Saturday May 18th, 2013 • 7:42:27am
A pair of Lawton women want those suffering in Southwest Oklahoma to know that there is help available.
Kara Spencer and Tina Smoley both suffer from lupus an autoimmune disease that can cause achy and swollen joints, skin rashes, swelling, pain, rashes and other debilitating symptoms. They take each day one at a time and try to continue on with their lives as best as they can. But both recognize they sometimes just need to vent to others who might understand. That's why Spencer formed the a lupus support group seven years ago.
"When I was diagnosed, I looked around for a group and the closest one was in Chickasha and it met in a funeral home," she said. "Not exactly the kind of place I'd want to meet at. So I decided to form my own here."
Others with the disease, including Smoley, began joining to share their experiences. Smoley said the group is noncommittal and no one is pressured to share or speak if they don't want to. But it's nice to be able to sit down with someone who's going through the suffering and be able to relate with each other, she said.
"It takes a toll on your family and on your friendships," Smoley said. "You become a black sheep to people because they'll ask you to go do something and you have a flare up and you simply can't go. So they quit asking. With this group, everyone understands what you're going through."
Lawtonian Dr. Lynn H.W. Banowsky received the Society of Women in Urology 2013 Christina Mentoring Award May 6.
SWIU presented the award to Banowsky during the group's networking reception at the American Urological Association annual meeting in San Diego.
Doctors Deborah Erickson, Marianne Rochester, Karny Jacoby and Elizabeth Houser nominated Banowsky for his mentoring at what is now the Methodist Specialty and Transplant Hospital in the 1980s and 1990s. At that time, the four women were students at the University of Texas in San Antonio and worked a rotation at Methodist as part of their training.
"I was very honored and have a great deal of respect and admiration for these women," Banowsky said. "I am proud of their accomplishments then and also proud of what they have done on their own since then ... they are all successful urologists."
The award has been given for the past 13 years to one person who "best exemplifies the mentoring traits that the award intends to encourage. ... Appropriate candidates for this award are men or women who have demonstrated extraordinary mentoring skills to female urologists," according to SWIU's website.
Seeking help can seem like an overwhelming task when sadness, a lack of energy, hopelessness or an inability to make decisions are in the way.
Making yourself get help can be stymied for reasons other than the debilitating symptoms of depression.These reasons include the stigma associated with mental illness and whether seeking help may actually doom a person to a mental health facility or go into counseling.
"The stigma may keep them from seeking help ... but taking that first step and getting educated about depression and bipolar disorder can go a long way in demystifying and de-stigmatizing," said Jaylene Landers, licensed behavioral practitioner and alcohol and drug counselor.
Fortunately for those in Lawton and the surrounding community, the Depression/Bipolar Support Alliance (DBSA) of Southwest Oklahoma holds a free support group meeting at 7 p.m. every Monday in the Lawton Public Library for those who need support or want to learn more about mental health issues. Landers, who is certified as by the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, will be at the meeting tonight as she is every first Monday of each month.
The support group can give a new perspective to someone dealing with mental health issues or those trying to help a family member or friend with those issues.
There is still time to sign up to get covered in bursts of color while helping sick children during Saturday's Technicolor Run at Cameron University.
The online signup for the colorful 5K run, walk, skip or dance event closed Sunday, but in-person registration will continue until the morning of the event but only if there there is still space, said Andrea Hadley, event co-coordinator along with Lori Cummins for Comanche County Memorial Hospital.
"We are capping it off at 1,000 entries," she said. On Friday afternoon, 750 people had already signed up.
Memorial and Cameron University have partnered to present this colorful, non-timed event, which will begin at 9:31 a.m. just north of the university's football stadium on the corner of Gore Boulevard and 38th Street. All the proceeds from the registration fees will go to the hospital's Starlight Unit fund to purchase new equipment for the unit and for the new neonatal unit that has just opened at the hospital, Hadley said.
"The participants will run through five brightly colored, color blast stations where volunteers will throw liquid and powdered colors on them," Hadley said. "And for those who think they don't have enough color on them when they finish, there is a color pit near the finish line."
For those who want less color, they should go through the stations on the inside. For those who want more color, they should run on the outside nearer the volunteers, she added.
"It will be a cool experience for the students ... the idea is if we can get a junior high, high school or college kid to participate and they have a ball, they will be more likely to participate in future events," said Jennifer Holland, event co-coordinator, along with Zeak Naifeh, for Cameron University.
It's not science fiction: The fact is that about a third of us of us are walking around colonized with organisms that could potentially cause infections.
"While 25 to 30 percent of the population is colonized with 'staph' (staphylococcus aureus) ... approximately 1 percent is colonized with MSRA (methicillin-resistant staph)," according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, www.cdc.gov. Fortunately, "colonized" means "that bacteria are present, but not causing an infection."
Getting a staph or MRSA infection is associated with time spent in a healthcare facility, but these bacteria can also cause infections outside of any healthcare facility.
"I have a few cases each day. They ask me to look at what they think is a spider bite or a pimple, but it is MSRA," said Dr. Robert F. Hay, medical director and family practice physician at MMG Minor Emergency Clinic, part of Comanche Country Memorial Hospital. "MSRA is prevalent across the country ... it is a common germ to see."
Community-associated staph or MSRA infections such as the ones Hay sees everyday are "usually manifested as skin infections that look like pimples or boils and occur in otherwise healthy people," said the CDC.
"About 30 percent of the adults in this country have sleep apnea," said Dr. David Drummond, Lawton dentist, who is also certified by The American Board of Dental Sleep Medicine to treat sleep-related breathing disorders.
Obstructive sleep apnea, where the throat muscles relax and the airway narrows or even collapses during sleep, is a chronic problem that causes a person to repeatedly stop breathing. It results in the person "waking up two to 60 times an hour," he said, explaining he knows first-hand what the lack of sleep due to obstructive sleep apnea does to a person he had the problem himself.
In additional to irritability, the lack of restful sleep is linked to many chronic health problems including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, depression and obesity, as well as many motor vehicle crashes and work-related errors that can significantly affect the person or others, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Last year, Drummond a specialist in general, family and cosmetic dentistry for many years attended a class about sleep apnea in Dallas which lead him to an "aha moment," he said.
"As part of the class, a sleep study was done. We also had to take a screening test. The screening test said, 'You might have sleep apnea.' My sleep study said, 'You have it,'" Drummond said, explaining that his "aha moment" during the course led to his becoming certified by the ABDSM. "Certainly not every dentist is doing it, but treating sleep apnea with oral appliances is something we are going to see much more of ... using an appliance is part of the spectrum of the sleep apnea treatment.
The Mountain cedar pollen is released in what looks like a cloud of smoke and is so light it can travel up to 150 miles from the source tree.
Cottonwood is another scapegoat when it comes to allergy sufferers. "When people see the cotton flying around and they have allergy symptoms, they blame the cottonwood. It is probably the Bermuda grass under the tree. So it is not always what you see is what you get," Smith said.
Despite the sneezing and coughing going on, early spring is not necessarily the worst time of year in Oklahoma for pollen-related allergies.
"It depends on what you are allergic to," Smith said, explaining that there are only a few weeks in early winter that Oklahoma doesn't have some type of pollen causing allergies.
But it may not be pollen causing the clogged sinuses and itchy eyes. There are many types of allergens out there year-round that can affect some people including animal dander, mold spores, dust, certain foods and more. Some allergies from one source such as pollen can interact or accelerate the reaction from another related allergen source such as food, he said.
Even as an infant, Elizabeth Sickler suffered from allergies.
"She had sinus and ear infections, but she was never allergy-tested until she was 15," said her mother Angie Sickler, who also suffers from allergies depending on the season.
The family lived in Florida and being a military family, they moved here in 1996.
"In Florida I didn't have many allergies, we lived near the Gulf (of Mexico) and we had the winds from the Gulf," Angie Sickler said, explaining that her daughter has had both seasonal and year-round allergies from foods, animals, dust and many other allergens.
Allergies trigger asthma
Once the family was in Lawton, Angie's seasonal allergies did get worse and her daughter's also became more serious, triggering asthma attacks that lead to hospitalizations.
Asthma is a serious and common disease of young people in the U.S., affecting almost 5 million children younger than 18, according to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America's website, www.aafa.org.
A new style of workout is sweeping across Lawton.
Based around constant movement, intense persistence and timed diligence, CrossFit has become the fastest rising workout regime in town. Two gyms CrossFit Havoc and Southern Plains CrossFit have opened in Lawton within the last three years and are providing workouts to get just about anyone in shape, no matter what their level of fitness is. Jim Denofa, owner of CrossFit Havoc, said anyone is welcome to stop by and try out their own regimen.
"We have people that come in that haven't worked out in years and want to get back in shape," he said. "We have others that come in and are already in shape and just want to continue to push themselves. We can tailor the workout to the individual. There's a misconception that CrossFit is only for those that are already fit. It's certainly not the case."
What sets CrossFit apart from so many other workout regiments is the timed aspect. Each workout consists of a series of individual activities the participants must perform. On one day gym members had to squat and lift a weight bar up to their chins a certain number of times, then do a certain number of handstand pushups against the wall and then follow that up with a medicine ball squat toss. All of that adds up to one rotation. That day's workout included 30 rotations.
Methodically, Janette New destroys what looks like a perfectly good car seat, preparing the frame to be cut into little pieces by a reciprocal saw.
"It is expired ... it expired in September 2008," said New, Comanche County Health Department health instructor, who has been certified as a child passenger safety technician through the Safe Kids Coalition or Safe Kids USA.
She destroyed the seat because it couldn't be counted on to protect a child in a motor vehicle crash the leading case of child death in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The good news is that more than half of these deaths can be prevented.
"Placing children in age- and size-appropriate car seats and booster seats reduces serious and fatal injuries by more than half," the CDC said, based on a study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
In an effort to lower injuries and deaths in children, the Health Department together with the Native American Injury Prevention Coalition will offer a free car seat safety check from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. the third Fridays of April, May, June and July beginning April 19. Anyone who has questions about car seat safety or wants certified technicians to check their car seats for recall notices, proper installation and safe use based on the weight, height and age of the child, may call New at 585-6682.
71°F
Fair
Humidity: 100%
Wind: 9 mph
98°F
70°F
96°F
63°F
Community praised for support of militaryTo the wonderment of none, the Lawton Fort Sill Chamber of Commerce pulled a speaker out of its hat for the Armed Forces Day luncheon on Friday.Albert Johnson Jr., in his role as chairman of the chamber's military affairs committe...
|
Homeless vets get aid at Stand DownLawton's best-known homeless veteran, Emanuel Tolbert, enjoyed breakfast and a haircut at the first-ever Southwest Oklahoma Stand Down held here Friday.Until he was the subject of a missing persons report in February 2012, many pe...
|
