.m. — Heather and Tom look through the ambulance to make sure everything is in order in the event of a call. Each crew is responsible to complete a checklist during their shift. Adding to an already long list of duties, Tom also is in charge of routine maintenance in each of the hospital’s three ambulances, he says.

Despite the ambulance’s rugged exterior, Heather and Tom agree the vehicle is like any other and isn’t exempt from going in the ditch or sliding on ice so each driver must be trained in defensive driving techniques.

5:20 p.m. — Heather and Tom decide to take a dinner break. An observer would almost forget that these co-workers are married until, en route, Heather asks Tom why he

took a certain way to get to their destination.

“You want to drive?” he teases. “I offered.”

6:46 p.m. — The crew is called to a onevehicle crash near Deerwood. EMT Gary Knutson responds to the hospital to accompany Heather and Tom to the scene. Gary says the freshly fallen snow and chilly temps have provided for slick conditions in spots.

Running with lights and sirens, the crew monitors radio traffic for any updates from law enforcement.

6:56 p.m. — The crew arrives at the scene where a vehicle sits empty with its lights on down a steep embankment. They are notified that the vehicle’s two occupants are nearby at a residence. Inside the home are the man and woman from the crash, both alert with no visible injuries. A first responder sits behind the woman, holding her neck as she had complained of neck pain. The crew assesses the situation and secures cervical collars to both victims as a precaution. The man explains they were driving southbound, hit a patch of ice and spun out before sliding into the ditch.

Both say they were wearing seatbelts.

The woman is backboarded and carried out to the waiting ambulance while Heather waits with the man. Meanwhile, amongst all the commotion, the gracious homeowner corrals her two cats who hover close to the door and visits with her “company.”

“We heard it in here,” she says of the crash.

“At first it sounded like someone hit the house.”

Soon the male is backboarded and also carried out to the ambulance where they will be taken together to the hospital.

7:10 p.m. — Heather and Tom stay in back with their patients while Gary gets into the driver’s seat.

It’s a balancing act, literally, as the two stand between the two patients taking blood pressures and asking questions all while the ambulance makes its way down curvy county roads back to Crosby. Heather calls in to the CRMC emergency room giving a nurse patient information.

“Without having X-ray vision,” Tom reassures the female patient, “preliminarily, you look pretty good.”

The female tells him her neck pain has actually subsided a bit, but her main concern seems to be when and how she’ll be able to get her car out of the ditch.

7:23 p.m. — The ambulance arrives at CRMC. Tom explains he is going to take the female patient into the ER first.

“I understand,” the male patient says.

“Ladies first.”

While waiting, the man asks Heather about the IV bag holders hanging from the ceiling.

“I suppose it is a different view from down there,” she says.

7:30 p.m. — With both patients checked into the ER, the crew returns to the ambulance for cleanup. While Tom and Gary make up the bedding on the stretcher, Heather mops the floor of the rig.

“That was a pretty painless call,” Tom comments.

7:34 p.m. — A car pulls into the ER’s carport.

While Heather visits with the elderly female passenger, Tom gets a nurse and a wheelchair and escorts her into a room.

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7:36 p.m. — Tom and Heather begin their paperwork on the call to the car crash. Each must complete a separate run sheet for their respective patient.

The two are self-professed “adrenaline junkies” adding their involvement as volunteer firefighters with the Deerwood Fire Department. They also offer their time as outreach educators, teaching first responder and other related courses through CRMC. 7:40 p.m. — The crew is paged to a call in Irondale Township for an individual having difficulty breathing. It isn’t until they’re en route does the crew find out that this individual is a 5 1/2 month old infant who is having a seizure. Heather asks Gary to prepare the drug bag and pediatric kit. She also advises the crew to wear masks in case the child has a case of influenza.

7:51 p.m. — The ambulance arrives at the residence and Heather immediately runs in to assess the situation. She is greeted by an alert and smiling baby girl who, just minutes ago her mother explains, had a seizure and stopped breathing. The tearful mother explains to Heather that the baby stiffened her body, stopped breathing and turned blue. As her husband called 911 she resuscitated her daughter by giving her mouth-to-mouth.

Despite the baby’s cheerful disposition at the moment, Heather strongly suggests she

be seen in the ER. The mother agrees to have her taken by ambulance. She and Heather put the baby in her car seat and bundle her up for her ride to the hospital.

8 p.m. — After inviting the mother to ride along to the hospital, Heather carries the car seat to the ambulance with the infant’s mother closely following behind, then straps in the car seat securely. Heather and Tom hook the baby up to the heart monitor and begin a routine line of questioning on the infant’s limited health history.

8:06 p.m. — With Gary behind the wheel once again, Heather and Tom reassure the mother of the baby’s good vital signs. Heather soon calls in a report to the ER. The baby girl’s coos can be heard over the beeping sounds of the monitor, but soon give way to her sleepy cries.

8:18 p.m. — The ambulance arrives at CRMC. The crew is directed to a room where they are immediately met by the nursing staff.

While Heather remains in the room with the patient and her family, Tom returns to the rig for cleanup and restocking.

8:20 p.m. — Heather begins the paperwork on this latest call and concedes, as a mother, calls involving babies and children can be the toughest.

“I ran into that house thinking ‘please God, please God.’”

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8:39 p.m. — A car enters the ER carport where Tom is working on paperwork. The female passenger of the vehicle tells him that she’s having difficulty breathing.

“I can’t breathe, walk, nothing,” she says.

Tom retrieves a wheelchair and wheels her into the once empty ER which is now bustling with activity.

Switching his EMT hat to his respiratory therapy technician, Tom gives the woman an albuterol treatment to help her breathe more easily.

“You were at the right place at the right time,” an ER nurse tells Tom, thanking him for his help.

8:49 p.m. — While finishing up paperwork from both of their calls, Tom is asked once again for his service to give the woman another breathing treatment.

9:28 p.m. — With their reports finished, Heather and Tom return to their office.

Throughout the evening there isn’t a lack of playful bantering between the married coworkers as they tease each other about everything from their bedside manner to matters of the heart.

“Humor is the best medicine,” Heather says. “And who better to serve it than me and Tom.”

Dr. Peter Neifert attended Colorado College in Colorado Springs where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Chemistry in 1990. He received his medical degree from the Mayo Medical School in 1995 and completed his residency in psychiatry in June of 1998. He has been practicing as a psychiatrist with the Air Force for the past 5 years.

Dr. Twila Germanson received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Chemistry from Arizona State University in 1994. She received her medical degree in 1999 from the University of Minnesota and completed her residency in psychiatry in June of 2003.

Dr. Paul Erickson completed his undergraduate degrees in Religion and Psychology at Concordia College in Moorhead. He received his medical degree from the University of Minnesota Medical School in 1999 and completed his residency in psychiatry in June of 2003.

Rather than working as employees of a business, those who work at the Rainbow Healing Center are all independently employed. They simply use the facility and work under its umbrella.

“It’s a great little business,” said Cohee. “It’s a cooperative effort. Each of us has our own business under the Rainbow Healing Center name. We do our own work.”

Currently, the Rainbow Healing Center is home to two Reiki masters. Cohee said this “energy type of work” is now being used in hospitals and cancer wards to help alleviate pain and discomfort.

Daniel Biittner, a registered nurse, works at the Rainbow Healing Center offering British sports massage, as well as Qigong, a 4,000 year old Chinese health practice using mental concentration and visualization, breathing, positions of the body and sound to gather Chi — the universal energy that animates all living things.

Other offerings at the Rainbow Healing Center include acupressure and other types of balancing therapies, Cohee said, as well as angel readings and workshops.

The benefits of these types of treatments, Cohee said, can include reduced stress and increased energy, reduced pain and tension and accelerated healing time.

The Healing Center The Healing Center on Oak Street in Brainerd focuses more on the spiritual side of healing.

Ruth Granholm said The Healing Center is a three-year-old nonprofit organization that provides the healing power of prayer to clients.

“There are so many people who are not only physically sick but also have emotional issues,” Granholm said. “People come in and ask for prayer for physical healing, emotional healing, depression.”

The Healing Center’s trained staff pray with that person for their particular ailments either in a private or group setting. Granholm said group situations allow the opportunity for teaching and participants to ask questions.

“A lot of people come in and know that God can heal them, but don’t know that He will,” Granholm, an ordained minister, said.

“We go through what the Bible says about healing.”

In some cases, The Healing Center staff will offer a “laying on of hands” like Jesus performed in the Bible.

“We pray with people and ask if we can hold their hand. We can also touch whatever part of body needs healing.”

In such cases, Granholm said some clients

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claim to feel heat, or a manifestation, in the particular area of the body where the laying on of hands occurs.

Although they are not certified counselors, the employees of The Healing Center are all trained volunteers.

“Everybody who works here has a passion to see people get better. And people who have a passion for that have been through a lot of the same situations and can feel for what these people are going through,” Granholm said, noting she was once in an abusive relationship and can specifically relate to those who come in living with similar situations. She said The Healing Center also sees many dealing with the emotional affects of divorce, disease and other stresses in life.

Services at The Healing Center are free of charge and open to the public. Granholm said she hopes to get the word out of The Healing Center’s good works.

“We’ve had people come off the streets that see the sign outside the building and ask what it’s all about. I would just encourage people to come. We are very nonthreatening.

Everybody can use prayer for something. God wants you well and so do we.”

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Support groups and learning groups gather regularly at the center, including a support group for those with traumatic brain injuries. The center also is a retail store selling everything from books and jewelry to natural body care products and decorative items for your home, and offers a variety of classes dealing with alternative healing, including balancing hormones naturally; fresh herbs for health; infant massage; therapeutic art; New Thought: New Life, a course for creating the life you desire; and psychic development. Elwood said The Center of Possibilities in Brainerd provides alterna- they also take requests for classes and tive healing treatments, support groups and classes for are currently looking for instructors in the community. It also serves as a retail store offering yoga, Qigong and acupuncture.

“What we offer is complementary everything from natural body care products and jewelry to health care,” Elwood said, noting to books and decorative items. many of the Center’s clients are nurses and other healthcare professionals.

So why are so many people reluctant to “They’re people who are trained in more of give alternative medicine a try?

“Like a person in my position,” Booth con- the physical side of healing yet understand ceded, “I think what holds you back is the there is another side to the healing process.”

“Spiritual healing is a necessary compofear.”

She went on to explain that she feels many nent,” Czech added.

Pointing out the increasing trend of people people judge individuals who gravitate toward alternative healing and stereotype turning to alternative healing, Elwood noted that many insurance companies are beginning them as strange or non-conventional.

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“It’s really coming into its own,” she said.

“We get results,” Czech said. “People get off the table and feel different.”

“Yes,” McDonald agreed. “Their eyes are so much brighter and you know they feel better.”

“And that’s really the basis for the Center,” Elwood said. “It’s about love. It’s about sharing.”

The Rainbow Healing Center The Rainbow Healing Center, located on North Sixth Street near Gregory Park, has been a fixture in the Brainerd area for nearly eight years.

Massage therapist Linda Cohee says the center offers a variety of holistic healing approaches as well as deals with nutrition and offers classes to the community.

Cohee, in this field for 15 years, says the Rainbow Healing Center is for those who want to take charge of their health through alternative means.

“We have a business that complements your health,”Cohee explains. “It’s a place to go alongside of traditional medicine. This is a place that people can come and take care of their own healthcare. You can get a jump start on your own healing process.”

DOCTORS

Howard McCollister, M.D.

Good Samaritan Village

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24

BETHANY

Another alternative in our care continuum. Bethany House and Samaritan House offer an alternative to nursing home placement and are specifically designed to serve people who are having trouble with memory and orientation. For more information, call (218) 828-3771.

Call our office to find out if you are a candidate for this remarkable surgery.

Toll Free 1-866-645-2745 Your Partner in Eye Care for over 28 years.

The Good Samaritan Communities of Brainerd offer much more than quality health care.

They are also an outlet of faith and love for residents who seek spiritual as well as physical nourishment.

Bethany and Woodland Good Samaritan Villages offer a continuum of care, from independent living to skilled nursing, where residents are able to “age in place” in their own community.

TRUST.

These doctors trusted Dr. Jerome Poland and Dr. Ina Luca of the Crosby Eye Clinic for their LASIK Vision Correction. The Crosby Eye Clinic offers Wave Front analyzer assisted LASIK at no additional charge.

Dr. Ina Luca, M.D.

Building Christian Communities of Care

Dr. Jerome Poland, M.D.

Lakes Area Rehabilitation Services provides the opportunity for clients to continue to recover and gain strength after a stay in the hospital and prepares them for functional independence to return home.

13

CMYK

‘It hits you like a hammer’

One-year-old Carter Carlson gave his family a scare when he stopped breathing due to the influenza virus New Year’s Day. The Carlson family includes (clockwise from left) Joni, Preston, Matt and Carter.

Flu strikes Aitkin baby, nearly kills him Story/Heidi Lake Photos/Steve Kohls

14

AITKIN — For many, New Year’s Day is a time for food, football and napping. For one Aitkin family the first day of 2004 had much more in store.

The Center of Possibilities Curiosity finally gotten the best of Shirley Booth at the age of 67.

“I’d been reading about the mind, body, spirit connection and the natural healing concept for many years,” the Brainerd resident said. “I’ve talked about alternative thinking, have experienced a few alternative medicines and have connected to those who think alternatively. But I just didn’t have an avenue to pursue it.”

One Saturday on her way to her regular workout at Curves, Booth stopped at an open house at The Center of Possibilities in Brainerd and decided to find out what all the interest surrounding alternative healing was about. She was at the receiving end of a Reiki session, which she says made a definite difference in lessening her back pain.

Now she is hooked and only wants to learn more.

“I’m really getting more involved and more attuned,” she said, adding she is eager to explore additional treatments, including magnetic healing.

Booth is not alone. The use of alternative medicine increased dramatically between 1990 and 1997, jumping by almost 50 percent, according to researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and the Harvard Medical School in Boston. In 1997, Americans made 627 million visits to practitioners of alternative medicine and spent $27 billion of their own money to pay for alternative therapies.

Lori Elwood said The Center of Possibilities opened its doors in June 2003 after she and friends Darlene DeBusk, Susan Hobbs and Phil Puett decided to go into business together to fill a niche in the lakes area.

After visiting a similar alternative healing center in St. Cloud, the four knew that was their calling.

“Part of our mission here on Earth is to help people,” Elwood said. “We wanted to provide the community a place with ongoing classes, healing, inspiration and nurturing for the mind, body and spirit.”

Currently, the center offers “complementary-type therapies,” including massage, reflexology, hypnosis, magnetic healing, ear candling, counseling and mediation, as well as Reiki - a Japanese word meaning “universal life energy.”

Reiki is an ancient practice of using light touch to alleviate pain and stress. In a Reiki session, the recipient typically lies down on a table where the Reiki facilitator will channel energy through their hands and break down energy blockages throughout that person’s body.

Paul McDonald and Charlotte Czech, a husband and wife team from Little Falls, are Reiki masters and perform sessions at the Center.

“Through Reiki, you really get results,”Czech said. “It’s very safe and gentle. But it helps to lift your spirits. It’s not part of any particular religion, but it is spiritual.”

Elwood said she can vouch for the process. After going through an emotional crisis, she experienced Reiki for the first time.

“It was amazing when the burden was lifted,” she recalls.

“Afterward I felt so wonderful and light. It’s the emotional burdens that cause physical ailments.”

“Everything in the world has energy,” Czech said. “When you work on that level you’re at the heart of the matter. We’re healing the way Hippocrates, the father of medicine, didclose to 2,500 years ago. Drawing impurities from the energy aura.”

Dr. Schmitz

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23

CMYK

Alternative healing finds its way to Brainerd

Charlotte Czech (left) and husband Paul McDonald, Little Falls, performed a Reiki demonstration on Nancy Morrissette during an open house at the Center of Possibilities in Brainerd. Reiki means “universal life energy” and involves the use of light touch to release blocked energy in individuals.

Story/Jenny Kringen-Holmes Photos/Nels Norquist

22

A growing number of Americans are taking their health care to a new level. Complementary and alternative healing centers are growing in number and popularity across the United States.

Three such centers call Brainerd home. The three, although different in their own right, focus on the spiritual and emotional as well as the physical side of healing.

Here’s a look at each center and why local residents are integrating alternative medicine into their health care regimen.

months old and people over 65 are at high It was a normal day for the Carlson clan, than one month apart.

After Carter got his first flu shot, he got risk for catching the flu. Individuals struguntil about 7 p.m. when 1-year-old Carter started getting feverish. With a history of sick with an ear infection, and didn’t get the gling with diabetes, heart disease, lung dispneumonia and acid reflux, his mother, Joni, second part of the vaccine. That, along with ease, or asthma, pregnant women in their second or third trimester, or gave him Motrin and ran a cool anyone with a low immune sysbath for little Carter, hoping to tem also are considered at high break the fever. By 8 p.m. Carter risk for catching the flu bug. was a little fussy, but he went to Typically, the flu season runs bed as usual.

November through April, Just two hours later, Matt, February being when the disCarter’s father, heard him whinease seems to thrive the most. ing and went to his room to This year, however, experts check on him. He was lying face hope the peak of the flu season down in his crib. When Matt has passed. turned him over, Carter’s eyes “This is the worst flu season rolled back in his head. He was I’ve seen,” Mueller said. “We barely breathing. haven’t run out of vaccine in the Matt and Joni quickly wrapped past.” their youngest son in a blanket As people around the counand rushed him to Riverwood try caught wind of the bad flu Healthcare Center’s Emergency season, the demand for flu Room in Aitkin. serum increased to the point Joni said a nurse immediately health care establishments ran took the baby and a crew of docout of the vaccine, so even the tors and nurses swarmed around most vulnerable patients couldhim. Carter’s throat was swollen n’t get it. shut and he was starting to go “There has been more public into shock from the lack of oxydemand (for the vaccine) gen. because the flu season has “The doctors thought he had been so bad,” Mueller said, meningitis. They also mentioned adding the supply of flu vacthe influenza virus,” Joni said. “All cines at the Crow Wing County I knew was that he was sick and in Health Department is still dwinshock. I was so afraid something dling. bad was going to happen.”

Although the peak of the flu Minutes later Air Care was season may have already called and, even though his airpassed, doctors urge people way was opened, Carter was who have not yet been vaccinattransported to St. Cloud Hospital ed to do so. by helicopter.

“We’re hoping it’s done,” said Test results confirmed Carter Dr. Nick Bernier, director of was a victim of the flu. The same medical affairs at Brainerd’s St. disease that can attack the respiJoseph’s Medical Center. “But ratory system and potentially kill we could see another wave of young and old alike. it.”

“There was no warning,” Joni The flu’s symptoms, includsaid. “It hit spontaneously. We ing fever, body aches, tiredness hadn’t heard or seen anyone who and headaches, can last 10 to 14 had (the flu).”

Carter was given antibiotics Joni Carlson smiled as she held her son, Carter, who was found barely days, Bernier said.

“It hits you like a hammer,” and was on an oxygen monitor breathing in his crib Jan. 1. After being rushed to Riverwood Healthcare while in St. Cloud. Following a Center in Aitkin, and airlifted to St. Cloud Hospital, Carter was diag- he said.

To prevent the spread of the two-day hospital stay, Carter is nosed with influenza. flu bug, Mueller suggests freback to his old self again, pestering his older brother, Preston, and keeping his past respiratory problems, Joni said, quently washing your hands, coughing or could have made him more susceptible to sneezing into your sleeve, rather than your his parents on their toes. hands, not going to school or work if you According to the Centers for Disease getting the flu this year.

Joyce Mueller, disease prevention and feel ill, eating healthy and getting plenty of Control and Prevention, influenza vaccinations for children 9 and younger are given in control manager for the Crow Wing County rest. two doses and should be administered more Health Department, said children 6 to 24

15

CMYK

slothful lives in perspective. “It can provide a sense of what we ought to be doing,” he says.

“It’s a little ridiculous — we drive to work, then go to the gym to walk on a treadmill. We go to great lengths to remove activity from our daily lives, and then we go to great lengths to put it back in. The Amish have done a better job than anybody of consciously thinking what impact technology will have on their lives.”

This dichotomy between overweight Americans and trim Amish shows that our genes haven’t caught up to our diets and ways of living, according to Dr. David Heber, director of the UCLA Center for Human Nutrition.

“Our genes are perfectly adapted to another lifestyle, because you need those fat calories to plow the back 40,” he says. “I exercise an hour every day, but I can’t eat whatever I want.”

It’s not just the exercise that separates us from the Amish. Heber points out that their meals, for instance, don’t consist of leftover pizza eaten while standing up and talking on the phone. “We’ve lost a lot of things in our multi-tasking lifestyle,” he says.

Bassett says the meals he ate with the Amish consisted of stick-to-your-ribs foods such as pancakes, eggs, ham, cake and milk, but also fresh fruits and vegetables at almost every

noon and evening meal. Snacking is practically nonexistent, just three squares a day, although the Amish do sometimes eat at fastfood restaurants when traveling.

Among Americans, according to the Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion, in 2000 only 28 percent were meeting the suggested daily requirements for vegetables (three to five servings a day), and just 17 percent for fruits (two to four servings a day).

Amish communities are small and structured to encourage walking, unlike today’s sprawling cities and towns that require cars or mass transit. Judith Stern, vice president of the Washington, D.C.-based American Obesity Association, says the modern world is designed to make us more efficient, meaning we move less and get fatter.

“We’re not trying to re-create the Amish lifestyle,” she says, “but how do we create an environment in which people are more active spontaneously? We often don’t have sidewalks in the suburbs. If you want to walk the stairs in a building, they’re usually dark and uninviting.”

And then there’s the frustrating conundrum of leisure time. Remember how technological advances such as computers were supposed to give us lots of it? Between commuting to

work and ferrying the kids to school and play dates, there seems to be precious little of it, despite the fact that we don’t have to grow our own food or chop wood for fuel. And when we do get a few minutes of downtime, says Heber, we often spend it surfing the Internet instead of the ocean.

“It always amazes me,” he adds, “that we don’t have an hour to exercise, but we do watch an average of four hours of TV a day.”

Though the Amish choose to exist largely apart from the rest of the population, they are not unaware of how the other 99.9 percent lives. Even their infrequent indulgence in fast food is being examined.

Bassett recalls reading a story in an Amish community newsletter that questioned the practice: “One of their bishops outlined the reasons why the fast-food industry is not really consistent with Amish beliefs, because everything is rush, rush, rush.”

Bassett remembers a comment from an Amish man who said that when venturing into town, he can’t help noticing the amount of overweight people. Says Bassett, “The man said, ‘Maybe they have it a little too easy.’

They’ve definitely noticed the same things we have, only from a different perspective.”

“Blindness isolates us from things, but deafness isolates us from people.”

- Helen Keller

…Come be a people person.

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21

Looking to the Amish for example in fending off obesity

CMYK

Story/Jeannine Stein Los Angeles Times Forget the standard-issue health and fitness resolutions that include joining a gym, going to yoga and trading meatball subs for whitemeat turkey. It may just be that the best way to get in shape is to plow the back 40, toss a few bales of hay and wash buckets of wet clothes by hand.

Call it the Amish paradox. An exercise science professor has discovered that a pocket of Old Order Amish folks in Ontario, Canada, has stunningly low obesity levels, despite a diet high in fat, calories and refined sugar — exactly the stuff doctors tell us not to eat.

They’re at a paltry 4 percent obesity rate, compared to a whopping 31 percent in the general U.S. population, which, as we all know, is getting fatter by the minute. This group of Amish manages to keep its overweight levels low despite a diet that includes meat, potatoes, gravy, cakes, pies and eggs. So what’s their secret? Exercise, people. Exercise.

For starters, of the 98 Amish pedometerwearing adults surveyed over a week, men averaged about 18,000 steps a day, women

changes in physical activity from a historical perspective. His findings were published in January’s Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, a journal of the American College of Sports Medicine.

He chose this population of Amish for their adherence to a physically demanding farming lifestyle and rejection of things technical, such as automobiles and electricity. They are something of an artifact of how we lived 150 years ago.

Higher rates of obesity exist in other North American Amish communities that have moved away from farming and segued into less strenuous occupations such as woodworking and quilting, according to the study.

Amish men in Holmes County, Ohio, for example, had rates of obesity similar to nonAmish men; Amish women actually had higher rates, attributed to multiple pregnancies, diet and greater acceptance of overweight physiques.

The findings of the Old Order Amish, Bassett believes, serve to put our current

about 14,000. Most Americans do not come anywhere close to that, struggling to get in the recommended 10,000 steps a day.

Amish men spent about 10 hours a week doing vigorous activities, women about 3 1/2 hours (heavy lifting, shoveling or digging, shoeing horses, tossing straw bales). Men averaged 43 hours of moderate activity a week, women about 39 hours (gardening, feeding farm animals, doing laundry). We feel virtuous if we manage to eke out half an hour a day on the StairMaster.

We know, of course, that the Industrial Revolution caused us to evolve from an agrarian society to a techno world. But these statistics show just how far we’ve fallen from a naturally active lifestyle to one in which eight hours of work is often spent sitting in front of a computer — and what little leisure time we have is frittered away eating cheese curls while watching “The Bachelor.”

Lead researcher David R. Bassett Jr., professor of exercise science at the University of Tennessee, conducted the study to look at

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CMYK

Employee fitness program gives new meaning to being ‘On the ball’

Story and Photo/Heidi Lake

CROSBY — Unhealthy employees make for unhappy business owners.

Sick days. Worker’s compensation. Rising health care costs. Employers have to take all of these factors into consideration when their employees live unhealthy lifestyles.

Whether sitting in a not-so-cozy office chair or lifting 100-pound boxes all day long, teaching employees to be healthy and stay healthy is the key to having a successful business, says Jay McCarty, program director for the Hallett Community Center in Crosby.

“Working out gives you more energy. More energy at work leads to less sick days, which means production will go up,” McCarty said.

“It’s a win, win situation.”

Corporate fitness programs, such as Hallett Community Center’s new worksite wellness programs, are designed to help fight obesity, chronic diseases and injuries that happen within the workplace.

“One employee out for a sick day affects the whole business,” McCarty said.

The Hallett Community Center has eight worksite wellness programs to choose from, allowing employers to choose the program that best suits their company’s needs. The program most used by local businesses is Walk for Life, McCarty said.

Walk for Life incorporates a walking program with proper nutrition, fitness and behavior modification. Companies supply employees with a pedometer and the number of steps taken by each employee is recorded.

Employees who take the most steps each day

usually get some type of prize or reward.

McCarty said the goal is to encourage people to take 10,000 steps every day. “(Walk for Life) is a program that benefits all businesses, larger businesses all the way down to small businesses,” McCarty said.

Lower back pain is a common problem in the working world. Information provided by The Hallett Community Center states approximately 5 million Americans suffer from acute or chronic back pain, resulting in more than 90 million lost production days per year. The Hallett Community Center offers a program to prevent back injuries.

McCarty not only teaches proper lifting techniques to those in industrial fields, but also teaches the correct way to sit at a desk without pressuring the lower back. McCarty said there are many ways to prevent back pain for people who sit in front of a computer all day, including: • Good posture, straight spinal alignment • Have the chair at the right height, not reaching up or down to use the keyboard • Keep shoulders up and chin in a neutral position • Have good lumbar support One way to prevent back pain caused by sitting in an office chair is to get rid of the

Anna Norman, fitness specialist at the Hallett Community Center, demonstrated how stability balls help people sit with good posture, lowering the risk of back injuries.

Continued on Page 33

Surgery Is An Art. Meet Our Picassos.

These are the surgeons who practice their art at the Cuyuna Regional Medical Center in Crosby. Each brings a rare and unique set of skills to the job. Together, they’re helping to shape the future of surgery in this region.

They bring the region new procedures and new technologies.

They work with computers, scopes and lasers, not simply with scalpels. In many procedures, their incisions are less than three millimeters long,

18

and closed with a band-aid, not with a stitch.

Their training has taken them around the world. Their resumes include some of the

most prestigious schools, internships and residency programs in America.

They’re teachers, too. No less than four of

our surgeons are actively involved in training other surgeons around the region. Four are on the faculties of regional medical colleges.

They’re experts in joint repair and joint replacement. In cataract and laser vision correction. In a multitude of procedures that can improve the quality of your life. If you (or someone you know) is in need of surgery (or considering some form of elective surgery), ask your doctor (or call 1-218-546-2300 and ask) about the surgeons who practice at the Cuyuna Regional Medical Center in Crosby today.

19

CMYK

Employee fitness program gives new meaning to being ‘On the ball’

Story and Photo/Heidi Lake

CROSBY — Unhealthy employees make for unhappy business owners.

Sick days. Worker’s compensation. Rising health care costs. Employers have to take all of these factors into consideration when their employees live unhealthy lifestyles.

Whether sitting in a not-so-cozy office chair or lifting 100-pound boxes all day long, teaching employees to be healthy and stay healthy is the key to having a successful business, says Jay McCarty, program director for the Hallett Community Center in Crosby.

“Working out gives you more energy. More energy at work leads to less sick days, which means production will go up,” McCarty said.

“It’s a win, win situation.”

Corporate fitness programs, such as Hallett Community Center’s new worksite wellness programs, are designed to help fight obesity, chronic diseases and injuries that happen within the workplace.

“One employee out for a sick day affects the whole business,” McCarty said.

The Hallett Community Center has eight worksite wellness programs to choose from, allowing employers to choose the program that best suits their company’s needs. The program most used by local businesses is Walk for Life, McCarty said.

Walk for Life incorporates a walking program with proper nutrition, fitness and behavior modification. Companies supply employees with a pedometer and the number of steps taken by each employee is recorded.

Employees who take the most steps each day

usually get some type of prize or reward.

McCarty said the goal is to encourage people to take 10,000 steps every day. “(Walk for Life) is a program that benefits all businesses, larger businesses all the way down to small businesses,” McCarty said.

Lower back pain is a common problem in the working world. Information provided by The Hallett Community Center states approximately 5 million Americans suffer from acute or chronic back pain, resulting in more than 90 million lost production days per year. The Hallett Community Center offers a program to prevent back injuries.

McCarty not only teaches proper lifting techniques to those in industrial fields, but also teaches the correct way to sit at a desk without pressuring the lower back. McCarty said there are many ways to prevent back pain for people who sit in front of a computer all day, including: • Good posture, straight spinal alignment • Have the chair at the right height, not reaching up or down to use the keyboard • Keep shoulders up and chin in a neutral position • Have good lumbar support One way to prevent back pain caused by sitting in an office chair is to get rid of the

Anna Norman, fitness specialist at the Hallett Community Center, demonstrated how stability balls help people sit with good posture, lowering the risk of back injuries.

Continued on Page 33

Surgery Is An Art. Meet Our Picassos.

These are the surgeons who practice their art at the Cuyuna Regional Medical Center in Crosby. Each brings a rare and unique set of skills to the job. Together, they’re helping to shape the future of surgery in this region.

They bring the region new procedures and new technologies.

They work with computers, scopes and lasers, not simply with scalpels. In many procedures, their incisions are less than three millimeters long,

18

and closed with a band-aid, not with a stitch.

Their training has taken them around the world. Their resumes include some of the

most prestigious schools, internships and residency programs in America.

They’re teachers, too. No less than four of

our surgeons are actively involved in training other surgeons around the region. Four are on the faculties of regional medical colleges.

They’re experts in joint repair and joint replacement. In cataract and laser vision correction. In a multitude of procedures that can improve the quality of your life. If you (or someone you know) is in need of surgery (or considering some form of elective surgery), ask your doctor (or call 1-218-546-2300 and ask) about the surgeons who practice at the Cuyuna Regional Medical Center in Crosby today.

19

Looking to the Amish for example in fending off obesity

CMYK

Story/Jeannine Stein Los Angeles Times Forget the standard-issue health and fitness resolutions that include joining a gym, going to yoga and trading meatball subs for whitemeat turkey. It may just be that the best way to get in shape is to plow the back 40, toss a few bales of hay and wash buckets of wet clothes by hand.

Call it the Amish paradox. An exercise science professor has discovered that a pocket of Old Order Amish folks in Ontario, Canada, has stunningly low obesity levels, despite a diet high in fat, calories and refined sugar — exactly the stuff doctors tell us not to eat.

They’re at a paltry 4 percent obesity rate, compared to a whopping 31 percent in the general U.S. population, which, as we all know, is getting fatter by the minute. This group of Amish manages to keep its overweight levels low despite a diet that includes meat, potatoes, gravy, cakes, pies and eggs. So what’s their secret? Exercise, people. Exercise.

For starters, of the 98 Amish pedometerwearing adults surveyed over a week, men averaged about 18,000 steps a day, women

changes in physical activity from a historical perspective. His findings were published in January’s Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, a journal of the American College of Sports Medicine.

He chose this population of Amish for their adherence to a physically demanding farming lifestyle and rejection of things technical, such as automobiles and electricity. They are something of an artifact of how we lived 150 years ago.

Higher rates of obesity exist in other North American Amish communities that have moved away from farming and segued into less strenuous occupations such as woodworking and quilting, according to the study.

Amish men in Holmes County, Ohio, for example, had rates of obesity similar to nonAmish men; Amish women actually had higher rates, attributed to multiple pregnancies, diet and greater acceptance of overweight physiques.

The findings of the Old Order Amish, Bassett believes, serve to put our current

about 14,000. Most Americans do not come anywhere close to that, struggling to get in the recommended 10,000 steps a day.

Amish men spent about 10 hours a week doing vigorous activities, women about 3 1/2 hours (heavy lifting, shoveling or digging, shoeing horses, tossing straw bales). Men averaged 43 hours of moderate activity a week, women about 39 hours (gardening, feeding farm animals, doing laundry). We feel virtuous if we manage to eke out half an hour a day on the StairMaster.

We know, of course, that the Industrial Revolution caused us to evolve from an agrarian society to a techno world. But these statistics show just how far we’ve fallen from a naturally active lifestyle to one in which eight hours of work is often spent sitting in front of a computer — and what little leisure time we have is frittered away eating cheese curls while watching “The Bachelor.”

Lead researcher David R. Bassett Jr., professor of exercise science at the University of Tennessee, conducted the study to look at

We call it a revolution. You’ll call it the best night’s sleep you’ve ever had.

Now At

FIFTH AVENUE FURNITURE BRAINERD • BAXTER 829-1470

828-3020

Slumberland Introduces…

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king set...................$849 compare at $1569 sold in sets only

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New!

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twin ea. pc.............. $249

twin ea. pc.............. $299

full ea. pc................ $329

full ea. pc................ $379

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slothful lives in perspective. “It can provide a sense of what we ought to be doing,” he says.

“It’s a little ridiculous — we drive to work, then go to the gym to walk on a treadmill. We go to great lengths to remove activity from our daily lives, and then we go to great lengths to put it back in. The Amish have done a better job than anybody of consciously thinking what impact technology will have on their lives.”

This dichotomy between overweight Americans and trim Amish shows that our genes haven’t caught up to our diets and ways of living, according to Dr. David Heber, director of the UCLA Center for Human Nutrition.

“Our genes are perfectly adapted to another lifestyle, because you need those fat calories to plow the back 40,” he says. “I exercise an hour every day, but I can’t eat whatever I want.”

It’s not just the exercise that separates us from the Amish. Heber points out that their meals, for instance, don’t consist of leftover pizza eaten while standing up and talking on the phone. “We’ve lost a lot of things in our multi-tasking lifestyle,” he says.

Bassett says the meals he ate with the Amish consisted of stick-to-your-ribs foods such as pancakes, eggs, ham, cake and milk, but also fresh fruits and vegetables at almost every

noon and evening meal. Snacking is practically nonexistent, just three squares a day, although the Amish do sometimes eat at fastfood restaurants when traveling.

Among Americans, according to the Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion, in 2000 only 28 percent were meeting the suggested daily requirements for vegetables (three to five servings a day), and just 17 percent for fruits (two to four servings a day).

Amish communities are small and structured to encourage walking, unlike today’s sprawling cities and towns that require cars or mass transit. Judith Stern, vice president of the Washington, D.C.-based American Obesity Association, says the modern world is designed to make us more efficient, meaning we move less and get fatter.

“We’re not trying to re-create the Amish lifestyle,” she says, “but how do we create an environment in which people are more active spontaneously? We often don’t have sidewalks in the suburbs. If you want to walk the stairs in a building, they’re usually dark and uninviting.”

And then there’s the frustrating conundrum of leisure time. Remember how technological advances such as computers were supposed to give us lots of it? Between commuting to

work and ferrying the kids to school and play dates, there seems to be precious little of it, despite the fact that we don’t have to grow our own food or chop wood for fuel. And when we do get a few minutes of downtime, says Heber, we often spend it surfing the Internet instead of the ocean.

“It always amazes me,” he adds, “that we don’t have an hour to exercise, but we do watch an average of four hours of TV a day.”

Though the Amish choose to exist largely apart from the rest of the population, they are not unaware of how the other 99.9 percent lives. Even their infrequent indulgence in fast food is being examined.

Bassett recalls reading a story in an Amish community newsletter that questioned the practice: “One of their bishops outlined the reasons why the fast-food industry is not really consistent with Amish beliefs, because everything is rush, rush, rush.”

Bassett remembers a comment from an Amish man who said that when venturing into town, he can’t help noticing the amount of overweight people. Says Bassett, “The man said, ‘Maybe they have it a little too easy.’

They’ve definitely noticed the same things we have, only from a different perspective.”

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Alternative healing finds its way to Brainerd

Charlotte Czech (left) and husband Paul McDonald, Little Falls, performed a Reiki demonstration on Nancy Morrissette during an open house at the Center of Possibilities in Brainerd. Reiki means “universal life energy” and involves the use of light touch to release blocked energy in individuals.

Story/Jenny Kringen-Holmes Photos/Nels Norquist

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A growing number of Americans are taking their health care to a new level. Complementary and alternative healing centers are growing in number and popularity across the United States.

Three such centers call Brainerd home. The three, although different in their own right, focus on the spiritual and emotional as well as the physical side of healing.

Here’s a look at each center and why local residents are integrating alternative medicine into their health care regimen.

months old and people over 65 are at high It was a normal day for the Carlson clan, than one month apart.

After Carter got his first flu shot, he got risk for catching the flu. Individuals struguntil about 7 p.m. when 1-year-old Carter started getting feverish. With a history of sick with an ear infection, and didn’t get the gling with diabetes, heart disease, lung dispneumonia and acid reflux, his mother, Joni, second part of the vaccine. That, along with ease, or asthma, pregnant women in their second or third trimester, or gave him Motrin and ran a cool anyone with a low immune sysbath for little Carter, hoping to tem also are considered at high break the fever. By 8 p.m. Carter risk for catching the flu bug. was a little fussy, but he went to Typically, the flu season runs bed as usual.

November through April, Just two hours later, Matt, February being when the disCarter’s father, heard him whinease seems to thrive the most. ing and went to his room to This year, however, experts check on him. He was lying face hope the peak of the flu season down in his crib. When Matt has passed. turned him over, Carter’s eyes “This is the worst flu season rolled back in his head. He was I’ve seen,” Mueller said. “We barely breathing. haven’t run out of vaccine in the Matt and Joni quickly wrapped past.” their youngest son in a blanket As people around the counand rushed him to Riverwood try caught wind of the bad flu Healthcare Center’s Emergency season, the demand for flu Room in Aitkin. serum increased to the point Joni said a nurse immediately health care establishments ran took the baby and a crew of docout of the vaccine, so even the tors and nurses swarmed around most vulnerable patients couldhim. Carter’s throat was swollen n’t get it. shut and he was starting to go “There has been more public into shock from the lack of oxydemand (for the vaccine) gen. because the flu season has “The doctors thought he had been so bad,” Mueller said, meningitis. They also mentioned adding the supply of flu vacthe influenza virus,” Joni said. “All cines at the Crow Wing County I knew was that he was sick and in Health Department is still dwinshock. I was so afraid something dling. bad was going to happen.”

Although the peak of the flu Minutes later Air Care was season may have already called and, even though his airpassed, doctors urge people way was opened, Carter was who have not yet been vaccinattransported to St. Cloud Hospital ed to do so. by helicopter.

“We’re hoping it’s done,” said Test results confirmed Carter Dr. Nick Bernier, director of was a victim of the flu. The same medical affairs at Brainerd’s St. disease that can attack the respiJoseph’s Medical Center. “But ratory system and potentially kill we could see another wave of young and old alike. it.”

“There was no warning,” Joni The flu’s symptoms, includsaid. “It hit spontaneously. We ing fever, body aches, tiredness hadn’t heard or seen anyone who and headaches, can last 10 to 14 had (the flu).”

Carter was given antibiotics Joni Carlson smiled as she held her son, Carter, who was found barely days, Bernier said.

“It hits you like a hammer,” and was on an oxygen monitor breathing in his crib Jan. 1. After being rushed to Riverwood Healthcare while in St. Cloud. Following a Center in Aitkin, and airlifted to St. Cloud Hospital, Carter was diag- he said.

To prevent the spread of the two-day hospital stay, Carter is nosed with influenza. flu bug, Mueller suggests freback to his old self again, pestering his older brother, Preston, and keeping his past respiratory problems, Joni said, quently washing your hands, coughing or could have made him more susceptible to sneezing into your sleeve, rather than your his parents on their toes. hands, not going to school or work if you According to the Centers for Disease getting the flu this year.

Joyce Mueller, disease prevention and feel ill, eating healthy and getting plenty of Control and Prevention, influenza vaccinations for children 9 and younger are given in control manager for the Crow Wing County rest. two doses and should be administered more Health Department, said children 6 to 24

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CMYK

‘It hits you like a hammer’

One-year-old Carter Carlson gave his family a scare when he stopped breathing due to the influenza virus New Year’s Day. The Carlson family includes (clockwise from left) Joni, Preston, Matt and Carter.

Flu strikes Aitkin baby, nearly kills him Story/Heidi Lake Photos/Steve Kohls

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AITKIN — For many, New Year’s Day is a time for food, football and napping. For one Aitkin family the first day of 2004 had much more in store.

The Center of Possibilities Curiosity finally gotten the best of Shirley Booth at the age of 67.

“I’d been reading about the mind, body, spirit connection and the natural healing concept for many years,” the Brainerd resident said. “I’ve talked about alternative thinking, have experienced a few alternative medicines and have connected to those who think alternatively. But I just didn’t have an avenue to pursue it.”

One Saturday on her way to her regular workout at Curves, Booth stopped at an open house at The Center of Possibilities in Brainerd and decided to find out what all the interest surrounding alternative healing was about. She was at the receiving end of a Reiki session, which she says made a definite difference in lessening her back pain.

Now she is hooked and only wants to learn more.

“I’m really getting more involved and more attuned,” she said, adding she is eager to explore additional treatments, including magnetic healing.

Booth is not alone. The use of alternative medicine increased dramatically between 1990 and 1997, jumping by almost 50 percent, according to researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and the Harvard Medical School in Boston. In 1997, Americans made 627 million visits to practitioners of alternative medicine and spent $27 billion of their own money to pay for alternative therapies.

Lori Elwood said The Center of Possibilities opened its doors in June 2003 after she and friends Darlene DeBusk, Susan Hobbs and Phil Puett decided to go into business together to fill a niche in the lakes area.

After visiting a similar alternative healing center in St. Cloud, the four knew that was their calling.

“Part of our mission here on Earth is to help people,” Elwood said. “We wanted to provide the community a place with ongoing classes, healing, inspiration and nurturing for the mind, body and spirit.”

Currently, the center offers “complementary-type therapies,” including massage, reflexology, hypnosis, magnetic healing, ear candling, counseling and mediation, as well as Reiki - a Japanese word meaning “universal life energy.”

Reiki is an ancient practice of using light touch to alleviate pain and stress. In a Reiki session, the recipient typically lies down on a table where the Reiki facilitator will channel energy through their hands and break down energy blockages throughout that person’s body.

Paul McDonald and Charlotte Czech, a husband and wife team from Little Falls, are Reiki masters and perform sessions at the Center.

“Through Reiki, you really get results,”Czech said. “It’s very safe and gentle. But it helps to lift your spirits. It’s not part of any particular religion, but it is spiritual.”

Elwood said she can vouch for the process. After going through an emotional crisis, she experienced Reiki for the first time.

“It was amazing when the burden was lifted,” she recalls.

“Afterward I felt so wonderful and light. It’s the emotional burdens that cause physical ailments.”

“Everything in the world has energy,” Czech said. “When you work on that level you’re at the heart of the matter. We’re healing the way Hippocrates, the father of medicine, didclose to 2,500 years ago. Drawing impurities from the energy aura.”

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Support groups and learning groups gather regularly at the center, including a support group for those with traumatic brain injuries. The center also is a retail store selling everything from books and jewelry to natural body care products and decorative items for your home, and offers a variety of classes dealing with alternative healing, including balancing hormones naturally; fresh herbs for health; infant massage; therapeutic art; New Thought: New Life, a course for creating the life you desire; and psychic development. Elwood said The Center of Possibilities in Brainerd provides alterna- they also take requests for classes and tive healing treatments, support groups and classes for are currently looking for instructors in the community. It also serves as a retail store offering yoga, Qigong and acupuncture.

“What we offer is complementary everything from natural body care products and jewelry to health care,” Elwood said, noting to books and decorative items. many of the Center’s clients are nurses and other healthcare professionals.

So why are so many people reluctant to “They’re people who are trained in more of give alternative medicine a try?

“Like a person in my position,” Booth con- the physical side of healing yet understand ceded, “I think what holds you back is the there is another side to the healing process.”

“Spiritual healing is a necessary compofear.”

She went on to explain that she feels many nent,” Czech added.

Pointing out the increasing trend of people people judge individuals who gravitate toward alternative healing and stereotype turning to alternative healing, Elwood noted that many insurance companies are beginning them as strange or non-conventional.

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“It’s really coming into its own,” she said.

“We get results,” Czech said. “People get off the table and feel different.”

“Yes,” McDonald agreed. “Their eyes are so much brighter and you know they feel better.”

“And that’s really the basis for the Center,” Elwood said. “It’s about love. It’s about sharing.”

The Rainbow Healing Center The Rainbow Healing Center, located on North Sixth Street near Gregory Park, has been a fixture in the Brainerd area for nearly eight years.

Massage therapist Linda Cohee says the center offers a variety of holistic healing approaches as well as deals with nutrition and offers classes to the community.

Cohee, in this field for 15 years, says the Rainbow Healing Center is for those who want to take charge of their health through alternative means.

“We have a business that complements your health,”Cohee explains. “It’s a place to go alongside of traditional medicine. This is a place that people can come and take care of their own healthcare. You can get a jump start on your own healing process.”

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7:36 p.m. — Tom and Heather begin their paperwork on the call to the car crash. Each must complete a separate run sheet for their respective patient.

The two are self-professed “adrenaline junkies” adding their involvement as volunteer firefighters with the Deerwood Fire Department. They also offer their time as outreach educators, teaching first responder and other related courses through CRMC. 7:40 p.m. — The crew is paged to a call in Irondale Township for an individual having difficulty breathing. It isn’t until they’re en route does the crew find out that this individual is a 5 1/2 month old infant who is having a seizure. Heather asks Gary to prepare the drug bag and pediatric kit. She also advises the crew to wear masks in case the child has a case of influenza.

7:51 p.m. — The ambulance arrives at the residence and Heather immediately runs in to assess the situation. She is greeted by an alert and smiling baby girl who, just minutes ago her mother explains, had a seizure and stopped breathing. The tearful mother explains to Heather that the baby stiffened her body, stopped breathing and turned blue. As her husband called 911 she resuscitated her daughter by giving her mouth-to-mouth.

Despite the baby’s cheerful disposition at the moment, Heather strongly suggests she

be seen in the ER. The mother agrees to have her taken by ambulance. She and Heather put the baby in her car seat and bundle her up for her ride to the hospital.

8 p.m. — After inviting the mother to ride along to the hospital, Heather carries the car seat to the ambulance with the infant’s mother closely following behind, then straps in the car seat securely. Heather and Tom hook the baby up to the heart monitor and begin a routine line of questioning on the infant’s limited health history.

8:06 p.m. — With Gary behind the wheel once again, Heather and Tom reassure the mother of the baby’s good vital signs. Heather soon calls in a report to the ER. The baby girl’s coos can be heard over the beeping sounds of the monitor, but soon give way to her sleepy cries.

8:18 p.m. — The ambulance arrives at CRMC. The crew is directed to a room where they are immediately met by the nursing staff.

While Heather remains in the room with the patient and her family, Tom returns to the rig for cleanup and restocking.

8:20 p.m. — Heather begins the paperwork on this latest call and concedes, as a mother, calls involving babies and children can be the toughest.

“I ran into that house thinking ‘please God, please God.’”

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8:39 p.m. — A car enters the ER carport where Tom is working on paperwork. The female passenger of the vehicle tells him that she’s having difficulty breathing.

“I can’t breathe, walk, nothing,” she says.

Tom retrieves a wheelchair and wheels her into the once empty ER which is now bustling with activity.

Switching his EMT hat to his respiratory therapy technician, Tom gives the woman an albuterol treatment to help her breathe more easily.

“You were at the right place at the right time,” an ER nurse tells Tom, thanking him for his help.

8:49 p.m. — While finishing up paperwork from both of their calls, Tom is asked once again for his service to give the woman another breathing treatment.

9:28 p.m. — With their reports finished, Heather and Tom return to their office.

Throughout the evening there isn’t a lack of playful bantering between the married coworkers as they tease each other about everything from their bedside manner to matters of the heart.

“Humor is the best medicine,” Heather says. “And who better to serve it than me and Tom.”

Dr. Peter Neifert attended Colorado College in Colorado Springs where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Chemistry in 1990. He received his medical degree from the Mayo Medical School in 1995 and completed his residency in psychiatry in June of 1998. He has been practicing as a psychiatrist with the Air Force for the past 5 years.

Dr. Twila Germanson received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Chemistry from Arizona State University in 1994. She received her medical degree in 1999 from the University of Minnesota and completed her residency in psychiatry in June of 2003.

Dr. Paul Erickson completed his undergraduate degrees in Religion and Psychology at Concordia College in Moorhead. He received his medical degree from the University of Minnesota Medical School in 1999 and completed his residency in psychiatry in June of 2003.

Rather than working as employees of a business, those who work at the Rainbow Healing Center are all independently employed. They simply use the facility and work under its umbrella.

“It’s a great little business,” said Cohee. “It’s a cooperative effort. Each of us has our own business under the Rainbow Healing Center name. We do our own work.”

Currently, the Rainbow Healing Center is home to two Reiki masters. Cohee said this “energy type of work” is now being used in hospitals and cancer wards to help alleviate pain and discomfort.

Daniel Biittner, a registered nurse, works at the Rainbow Healing Center offering British sports massage, as well as Qigong, a 4,000 year old Chinese health practice using mental concentration and visualization, breathing, positions of the body and sound to gather Chi — the universal energy that animates all living things.

Other offerings at the Rainbow Healing Center include acupressure and other types of balancing therapies, Cohee said, as well as angel readings and workshops.

The benefits of these types of treatments, Cohee said, can include reduced stress and increased energy, reduced pain and tension and accelerated healing time.

The Healing Center The Healing Center on Oak Street in Brainerd focuses more on the spiritual side of healing.

Ruth Granholm said The Healing Center is a three-year-old nonprofit organization that provides the healing power of prayer to clients.

“There are so many people who are not only physically sick but also have emotional issues,” Granholm said. “People come in and ask for prayer for physical healing, emotional healing, depression.”

The Healing Center’s trained staff pray with that person for their particular ailments either in a private or group setting. Granholm said group situations allow the opportunity for teaching and participants to ask questions.

“A lot of people come in and know that God can heal them, but don’t know that He will,” Granholm, an ordained minister, said.

“We go through what the Bible says about healing.”

In some cases, The Healing Center staff will offer a “laying on of hands” like Jesus performed in the Bible.

“We pray with people and ask if we can hold their hand. We can also touch whatever part of body needs healing.”

In such cases, Granholm said some clients

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claim to feel heat, or a manifestation, in the particular area of the body where the laying on of hands occurs.

Although they are not certified counselors, the employees of The Healing Center are all trained volunteers.

“Everybody who works here has a passion to see people get better. And people who have a passion for that have been through a lot of the same situations and can feel for what these people are going through,” Granholm said, noting she was once in an abusive relationship and can specifically relate to those who come in living with similar situations. She said The Healing Center also sees many dealing with the emotional affects of divorce, disease and other stresses in life.

Services at The Healing Center are free of charge and open to the public. Granholm said she hopes to get the word out of The Healing Center’s good works.

“We’ve had people come off the streets that see the sign outside the building and ask what it’s all about. I would just encourage people to come. We are very nonthreatening.

Everybody can use prayer for something. God wants you well and so do we.”

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25

Bunless burgers — A wave of the future?

Fast food chains conform to latest dieting trends Each Cuyuna Regional Medical Center ambulance crew is responsible for checking inventory in their respective rig during their shift. Emergency Medical Technician Tom Nixon (right) is also responsible for the routine maintenance of each of CRMC’s three ambulances.

Story/Jenny Kringen-Holmes

CMYK

Menus at fast food restaurants are finally adapting to the low carbohydrate, low fat trends that seem to have taken over the dieting world.

And it’s only natural that companies have begun switching gears and moving in that direction to meet the needs of their customers.

Hardee’s recently introduced a low carb burger. Brainerd’s Hardee’s manager Loraine Garson explains the sandwich eliminates the high carbohydrate item — bread. It’s a hamburger with cheese, onion, tomato, mayonnaise, pickles, mustard and a reduced amount of ketchup, wrapped in lettuce.

It c o n -

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tains five grams of carbohydrates.

“It’s really good,” she said. “And it comes in single or double.”

Garson said Hardee’s also serves charbroiled chicken sandwiches for those counting calories.

The Subway sandwich chain isn’t new in appealing to the weight conscious, toting several sandwiches with six grams of fat or less. But, now Subway has added a low carb wrap using a tortilla made with wheat gluten, cornstarch, oat and sesame flour and soy protein. They currently serve two wraps with under 11 carbs per sandwich — the Chicken Bacon Ranch Wrap and the Turkey and Bacon Melt Wrap.

Beth Hailstone, manager of the Staples Subway, explained the rationale of the wrap.

“You’re losing the carbs on a wrap rather than the bread. The net carbs on Italian bread are 35 and on a wrap it’s 5.”

Subway also can make any sixinch sub into a carb-cutting wrap.

“We’re catering to the Atkins’ crowd and they’re going over quite well,” Hailstone said.

Caribou Coffee, which recently opened a location in northeast Brainerd, also is getting on the bandwagon, promoting low carb and low calorie

lattes.

Jeremy Kugel, director of marketing with Caribou Coffee’s headquarters in Minneapolis, said Caribou launched a new campaign Jan. 1 throughout its chain of stores offering drinks to appeal to dieters.

“We wanted to provide some help for our customers out there who are making a commitment to watch what they eat and drink in 2004.”

Caribou introduced a new line of syrups made with Splenda, a no-calorie sugar substitute.

Kugel said Caribou realizes there are different types of diets in their market so the company wanted to provide a solution for two different kinds of dieters — those cutting carbs and those cutting calories.

For “traditional dieters,” Caribou offers the Skinny’Bou, a lower calorie latte drink available in caramel or vanilla, with only 80 calories and no fat.

They also serve up the low carb Skinny’Bou latte also available in caramel or vanilla, with only 7 grams of carbs per 12-ounce drink.

Kugel said there was some internal debate about which drink would do better — the low carb or low cal — but they’ve found the lower calorie drink to be slightly more popular.

“We’ve had great consumer feedback on both drinks,” he said.

“When somebody needs their car jumpstarted they call us.”

4 p.m. — Tom and Heather walk through the ER out to the ambulance garage where one of CRMC’s three ambulances sits.

The ambulance service averages about two runs per shift, Tom says, but quickly emphasizes the word average.

“It’s a based-on-chance business,” he says.

Currently the crews work 8.5 hour shifts but will soon switch to 10 hour shifts. And because the ambulance service offers advanced life support, each crew must consist of at least one paramedic.

“We’re all just like a family,” Heather says of the ambulance crews, adding she enjoys the variety that working both in the hospital and on the street provides.

“It keeps things interesting,” she says. “And you acquire all of this knowledge.”

4:15 p.m. — Heather and Tom look through the ambulance to make sure everything is in order in the event of a call. Each crew is responsible to complete a checklist during their shift. Adding to an already long list of duties, Tom also is in charge of routine maintenance in each of the hospital’s three ambulances, he says.

Despite the ambulance’s rugged exterior, Heather and Tom agree the vehicle is like any other and isn’t exempt from going in the ditch or sliding on ice so each driver must be trained in defensive driving techniques.

5:20 p.m. — Heather and Tom decide to take a dinner break. An observer would almost forget that these co-workers are married until, en route, Heather asks Tom why he

took a certain way to get to their destination.

“You want to drive?” he teases. “I offered.”

6:46 p.m. — The crew is called to a onevehicle crash near Deerwood. EMT Gary Knutson responds to the hospital to accompany Heather and Tom to the scene. Gary says the freshly fallen snow and chilly temps have provided for slick conditions in spots.

Running with lights and sirens, the crew monitors radio traffic for any updates from law enforcement.

6:56 p.m. — The crew arrives at the scene where a vehicle sits empty with its lights on down a steep embankment. They are notified that the vehicle’s two occupants are nearby at a residence. Inside the home are the man and woman from the crash, both alert with no visible injuries. A first responder sits behind the woman, holding her neck as she had complained of neck pain. The crew assesses the situation and secures cervical collars to both victims as a precaution. The man explains they were driving southbound, hit a patch of ice and spun out before sliding into the ditch.

Both say they were wearing seatbelts.

The woman is backboarded and carried out to the waiting ambulance while Heather waits with the man. Meanwhile, amongst all the commotion, the gracious homeowner corrals her two cats who hover close to the door and visits with her “company.”

“We heard it in here,” she says of the crash.

“At first it sounded like someone hit the house.”

Soon the male is backboarded and also carried out to the ambulance where they will be taken together to the hospital.

7:10 p.m. — Heather and Tom stay in back with their patients while Gary gets into the driver’s seat.

It’s a balancing act, literally, as the two stand between the two patients taking blood pressures and asking questions all while the ambulance makes its way down curvy county roads back to Crosby. Heather calls in to the CRMC emergency room giving a nurse patient information.

“Without having X-ray vision,” Tom reassures the female patient, “preliminarily, you look pretty good.”

The female tells him her neck pain has actually subsided a bit, but her main concern seems to be when and how she’ll be able to get her car out of the ditch.

7:23 p.m. — The ambulance arrives at CRMC. Tom explains he is going to take the female patient into the ER first.

“I understand,” the male patient says.

“Ladies first.”

While waiting, the man asks Heather about the IV bag holders hanging from the ceiling.

“I suppose it is a different view from down there,” she says.

7:30 p.m. — With both patients checked into the ER, the crew returns to the ambulance for cleanup. While Tom and Gary make up the bedding on the stretcher, Heather mops the floor of the rig.

“That was a pretty painless call,” Tom comments.

7:34 p.m. — A car pulls into the ER’s carport.

While Heather visits with the elderly female passenger, Tom gets a nurse and a wheelchair and escorts her into a room.

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CROSBY — It’s the type of emergency call that would rock any seasoned medical provider to the core – a 5 1/2 month old infant is having a seizure and has stopped breathing.

Heather Nixon, a Cuyuna Regional Medical Center paramedic, and Tom Nixon, emergency medical technician, keep a calm and cool composure as they navigate their ambulance down icy, snow covered roads to the home in Irondale Township.

A call that originally came in as an individual having “difficulty breathing” has quickly escalated to an emergency that truly hits home with this married couple who also are parents of a 10 month old baby girl.

It’s just one of many types of calls where an ambulance crew must call upon all of their training to provide the best pre-hospital care possible.

Not only are Heather and Tom Nixon coworkers on the CRMC ambulance service, they’re also married. The couple, who met on the job nearly three years ago, typically work weekend shifts together when Tom isn’t busy with his schooling to become a physician.

It’s a Sunday afternoon at the CRMC where the Nixons are involved in many types of patient care. Since the ambulance service is run by CRMC, the crews spend their down time doubling as respiratory therapy technicians, providing breathing treatments to hospital patients. Each crew member is given a list of patients to tend to during their rounds.

Their first priority is to the ambulance and to take calls as they come in, Heather explains.

But while at the hospital, they are utilized to the fullest in the emergency room, birthing center, general hospital and also the adjoining Care Center.

“We do a little bit of everything,” Heather said.

With the consent of the Cuyuna Regional Medical Center, this reporter followed a CRMC ambulance crew during a snowy Sunday shift in mid-January.

This is just a glimpse into a day in the life of an ambulance crew.

3:13 p.m. — Tom makes his rounds providing breathing treatments to his list of patients at CRMC. He first makes a stop in the Intensive Care Unit to administer a nebulizer treatment to an elderly man.

“I wish I could get a dollar for every treatment I get,” the patient says to Tom. “I wish I could get one for every one I give,” Tom jokes back.

Walking the hospital’s hallway to the next room, Tom explains his personal history with CRMC. Not only was he born at the hospital, but his grandfather was a founding doctor there. Knowing the nurses on a personal basis since his childhood, he is affectionately known as “Tommy” throughout the hospital, he says.

It’s only natural Tom entered the medical field as his grandfather was a physician, his

mother is a nurse in Aitkin and his father works at Brainerd Regional Human Services Center.

3:35 p.m. — Finished with their first set of rounds for the evening shift, Tom and Heather retreat to a small office in the hospital’s basement that the ambulance crews call home, where they fill out paperwork for their respiratory therapy rounds. The couple met on the job, fell in love, got married and now have a child together. They currently live in Deerwood, a five minute response time from the hospital.

“She’s in charge,” Tom says, referring to his paramedic wife who happens to be a medical rank above him.

CRMC’s ambulance service area stretches from Longville to Garrison and from the Aitkin County line to the Crow Wing County landfill.

There are currently 19 paramedics and 15 EMTs on staff, most of whom make rounds in the hospital as respiratory therapy technicians. They also take on extra duties as assigned, including drawing blood, EKGs and lending a hand wherever needed.

“We’re jacks of all trades,” Heather jokes.

Kugel also said any of Caribou’s drinks that are made with milk also can be made with skim milk to help reduce calorie and fat content.

In comparison, a regular 12-ounce Caribou caramel latte has 230 calories and 33 carbs.

“In either case, it’s a dramatic reduction that will hopefully help our guests fulfill their (weight loss) goals.”

Along with trendy dieting comes a desire to start a fitness routine.

Randy Klinger, director of the Brainerd Family YMCA, says his organization sees a windfall of memberships at the beginning of every year.

“Without a doubt. Two of our biggest months of the year are September and January,”Klinger says, noting in September people want to get into a fall routine and back to school. Then in January many start working on their New Year’s resolutions.

“I refer to it as a rollercoaster ride of

fitness for individuals,” said Anita Travica, certified trainer and wellness director at the YMCA.

new routine should work gradually, Travica said, emphasizing people must be patient to see results and should set attainable goals for themselves.

“If it’s taken you 10 years to put it on, it’ll take a while to get it off.”

Travica encourages people to use the buddy system when exercising, stating when people workout together, they have a support system.

“That’s a really good motivator,” Travica said.

Merry Stern and Denise Sundquist, employees of the Brainerd School District, have found that theory to hold true. The two co-workers and friends participate together in a fitness program offered by the district to its employ-Denise Sundquist ees.

“I need to be fit,” Sundquist said.

“If I take care of myself I feel I can take better care of my family. It’s not Individuals who haven’t exercised on a all about losing weight.” regular basis or are just getting into a

“I need to be fit. If I take care of myself I feel I can take better care of my family. It’s not all about losing weight.”

At Select Therapy, we’ll develop an individualized care plan to get you better, faster -- for good. ✓ Emergency Medical Technician Tom Nixon listened to the lungs of a patient in the Cuyuna Regional Medical Center’s intensive care unit before administering a nebulizer treatment.

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Emergency Medical Technician Tom Nixon and Paramedics Heather Nixon and Keri Klang worked a Sunday shift on the Cuyuna Regional Medical Center ambulance. The ambulance service is owned and operated by CRMC.

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Harnessing mind power

Story/Benedict Carey Photo Illustration/Stephen Sedam Los Angeles Times

Hypnosis transports some people beyond serenity and absorption to a state of pure silliness. A solemn voice whispering to relax, breathe deeply and imagine a waterfall can bring to mind high school seances, Ouija boards, Woody Allen routines.

Yet the very same technique, the same voice, can move others to climb mountains. After a fall on a climbing expedition that mangled her ankles, Priscilla Morton, a 48-year-old New Orleans social worker and mountaineer, discovered that she was afraid to step off the curb and onto the street, much less climb again.

Using a program of hypnosis, she was able to ascend to the 19,347-foot summit of Mount Cotopaxi in Ecuador. Self-hypnosis “was the only way I could deal with the fear, the cold, the steepness, the exhaustion,” Morton said.

Once mainly the province of entertainers, mystics and New Age healers, hypnosis is now gaining a foothold in mainstream medicine. At teaching hospitals such as those at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York and Harvard Medical School, hypnotists work with some surgical patients to help speed recovery. Many of the United States 1,000 or so certified hypnotherapists now get referrals from physicians on cases ranging from irritable bowel syndrome and heart disease to managing the pain of childbirth and cancer. In some studies, 50 percent to

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70 percent of people who have tried it say hypnosis has helped them to feel better or heal faster. Such reports have encouraged its use for everything from weight loss to smoking cessation, with varying results.

But is the evidence strong enough to justify sessions that can cost $100? Most doctors are skeptical. For every person who learns to manage chronic pain, they say, several others manage only a yawn or a shrug. To earn widespread respect, hypnotherapists are going to have to reach more people, more consistently.

“At this point, the therapy is certainly not well accepted by most physicians and surgeons,” said Guy Montgomery, an assistant professor of biobehavioral medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

The answer may be to teach hypnotizability, or suggestibility, as it’s sometimes called. In more than a dozen studies over the last decade, men and women of various ages demonstrated they could learn to fall into a hypnotic trance more easily and deeply.

“Now the idea is to find what is most effective in getting them there, from a low level of suggestibility to a higher one,” said Steven Lynn, a psychologist at the State University of New York at Binghamton who’s conducting a large federally funded study on the subject.

“You do that and you not only increase the

number of people who would benefit but also widen the range of its applications.”

Researchers long thought that suggestibility was a stable trait, like a person’s IQ or leaping ability, that couldn’t be improved on much. Yet there’s little evidence that it’s related to innate gullibility or a person’s imaginative powers. Personality isn’t a deciding factor either; researchers have found no strong relationships between hypnotic suggestibility and traits such as neuroticism, extroversion or intellectual curiosity.

Attitude does seem to matter — in particular, skepticism — and for good reason. Since an Austrian physician named Franz Mesmer first popularized the use of trance-like states as a method of treating anxiety and hysteria in the 18th century, the technique has appealed to all variety of charlatans and healers, as well as to Hollywood scriptwriters, who’ve had fun using it to brainwash, possess and otherwise manipulate characters and plot.

Psychologists trying to teach hypnotic suggestibility often start with a simple explanation of what hypnosis is and what it’s not. Being hypnotized does not turn a person into an automaton or a puppet, for instance; almost always it’s a mundane experience, as familiar as a daydream.

The therapist might have a person simply

stare at a spot on the wall, for instance, then gradually relax, feeling his or her arms getting lighter and lighter, as if the bones were hollow, say, as if connected to helium balloons. Highly hypnotizable people often are best at demystifying the trance. “You’re not losing control, like in the movies,” said climber Morton, who described her experiences in a recent issue of the American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis. “It’s more like you drift off a little. You’re temporarily distracted by a particular image or lost in thought, like when you drive home from work and arrive without remembering how you got there. It’s a very natural state, the kind we go into all the time, and it helps to think of it that way.”

Using imaging technology, neuroscientists have taken pictures of people’s brains during hypnosis. The snapshots show a decrease of arousal in the cortex, the brain’s manager and planner, and an increase of activity in areas involved in focusing attention. This makes some sense to psychologists who practice and study hypnosis.

While in the trance, a person is usually concentrating on bringing to mind some vivid image, which could account for heightened attention. The drop in cortical arousal accompanies a decline in moment-to-moment alertness. In effect, psychologists say, the person is

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conscious enough to hear and understand suggestions such as “You will feel strong and healthy after surgery” or “You will feel calm and relaxed when taking the test,” without applying his or her usual skepticism. If the suggestions are helpful, the theory goes, they may become a part of the person’s subconscious memory.

“This is all happening beneath the level of consciousness, so the suggestions are not something the person has to think about or remember,” said Marc Schoen, a Los Angeles psychologist and assistant clinical professor at the UCLA School of Medicine who has used hypnosis for more than 20 years.

Like other therapists who specialize in hypnosis, Schoen has treated everything from social anxiety to pain from cancer and cancer treatment. Typically, he works with people once a week for six to eight weeks. When effective, the therapy blunts emotional overreactions to a particular person, situation or drug side effect, say, that normally would intensify pain, interrupt sleep or otherwise trigger anxiety. With practice, many people learn to do this on their own. In effect, they adapt the therapist’s methods to put themselves into a brief trance, reinforcing suggestions or thoughts they’ve found helpful dur-

Better get a

ing a session — self-hypnosis.

Schoen also may use traditional cognitive therapy, in which people learn to consciously identify these same emotional triggers, then avoid them altogether (if possible) or calm themselves before getting upset. But when hypnosis is successful, he said, no conscious mental effort is necessary to short-circuit a painful emotional reaction. “It just doesn’t happen; you don’t feel the same fear, the same apprehension,” he said. “In that sense, it’s a form of desensitization.”

Henry Polic II, a movie and TV actor in his 50s best known for his work in the 1980s series “Webster,” got a referral to Schoen last summer during treatment for malignant skin cancer. Polic was on a drug and radiation regimen that caused a paralyzing nausea, plus swelling blisters in his mouth so severe that he had trouble speaking and swallowing. While hypnotized, the actor imagined himself in Key West, Fla., at sunset, as he remembered it from a vacation years ago. Meanwhile, Schoen was informing him that the water washing on the sand was clearing his body of illness and relaxing his tissues. It took a few sessions, but the swelling dropped by about half, Polic estimated, and the blisters near the back of his throat disappeared. “Gone, and I mean gone; I could

swallow again,” he said. “I have no idea how that happened, but it did.”

Nor does anyone else know. Distraction may play an important role, some doctors say.

It’s well known, for instance, that the brain can virtually shut down pain signals when preoccupied; many athletes and soldiers have known the surprise of suddenly discovering a cut or wound once the fray is over, well after suffering the injury. If nothing else, those who respond to hypnosis have learned to escape into their imaginations for a time. But there’s more going on, and many psychologists argue that it has to do with the placebo effect, the self-fulfilling belief that a condition has been treated.

For cancer patient Polic, hypnosis has helped make the difference between living in misery and leading an active life, with the luxury of being able to laugh now and then. He doesn’t feel like a million bucks, but his skin isn’t burning and he’s not crippled with nausea. Using CDs of recorded hypnotism sessions, he has learned to put himself into a brief trance when needed, when side effects flare.

“I was never a skeptic of hypnosis, but I’m amazed so far at what a difference it has made,” he said.

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Dr. Paul Severson, a surgeon at Aitkin’s Riverwood Healthcare Center, performs about two TriVex procedures each week.

from the saphenous. When the malfunctioning saphenous vein is detected, a one-inch incision is made in the groin area, and the vein is severed and stripped from the leg through the incision.

The stripping method is similar to the old, more painful methods of varicose vein removal. Rather than stripping the saphenous vein and all of the smaller veins branching off the saphenous using many incisions, the TriVex method is less invasive.

With the main vein gone, surgeons make as few as two tiny incisions in the problem areas, usually the calves and shin part of the leg. A long, skinny instrument used as a flashlight is inserted through one incision, just below the skin making the leg look like it is glowing. The light illuminates the veins under the skin, allowing the surgeon to see which veins need to be removed. In the second small incision, a suction device with an oscillating end is inserted. Veins are dislodged, cut and then sucked out using this tool.

This technique is repeated until all of the varicose veins are removed.

Severson said the veins that can be seen in

Anesthetist Bryan Hunter kept tabs on the vital signs of a patient undergoing TriVex, a varicose vein removal procedure. (Photos by Nels Norquist)

arms and legs, the ones that often become varicose, only do 5 percent of the blood transport in the body, meaning it’s harmless to remove these veins. It’s the veins that can’t be seen through the skin, located deep inside the body, that do 95 percent of the work.

Patients go home following surgery with no stitches and experience slight pain or discomfort. There will be significant bruising, but everything will be back to normal within three weeks of surgery. Severson said patients should consider taking a couple days off before returning to their regular daily routine.

Severson said he does about two TriVex procedures each week, at Riverwood and the Minnesota Institute for Minimally Invasive Surgery at Cuyuna Regional Medical Center in Crosby.

While Severson and LeMieur are specialists in TriVex, providing training opportunities for surgeons around the Midwest interested in learning the technique, Knighton specializes in the VNUS Closure procedure.

Also done on an outpatient basis, Closure requires a local anesthetic. To fix the underlying problem causing veins to become vari-

cose, a small incision is made in the groin area and a thin catheter is inserted into the tip of the saphenous vein. The catheter delivers radio frequency energy to the vein wall, causing it to heat, collapse and seal shut. Once the vein is closed, blood flows through other healthy veins without missing a beat.

Knighton said eventually the body absorbs the closed vein and it disappears.

Before surgery, Knighton maps out the smaller, visible varicose veins that have branched out from the saphenous in the lower part of the leg. A tiny incision is made and instead of using the catheter to get rid of the smaller veins, they are removed with a special vein hook.

Knighton said three days following the VNUS procedure, patients shouldn’t feel any pain and can return to their normal daily activities.

“A lot of people shy away from having their veins fixed, but these new (minimally invasive) ways make a huge difference,” Knighton said.

“I want people to know there are ways of doing it that aren’t painful.”

7

to the heart using one-way valves. When these valves don’t open and close properly, blood can gather in the veins, causing them to become enlarged, or varicose. The high blood pressure in these veins is what causes the discomfort.

“Normal blood pressure when you get it checked is 120 over 80,” Dr. Paul Severson said.

“Pressure can be up to 300 in (varicose veins in) legs.”

Treatment for varicose veins used to require up to 30 incisions and caused a lot of pain, scarring and significant recovery time.

Today, there are a handful of minimally invasive treatment options for varicose veins requiring little pain and recovery time.

Last year, Severson and Dr. Timothy LeMieur, surgeons at Aitkin’s Riverwood Healthcare Center, learned a new technique in treating varicose veins. Transilluminated Powered Phlebectomy, or TriVex, is a minimal-

CMYK

Under normal circumstances, varicose veins may be slightly uncomfortable, causing itching or burning after standing long periods of time, in which case compression stockings are prescribed to be worn during daily activities. Stockings provide relief to any symptoms the person may feel, and may even slightly delay the progression of varicose veins, but they don’t cure the underlying problem.

Dr. David Knighton, a vascular surgeon from Abbott Northwestern’s Specialty Care Center in Sartell, said 80 percent of women get varicose veins after they’ve given birth to their first child otherwise getting varicose veins is genetically determined. Knighton said standing on concrete and crossing your legs a lot are myths he often hears about the cause of varicose veins.

Malfunctioning valves inside the veins create varicose veins. After arteries carry blood throughout the body, veins bring blood back

ly invasive procedure that causes little discomfort and leaves a slim chance for varicose veins to return.

“Treating varicose veins was not sought after by the public (in the past),”Severson said.

“Now people are showing up like crazy.”

Before the procedure, a patient is required to walk for about 30 minutes, getting the blood pumping at a good rate. This causes blood to pool in the varicose veins, in turn, making them pop out. The enlarged vein is then traced on the patient’s leg with a black marker.

The patient is then given an anesthetic and is moved to the operating room.

In order to find out which vein is the source of the problem, an ultrasound is done in the groin area, where the main saphenous veins are located. Severson said in most cases, one saphenous vein causes bumps all over the leg by effecting the smaller veins that branch out

Diabetics can still have their chocolate cake and eat it too Story/Morris News Service LUBBOCK, Texas — If you are among the estimated 17 million people in the United States who have diabetes, sugar-free chocolate is a terrific alternative to regular chocolate.

It has the same taste, but without the sugar and with about 19 percent fewer calories.

Sugar is not off limits to people with diabetes, but it must be consumed in moderation. Some sugar-free chocolate is sweetened with lactitol, making it a good choice for people with diabetes and others watching their sugar intake.

Here are some recipes to help you enjoy your chocolate safely: Polka Dot Shortbread Bars 12 (3.3-ounce bag) sugar-free chocolate candies, divided 3/4 cup (11/2 sticks) butter, softened 7 tablespoons sucralose, granular form* 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour 1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 8- or 9-

inch square baking pan. Remove wrappers from chocolates; chop 10 chocolates in 1/4inch pieces. Set aside.

2. Beat butter, sucralose and vanilla until well blended. Gradually beat in flour. (Dough will be crumbly, but moist.) Stir in chocolate pieces. Pat dough into prepared pan.

3. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove from oven; immediately cut into bars. Cool completely in pan on wire rack. Remove bars from pan; place on sheet of waxed paper.

4. Place remaining 2 chocolates in small microwave-safe bowl. Microwave at high 30 seconds; stir. If necessary, microwave at high 10 seconds at a time, stirring after heating, until chocolate is melted. Drizzle bars. About 24 bars. *Sold as Splenda.

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Using as few as two tiny incisions in problem areas, varicose veins are removed by inserting a flashlight-type instrument in one incision to illuminate the leg to make veins appear. A suction device is inserted in the other incision, to cut and remove the bulging veins. (Above photo by Nels Norquist)

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Remove wrappers from chocolates; cut in small pieces.

Lightly grease cookie sheets.

2. Beat margarine, sucralose, granulated sugar, egg and vanilla in large bowl until well blended. Stir together flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt; gradually add to margarine mixture, beating until well blended. Stir in chocolate pieces and nuts. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto prepared cookie sheet.

3. Bake 5 to 7 minutes or until cookie drops spring back when touched lightly with finger.

Cool slightly; remove to wire rack. Cool completely. About 2 dozen cookies.

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1/2 cup sucralose, granular form 1/4 cup granulated sugar 1 egg 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 3/4 cup all-purpose flour 1/4 cup Dutch processed cocoa 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup chopped pecans

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Support group meetings are the third Tuesday of every month at 7pm at Cuyuna Regional Medical Center

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Chocolate Marbled Cheesecake 3 packages (8 ounces each) light cream cheese, softened 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons sucralose, granular form 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 3 eggs 12 (3.3-ounce bag) sugar-free chocolate candies, unwrapped 1 tablespoon milk 1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Wrap bottom of 9-inch springform pan in aluminum foil, extending foil at least 2 inches up side of pan.

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2. Beat cream cheese, sucralose and vanilla in large bowl until well blended. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Set aside 1/2 cup batter; spread remaining batter on prepared crust.

3. Break chocolates in pieces; place with milk in small microwavesafe bowl. Microwave at high 30 seconds; stir. If necessary, microwave at high 10 seconds at a time, stirring after each heating, until chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth when stirred. Stir reserved batter into chocolate mixture, blending well. Drop chocolate mixture by teaspoonfuls on surface of vanilla batter; gently swirl with knife or metal spatula for marbled effect.

4. Place cheesecake pan in shallow baking pan with 1- to 11/2-inch sides; place in oven. Add water to baking pan to depth of 1/2 to 3/4 inch. Bake 40 to 45 minutes or until center is set. Remove from oven to cooling rack. Immediately loosen cake from sides of pan. Cool to room temperature. Cover; refrigerate several hours or until completely chilled. 12 servings.

Shortbread Crumb Crust: Heat oven to 350 degrees. Combine 11/4 cups cookie crumbs (made from sugar-free shortbread cookies), 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) melted butter and 1 tablespoon granular form sucralose in medium bowl. Press on bottom and 1/2-inch up side of 9-inch springform pan. Bake 8 to 10 minutes.

Peanut Butter Cup Flecked Ice Cream Pie 1 1/2 cups salted or unsalted finely crushed pretzels 3/4 cup (11/2 sticks) light margarine, melted 2 tablespoons sucralose, granular form 12 (3.3-ounce bag) sugar-free, miniature peanut butter cups 1/2 gallon sugar free vanilla ice cream, softened Peanut Butter Cream Sauce (optional, recipe follows) Miniature peanut butter cups for garnish, if desired 1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Combine pretzels, margarine and sucralose in medium bowl; press mixture on bottom and up side of 9-inch pie plate. Bake 30 minutes or until firm. Cool completely on wire rack.

2. Remove wrappers from peanut butter cups; cut in small pieces.

Stir peanut butter cup pieces into softened ice cream. Gently spread ice cream mixture in prepared crust. Cover; freeze 4 to 6 hours or overnight.

3. To serve: Allow pie to soften slightly; cut into slices. Drizzle each slice with about 2 teaspoons Peanut Butter Cream Sauce if desired. 12 servings.

Peanut Butter Cream Sauce: Unwrap and chop 12 (3.3-ounce bag) sugar-free, miniature peanut butter cups; place in medium microwave-safe bowl. Stir in 1/3 cup light cream. Microwave at high 1 minute; stir. If necessary, microwave an additional 15 seconds at a time, stirring after each heating, until peanut butter cups are melted and mixture is smooth when stirred (some peanut pieces may remain). Stir in 1 teaspoon vanilla extract. Cool slightly. About 2/3 cup sauce.

Following the TriVex procedure, there often is significant bruising, but after about three weeks, legs look normal again. Patients should consider taking a couple days off before returning to their regular routine.

New procedures make varicose vein removal easy

Story/Heidi Lake

AITKIN — If you don’t have them, chances are you’ve seen them on someone else. Winding, bulging, unsightly looking veins making their way down a person’s leg.

Twenty-four million Americans suffer from ugly, and many times painful, varicose veins. The condition is potentially dangerous, and if the bulging veins go by untreated, eczema, inflammation, twisted veins, aching pain or even leg ulcers could be the result.

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5

Who we are Publisher — Terry McCollough Advertising Director — Mary Panzer Editor — Heidi Lake Copy Editors — Roy Miller, DeLynn Howard Graphic Designer — Cindy Spilman HealthWatch is a quarterly publication of The Brainerd Daily Dispatch.

Read HealthWatch online at www.upnorthhealthwatch.com

CMYK

For advertising opportunities call Mary Panzer at (218) 855-5844.

E-mail your comments to heidi.lake@brainerddispatch.com or write to: Heidi Lake PO Box 974 Brainerd, MN 56401

From the Editor

Continued from Page 19

Every time January rolls around off the couch and onto the treadI find myself striving for a differ- mill. ent goal.

In this issue, some of the stories Watch less television. Work out that intrigued me include eating more. Eat healthier. I don’t know healthy, even at fast food restauif my New Year’s resolutions have rants, and how to sit properly at ever hung around long enough my computer, decreasing the to see the light of February. chance of having lower back problems.

This year I’ve put my foot down.

I decided not to make a resolu- Hopefully this issue of tion.

HealthWatch inspires you to be a healthier person as well.

I’m just going to continue writing for HealthWatch and hope Heidi Lake, the stories inspire me to get up Editor

®

chair altogether. Sitting on a stability ball, a large, inflatable ball, forces people to sit at a 90-degree angle.

“If you slouch while you’re on the ball, you’ll fall off,” McCarty said.

McCarty said office chairs are hard to come by in some corporations in California, because everyone sits on stability balls.

Closer to home, patrons of the Hallett Community Center use the balls to stretch and workout.

Eating right is another way to achieve a healthy lifestyle. The Hallett Community Center offers a nutrition program where employees are asked to keep track of what they eat for three days. The logs are then given to McCarty, who assesses the information, explains any risk factors the individual may face and gives nutritional guidance to those who need it.

The cost of the health enhancement seminars varies on how many sessions are needed. The cost to have McCarty come into a business and give one session to employees about a wellness program is $50, two sessions is $90, three sessions is $130 and four or more sessions are $40 each.

In the end, McCarty said no matter how much encouragement employees get at their workplace, they have to commit themselves to a given program or lifestyle on their own.

“You can educate all you want, but it’s up to the individual employees to change their lifestyles,” he said.

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Ear infections

Story/Kimberly E. Mock Photos/Allen Sullivan Morris News Service

WATKINSVILLE, Ga. — It’s as common a childhood bane as chicken pox and head lice, is often accompanied by severe pain and is at the center of a new debate over treatment.

It’s the ear infection, the painful school-age malady that accounts for 30 million doctors’ visits each year - and numerous debates over its causes and remedies.

According to Dr. Bo Edwards, a northeast Georgia pediatrician, ear infections are common in young children, although their causes and subsequent treatments are questioned among members of the medical community at large.

Commonly formed by a bacteria buildup or a virus, Edwards said ear infections most often are characterized by an inflamed eardrum and the presence of pus or fluid behind the ear.

“About 70 percent of children will get at least one (ear infection) by the time they are 1 year old,” said Edwards. “Some are more prone than others, and a lot of that has to do with their anatomies or their environment.”

Edwards said children younger than age 2 are most at risk because their ear tubes are

34

more angular than older children’s, which facilitates the retainer of the germs that can cause infections.

Kids who suffer from allergies and those exposed to secondhand smoke are also more prone to develop ear infections.

But while doctors usually can come to some consensus on how ear infections are caused, their treatment is hotly debated in the medical community.

In recent years, some doctors have ascribed to a philosophy of “watchful waiting” when it comes to the treatment of possible ear infection.

“Watchful waiting” typically encourages doctors to delay the use of antibiotics to see if patients with mild or asymptomatic earaches recover without the use of drugs.

Antibiotics, which commonly are prescribed for ear infections, can cause stomach upset and diarrhea in children.

Many doctors also are recommending ear tubes be inserted into the ear drums of children who get frequent ear infections.

Ear tubes, or tympanostomy tubes, keep the

middle ear clear of fluids, which often facilitate infections.

“When you look at ears, there is actually a continuum of findings,” said Jonathan Finkelstein, assistant professor of pediatrics and ambulatory care at Harvard Medical School. “There is the flagrant dramatic infection that everyone would agree on. The eardrum is bulging and there’s pus behind it, and the kid is screaming. Ten out of 10 of us would say ‘There’s an ear infection.’

“Then there are ears which are more subtle in their findings, where the diagnosis is less clear. The eardrum is slightly inflamed and there’s a little bit of fluid, and the kid has been uncomfortable on and off, but not screaming in pain. Whether you call that an ear infection or just a little bit of fluid in the ear with a cold, which is also what it could be, that’s where the judgment comes on.”

Guidelines for “watchful waiting” will this year be outlined by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Family Physicians.

Proponents of the strategy, like California

L A K E S

Doctors changing how they treat plague of youth

I M A G I N G

CMYK

C E N T E R

. . . . . .

Dr. B.O. Edwards Jr. examined an ear of 9-month-old Maddox Smith.

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pediatrician Allan Liberthal, said it helps reduce the amount of antibiotics being taken perhaps unnecessarily. Patients are given a backup prescription of sorts, but are told to delay filling it for about a day or so to see if the condition improves without drugs.

“It’s pretty clear that ear infections are over-diagnosed and there’s been a certain amount of otitis phobia, where families and physicians are so afraid of ear infections that they go ahead and treat,” said Liberthal, who helped form the new guidelines. “One of the key points of the guidelines is that you don’t have to be afraid of most ear infections.”

Skeptics however, said ear infections should be solved quickly to prevent potential but rare side effects, including damage to the eardrum, or the development of more serious conditions, such as meningitis or brain abscess.

“I’m not an advocate of that,”Edwards said of the “watchful waiting” philosophy. “The only time I don’t treat is if there’s fluid behind the ear that is not causing the child any symptoms ... I’m not faulting those who do (adopt ‘watchful waiting’). Ear infections are one of the most controversial areas in medicine - you’re never going to find 100 percent consensus.”

According to the American Academy of Family Physicians, children may be more prone to ear infections if they: - Have allergies with nasal congestion - Were born prematurely or with a low birth weight - Use a pacifier - Take a bottle to bed - Are around people who smoke

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CMYK

I’M A RETIRED TWIN

CITIES

NURSE,

and I’d never seen such great care.

My husband Gerald and I were visiting the Brainerd area this past summer when he started to experience gastrointestinal bleeding.

He was brought by ambulance to the intensive care unit at St. Joseph’s Medical Center.

We were amazed by the level of care and attention he was given—I was a nurse for 33 years, and I never saw anything like what I saw at St. Joseph’s.

Compassionate Care

Peace of Mind

We didn’t know at the time that St. Joseph’s is the Lakes area’s largest hospital, with 100 specialists and over 900 nurses, technicians and support staff. What we did know from the minute we entered the hospital was that we were in capable and compassionate hands.

We’re moving to the Brainerd area next summer, and are eager to be part of a community with such natural beauty and high quality of life. It also gives us great peace of mind to know that St. Joseph’s is there to look after the most important thing of all, our health.

Gerald was checked on so frequently, and the doctors and nurses were wonderfully polite, knowledgeable and informative.

They always told him what was happening next, and they made sure he understood everything. They were also upbeat and full of good humor, which Gerald really appreciated. Everyone at the hospital treated him as though he was a friend, even though he was a total stranger.

Kim Rosencrantz Retired nurse

Where patients come first.

Brainerd, MN • www.sjmcmn.org

36

New procedures Varicose vein removal Page 5

A day in the life ...

Of an ambulance crew Page 9

FEBRUARY 2004