Category: Health

What’s important is not who you are now, but who you want to become. Combine that message with the fact that cancer is a big motivator for wanting to take positive action to prevent a recurrence and you’ve got a topic for an interesting discussion about health.

Facilitating the body’s resiliency will be discussed during a presentation on “Life After Chemotherapy,” which will be part of the UW Comprehensive Cancer Center’s annual Cancer Hope, Cancer Health Week this week.

The fight against childhood cancer got a big boost this week thanks to a three-day appeal led by Connie and Fish, the morning duo on the Madison radio station WZEE-FM (104.1).

Listeners pledged more than $400,000 during The Cure Kids Cancer Radiothon, greatly exceeding organizers’ expectations. All of the money will go to UW Children’s Hospital.

“It’s just been a phenomenal three days,” said Michael Felber, a public affairs consultant to the hospital. “The way all of south-central Wisconsin responded just blew everyone away.”

A three-day, 39-hour radio telethon on Z104 raised $400,428 for the University of Wisconsin Children’s Hospital.

“We are blown away,” David Berry, vice president of UW Children’s Hospital, said Friday night. Berry said it was estimated the radiothon might bring in about half of that.

A burn patient will undergo an innovative technique at UW Hospital and Clinics to use a synthetic form of skin to heal wounds.

Madison resident Ron Reschke loves walking. So much, in fact, that he will be undertaking a 1,200-mile journey around the state to raise money and promote cancer awareness.

“I’ve done a lot of climbing and hiking in the last 10 years,” he said. “I wanted to take those skills and do something positive.”

Reschke, who will leave today from UW Hospital to begin his journey around the state, said he was inspired to do the walk after learning that a former friend and mentor had passed away several years ago from cancer. He had also seen the efforts being made to fight cancer at the UW Comprehensive Cancer Center and wanted to help.

Police are investigating the death Tuesday of a 20-year-old woman at a campus area residence as a possible heroin overdose. Sara M. Stellner was found dead in the 200 block of Langdon Street.

….A search warrant filed today in Dane County Circuit Court revealed that Stellner’s roommate told officers that she injected Stellner with heroin early Tuesday. The roommate, whom The Capital Times is not identifying because she has not been arrested or charged with a crime, also injected the drug in herself, she told officers.

Taking a trip to the hospital is an experience most people would rather do without, but if injured or sick, students and residents of Madison as well as patients from around the state can expect top-ranked care from the award-winning and nationally recognized UW Hospital and Clinics system.

The Sierra Club believes that clean air is not a high priority in the Bush administration, so the group hopes a little Earth Day pressure on the University of Wisconsin will help clear the air in Madison.

….The group planned a rally on Bascom Hill at noon today, followed by a march to the UW’s nearly 50-year-old coal-fired power plant on Charter Street, which it calls one of the dirtiest power plants in the state.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit this morning seeking domestic partnership benefits for state of Wisconsin employees.

“We are attempting to vindicate Wisconsin’s tradition of fairness, which is embodied in the equal protection guarantee of our state constitution,” ACLU of Wisconsin attorney Larry Dupuis said in an interview this morning.

Partners of state workers, including University of Wisconsin employees, are not covered under the state’s health insurance program and do not qualify for such benefits as family leave.

Like many sets of identical twins, Polly and Norah Boynton are often confused for each other. But when Polly’s face began appearing in advertisements for a UW Hospital nursing campaign, the amount of local fame the two received was a bit of a surprise.

On Saturday, when Take Back the Night supporters will rally at the State Capitol for a march to the UW-Madison Library Mall, it will mark the 21st annual event in Dane County.

….The rally will focus on the controversial efforts in the Legislature to ban the UW System from dispensing emergency contraception and other efforts to roll back access to birth control, Schmidt said.

Laboratories around the world are scrambling to destroy a deadly influenza virus that was mistakenly sent from the College of American Pathologists as part of routine test, according to World Health Organization officials.

Quoted: Sanjay Asthana, head of geriatrics at the UW Medical School.

About 2,800 people trying to snuff their smoking habit will get close evaluation as part of an $8.1 million Wisconsin study to match smokers with more effective stop-smoking treatment.

From pedometers to placebos to palm-sized computers, study participants will get tailored attention.