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Jade Parks, finding her own beauty

A story of weight loss, self-esteem and learning who you are beyond the scale

By Brandi N. Montreuil, Tulalip News

Jade Parks and her fiancé’ Leonardo Carela before her sleeve gastrectomy. Photo courtesy/ Jade Parks — Jade Parks and her fiancé Leonardo Carela before her sleeve gastrectomy.
Photo courtesy/ Jade Parks

TULALIP – On January 17, of this year, Tulalip tribal member Jade Parks was in Mexico, following a major surgery, she was 350 pounds and a dress size 26. She was alone except for her best friend and had just started a journey that would alter her life drastically to reveal a woman she never knew existed.

Growing up, Jade was always larger than her peers. Shopping in plus size stores became regular as she entered adulthood. She didn’t shy away from life despite her larger size, she learned to accommodate it instead. Yet as her weight continued to increase, her usual bubbly personality began to shrink, eventually leading to depression after years of losing and gaining weight. Something had to change.

Parks sought help from her tribal council to pay for a surgical procedure to help her lose weight. Due to a policy that required her to be experiencing two major health issues as a result of her weight, she was denied. She weighed over 300 pounds and suffered high blood pressure and sleep apnea. These did not qualify.

Despite being denied the monetary help, Parks was determined to lose weight. Through diet, exercise and enrollment as an outpatient in treatment for food addiction, Parks lost 73 pounds in 9 months. But it didn’t last. Parks eventually gained back the pounds she lost, plus seven more.

“It was extremely depressing. I was really sad and I didn’t know what I was going to do. You wake up in the morning not wanting to eat bad things, wanting to make good choices, wanting to work out and then you look in the mirror, and you just feel like a failure because of your weight. You think, how could I let myself get like this,” said Parks, about a typical day for her.

“It is hard. For plus size people, when you walk into the room everyone knows your issue. It is not something you can hide. I can’t hide my addiction. I can’t hide what my issue is, because it is the first thing you see when you see me, because it is my weight. A lot of times drug addicts can hide their substance abuse, people do not know that they abuse drugs. For us, as soon as we walk into a room, every single person is going to know and that makes it hard. It came basically down to: I can’t live like this anymore. I can’t live at being 350 pounds. I decided to pay for the weight loss surgery on my own, so I went to Mexico because it is cheaper.”

Although risks can be associated with medical treatment in other countries, Parks’ research led her to a private hospital and a surgical staff that she was comfortable with and she made plans to travel.

“I have never had surgery in my life before. I was worried about it, but I was more worried about not ever being able to have kids because of my weight,” said Parks, who developed polycystic ovary syndrome as a result of her weight, which caused her to stop menstruating.

Parks had a sleeve gastrectomy, which involves a portion of the stomach being separated and removed from the body. According to the Mayo Clinic, the “remaining section is formed into a tube-like structure. The smaller stomach cannot hold as much food. It also produces less of the appetite-regulating hormone ghrelin, which may lessen your desire to eat. However, sleeve gastrectomy does not affect absorption of calories and nutrients in the intestines.” This type of surgery, unlike other weight loss surgeries such as the gastric banding, is irreversible and still considered a relatively new procedure in America, meaning its long-term effects are still being evaluated.

Jade Parks, six months after her sleeve gastrectomy in January 2014. Photo courtesy/ Jade Parks — Jade Parks, six months after her sleeve gastrectomy in January 2014.
Photo courtesy/ Jade Parks

“People think that weight loss surgery is the easy way out, but I am here to say that it is not an easy way out. It is extremely hard, because you still battle cravings and wanting foods. I can eat about four bites of food and I am full,” said Parks, who had 80 percent of her stomach removed during the surgery and can only take quarter sized bites while

After her sleeve gastrectomy surgery in January 2014, which removed 80 percent of her stomach, Jade Park, with fiancé Leonardo Carela, has lost 131 pounds and wears a 14 pant size, at the time of the article.

eating.

“There are a lot of people who get weight loss surgery and abuse it. They stretch out their stomachs and gain the weight back. I have followed the diet from the doctor very strictly. For instance, you cannot eat and drink at the same time. You have to do it within half an hour of each other, and that’s because there is not enough room. If you do, it will stretch out your stomach,” explains Parks, who also cannot have carbonated beverages and will need to maintain the strict diet for the rest of her life.

Due to the diet’s strict portion control, Parks takes a regimen of vitamins to ensure she receives the proper amount of nutrients for her body, including choosing portion options that include the natural nutrients in them.

Weight loss surgery creates dramatic changes in physical appearance, causing unexpected emotional impacts in patients. These sudden changes often leave patients unprepared to cope with the lifestyle and dieting required following surgery, leading to a continuance or return to the eating habits that led to their weight gain. A majority of patients view weight loss surgery as a cure-all to their weight issues which can mislead them, resulting in unsuccessful weight loss. Patients considering weight loss surgery should consider the pros and cons related to the surgery and following it.

“You have to be careful because you are getting rid of one of your addictions,” said Parks, who was on a liquid diet the first month following her surgery. “That first month I was a wreck. I couldn’t smoke. I couldn’t workout and I couldn’t eat. Those are my vices. I did a lot of crying, a lot of sitting with my feelings and having to just deal with life. At the same time, it helped to prepare me for the rest of my weight loss journey, because I can’t continue to use food as my coping mechanism. It helped me learn to sit with my feelings and learn that feeling emotions is not going to kill you, and that you have to let yourself feel emotions.”

“My biggest fear about getting the weight loss surgery was that I would get the surgery and then I would regret it. There is nothing that I have experienced through this journey that has ever made me regret my surgery. It truly is the best decision I have made for myself,” said Parks, who has lost a total of 131 pounds at the time of this article.

Although weight loss surgery is not recommended for everyone, or may not be successful for everyone who has it, Parks explains that the nine months following her surgery has taught her more about herself than she ever expected.

“I have always known I am a strong woman, but now I truly believe it. To know that so many people get weight loss surgery and it just doesn’t work for them, it makes me feel stronger and gives me such a sense of pride to know have come this far. That I am able to follow the rules and stick to what I am supposed to and not throw up, is a huge thing. Now I don’t need a seat belt extender on an airplane. When I park really close to another car, I can squeeze out without my car door hitting the other car. I can fit into chairs. I can cross my legs. I have had to move my seat up in my car. I have been able to shop in non-plus size stores. Normal jewelry fits me,” said Parks about the little things she enjoys about her weight loss.

Before her sleeve gastrectomy surgery, Jade Parks weighed 350 pounds. Parks with her nephew Cyles Parks and niece Kerrigyn Parks shortly before her surgery. Photo courtesy/ Jade Parks — Before her sleeve gastrectomy surgery, Jade Parks weighed 350 pounds. Parks with her nephew Cyles Parks and niece Kerrigyn Parks shortly before her surgery.
Photo courtesy/ Jade Parks

“You really have to know that this is something that you want and you are willing to make the sacrifices it takes to get it done, and do it the right way. A lot of people think they are ready because they are just tired of being big for so long, but it is a hard road. It is a good idea to be in therapy or something to help you through the journey, because when you can no longer use food as your coping mechanism, you need to be able to work through your emotions and whatever life is throwing at you. In the end it is worth it. I wouldn’t take it back for anything,” said Parks, who plans to continue her doctors’ diet plan, working out and living a healthier life.

“I am never going back to 350 pounds. I am never going to go back to a size 26. I am never going back to using food as a way to deal with life.”

Marine Survival Project Looks at Salmon Poisoning Disease

Source: Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission

Steelhead out-migrating from North Sound rivers appear to have better marine survival than steelhead smolts from South Sound, and researchers are studying salmon poisoning disease as a potential cause.

Salmon poisoning disease, or Nanophyetus salmincola, is best known as the parasite that can make dogs sick when they eat raw salmon. It also has been found to affect the swimming performance of infected salmonids, potentially reducing their marine survival.

Fish pathologist Martin Chen is studying steelhead smolts for the NWIFC as part of the Salish Sea Marine Survival Project. Chen is sampling steelhead from the Tahuya, Skagit, Snohomish, Green and Nisqually rivers.

“We thought Skagit and Snohomish would be negative for the parasite based on historical records, and that was true,” Chen said. “We found lots of heavily infected fish in the Green and Nisqually rivers. I can see the parasite even as I’m dissecting them. Parasite numbers are as high as 18,000 per gram of kidney tissue.”

Both of those results were expected, but Chen was surprised not to find the parasite in any of the 24 steelhead sampled from the Tahuya River in Hood Canal. The Tahuya is across the canal from the Skokomish River, which has Nanophyetus in at least three tributaries.

South Sound fish also have their marine survival challenged by swimming through the Tacoma Narrows and Point Defiance, and facing more predation from seals. To make a more even comparison, researchers placed infected South Sound fish and uninfected North Sound fish in the same saltwater environment to compare survival. After 90 days in saltwater tanks at the USGS Marrowstone Island Laboratory, both groups had the same high survival rate.

“The fish from the Green River are still heavily infected,” Chen said. “It’s possible that infected fish have some disadvantage and they’re less able to escape predators. They don’t just hit the salt water and roll over and die.”

Chen also is testing drugs that could eliminate the parasite from infected fish. Two drugs are being tested on small numbers of coho at the Nisqually Tribe’s Clear Creek Hatchery, with some coho getting a 24-hour bath of each drug, and other fish having a drug mixed in their food. None of the fish from this initial test will be released or eaten.

“If the drugs were effective and you were rearing fish in a parasite-positive environment, you could clean up a group of fish before releasing them,” Chen said. “You would no longer have to compare survival of fish between two river systems, making our studies more valid. In addition, being able to eliminate Nanophyetus before release could have a practical application for Northwest hatcheries.”

Alaska Natives Wait… And Wait, For Health Law Exemption

Most Americans are supposed to have health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. But up to 50,000 Alaska Natives and American Indians in Alaska are excused from the requirement. They have to apply for that lifetime exemption though. And the federal government is mishandling many of those applications.

By Annie Feidt, Alaska Public Media Network

The form Alaska Natives and American Indians need to fill out to get an exemption from the individual mandate.

Evelyn Burdick thought it would be easy to apply for her American Indian exemption. As a member of the Cherokee Nation, the Anchorage resident sees a doctor at the Alaska Native Medical Center. Burdick likes the care she gets there and has no plans to sign up for private insurance under Obamacare. So she sent an exemption application to the federal government almost as soon as it was available, on January 9^th:

“I have yet to receive any correspondence from them back whatsoever. Not even to let me know they’ve received my application.”

Burdick is not alone. The Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium has helped hundreds of Alaska Natives and American Indians in the state who have had problems with their exemption applications. The exemption is a simple six digit number applicants need for their tax forms to avoid paying a penalty ($95 dollars or 1% of income, whichever is greater) for not having health insurance. Monique Martin, with ANTHC, has been working with the federal government to resolve the problems:

“Every time we call it’s a bear with us sort of request but we’ve been bearing with them since February when we first started reporting issues and we are anxious for a resolution to this issue.”

The Federal government has fumbled the applications in several different ways. Martin works closely with three other people at ANTHC who all applied for the exemption for themselves. Martin’s exemption number came back with no problems. But her three colleagues were not so lucky:

“One of our coworkers received her letter twice, with two different exemption numbers for her and her kids. One received the wrong exemption… and another one is still waiting to hear on her application. So we’ve seen all the errors come to us, so we have real world examples that we can show the federal government.”

No one from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services was willing to do an interview for this story. In an e-mail, a spokesperson with the agency wrote that they are working to improve the process daily and committed to providing consumers with their exemption numbers in time for tax filing season. Martin says she’s cautiously optimistic that can happen:

“We are the squeaky wheel in Alaska and we’re really pushing the federal government to resolve this issue and to get this addressed for people so they aren’t negatively impacted.”

Martin worries about how the federal government will handle the rush of exemption applications as tax time approaches. She expects many Alaska Natives and American Indians haven’t even thought about sending in the application yet. Evelyn Burdick, who was proactive and applied early in the process, says the nine month long wait for a response has been frustrating:

“I don’t want to be penalized for not having the healthcare.gov insurance. I’m trying to follow the rules and regulations that healthcare.gov set up and they’re not making it any easier.”

Late last month, Monique Martin was able to get Burdick’s exemption number for her from a contact at the federal government. Burdick is happy to have the number, but she still wants to see it in writing. She says she has no idea when it will arrive in her mailbox, but at this rate she’s not expecting it any time soon.

This story is part of a reporting partnership between APRN, NPR and Kaiser Health News.

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) & Chronic Health and Addiction Issues in Indian Country

(Part One of a Four-Part Series)

By Kyle Taylor Lucas for Tulalip News

This is the first story in a series exploring the study of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) and the intersection of chronic health and addiction issues among American Indians. The series focuses upon contributing factors of disproportionately high ACE numbers in American Indians to disproportionately high substance abuse and behavioral and physical health issues. The underpinning historic, social, legal, political, and economic realities of American Indian tribes and members are ever present.

The ACE scientific breakthrough unexpectedly originated with an obesity clinic led in 1985 by Dr. Vincent Felitti, chief of Kaiser Permanente’s Department of Preventive Medicine, San Diego. He was mystified that over a five year period, despite their desperate yearning to lose weight, more than half of his obese patients dropped out. Then, in conducting interviews with those patients, he was shocked to discover that the majority had experienced childhood sexual trauma. That led to 25 years of research by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Kaiser Permanente’s San Diego program. Their research resulted in a study that revealed adverse childhood experiences are strongly linked to major chronic illness, social problems, and early death.

According to the CDC, “the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study is one of the largest investigations ever conducted to assess associations between childhood maltreatment and later-life health and well-being.” It includes more than 17,000 Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) members who upon “undergoing a comprehensive physical examination chose to provide detailed information about their childhood experience of abuse, neglect, and family dysfunction. To date, more than 50 scientific articles have been published and more than 100 conference and workshop presentations have been made.”

The ACEs study considered three types of abuse–sexual, verbal and physical; five types of family dysfunction (mentally ill or alcoholic parent, mother as victim of domestic violence, an incarcerated family member, and loss of a parent through divorce or abandonment); and added emotional and physical neglect for a total of 10 types of adverse childhood experiences or ACEs. These are the ten categories utilized in today’s screening.

The CDC’s study uses the ACE Score, which is a total count of the number of ACEs reported by respondents. The ACE Score is used to assess the total amount of stress during childhood and has demonstrated that as the number of ACE increase, the risk for the following health problems increases in a strong and graded fashion:

Alcoholism and alcohol abuse

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)

Depression

Fetal Death

Health-related quality of life

Illicit drug use

Ischemic heart disease (IHD)

Liver disease

Risk for intimate partner violence

Multiple sexual partners

Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs)

Smoking

Suicide attempts

Unintended pregnancies

Early initiation of smoking

Early initiation of sexual activity

Adolescent pregnancy

The CDC said, “It is critical to understand how some of the worst health and social problems in our nation can arise as a consequence of adverse childhood experiences. Realizing these connections is likely to improve efforts towards prevention and recovery.”

The ACEs study and others specifically focused upon the American Indian community provide information and support for those struggling to overcome ACEs by building resilience–competencies and supports that enable individuals, families, and communities to recover from adversity.

A 2009-2010 statewide study of the Prevalence of 6-8 ACEs among Washington adults ages 18-44 found ACEs to be common among Washington adults with 62 percent having at least one ACE category, 26 percent having 3 categories; and 5 percent having 6 categories. Of interest to Tulalip, the study found Snohomish County among the group scoring two lower than the median.

State research shows part of the key to overcoming ACEs is building both individual and community resiliency and some have suggested a move from technical problem solving to adaptive. Some of the discussions around improving coherence of systems will be explored in subsequent stories.

It is generally understood that ACE scores between 4 and 10 can explain why we have chronic disease or identify those at risk for developing chronic diseases. It’s been said that knowing our ACEs score is as important as knowing our cholesterol scores. Knowing can help us take steps to change or prevent behavior likely to result in disease and it can help us to prevent it in our children as well to ensure their healthy development. It can help communities to address often-taboo issues to begin healing from trauma as well as to build resilient communities.

An Indian Health Service (IHS) report, “Trends in Indian Health,” finds American Indians are 638% more likely to suffer from alcoholism compared to the rest of the U.S. population.It is no secret that alcohol and substance abuse is a prevalent tragic reality destroying loved ones and communities in Indian Country. Every one has been touched by its pain. Yet, despite herculean efforts to address it through a wide variety of treatment options, American Indian communities feel at a loss when traditional treatment too often fails.

According to the National Indian Health Board (NIHB), “behavioral health” is an “integrated, interdisciplinary system of care related to mental health and substance use disorders that approaches individuals, families, and communities as a whole and addresses the interactions between psychological, biological, socio-cultural, and environmental factors.”

In recent years, there has been a general shift toward more holistic treatment of health issues; but, particularly in Indian Country with a prevalence of multigenerational trauma issues, practitioners find it more effective. American Indians struggling with addiction and/or mental health issues generally find the infusion of traditional cultural and spiritual practice makes treatment more accessible for them. Perhaps a basis for this is found in the relatively new science of epigenetics. Could it be that traditional treatment methods are especially insufficient for American Indians?

In the report, “A Framework to Examine the Role of Epigenetics in Health Disparities among Native Americans,” the authors affirm, “Native Americans disproportionately experience ACEs and health disparities, significantly impacting long-term physical and psychological health.” In addition to these experiences, the persistence of stress associated with discrimination and historical trauma converges to add immeasurably to these challenges.” [Teresa N. Brockie, Morgan Heinzelmann, and Jessica Gill, “A Framework to Examine the Role of Epigenetics in Health Disparities among Native Americans,” Nursing Research and Practice, vol. 2013, Article ID 410395, 9 pages, 2013. doi:10.1155/2013/410395]

Harvard researchers, neurobiologist Martin Teicher and pediatrician Jack Shonkoff, and neuroscientist Bruce McEwen at Rockefeller University, report, “Childhood trauma causes adult onset of chronic disease.” They determined that “the toxic stress of chronic and severe trauma damages a child’s developing brain. It essentially stunts the growth of some parts of the brain, and fries the circuits with overdoses of stress hormones in others.”

Washington has been a leader in research and education on ACEs on state government and foundation levels. Laura Porter, formerly served as director of ACE Partnerships for the Washington Department of Social and Health Services, but now directs the ACEs Learning Institute for the Foundation for Healthy Generations (FHG), founded in 1974. FHG, formerly Comprehensive Health Education Foundation, has a 40-year history of providing social and emotional learning tools in schools to prevent youth substance abuse, support self-esteem, anti-bullying and other kinds of related social-emotional tools for teachers. This past year, the board decided to include ACEs in its strategic plan and hired Porter to direct the program.

Porter oversees analysis of ACEs & resilience data and works with local and state leaders to “imbed developmental neuroscience and resilience findings into policy, practice, and community norms.” It would be exciting to see some coordination with tribes whose members are disproportionately affected.

This past year, Porter conducted a webinar on the “Science of ACEs and the Potential Role of Public Health in Addressing Them.” She found that only about one-third of her audience had an ACE-informed public health initiative. She hopes to help local jurisdictions to learn how to apply the science in their work.

In her presentation, Porter explained, “Health equity occurs when the distribution of determinants of health are fairly spread across the population,” and added, “When the determinants of health are unevenly spread in ways that we could have prevented, then we have health inequity.” She argues that “ACEs are one of the most powerful drivers of health inequity of our times and maybe of all times. And for that reason, taking a public health approach is critical to solving this problem and bringing about the conditions for enduring health equity for our nation and throughout the world.”

Porter noted that the neuroscientists “working on impacts of toxic stress on development tell us that people who grew up in very dangerous periods of time have increased levels of stress hormones and neurotransmitters in their blood stream at sensitive developmental times.” Accordingly, that effects both their brain development and the expression of their genetics. That is affirmed in a new field called epigenetics. [Epigenetics is the study of changes in gene expression caused by certain base pairs in DNA, or RNA, being “turned off” or “turned on” again, through chemical reactions].

According to Porter, people who grow up in adversity and a lot of danger in sensitive developmental years can generate typical kinds of characteristics. She said, “They can be more hyper-vigilant, more hyper-responsive, quick to anger, and slow to soothe. They can be very mission-focused and have a hard time taking advantage of the array of opportunities that might pop up around them. They can have a very small amount of stress and end up feeling like a major crisis in their lives. So, they’re actually responding differently to the moment by moment reality based on the adaptation they had during childhood.”

Conversely, she noted that people who grow up in very safe environments also develop typical characteristics. They might be more relationship-oriented, more likely to talk things through even when action may be more appropriate.

The important teaching from neuroscience is that both tracks are adaptations. “In both cases, people are adapting to danger or they’re adapting to a safe childhood, either way they’re helping a species to survive,” said Porter. She added, “Society has developed great accommodations for helping people who grew up in very safe environments navigate more dangerous times. We have stranger danger, we have martial arts, we have lots of public education campaigns, etc.”

Importantly, and most applicable to Indian Country, Porter goes on to emphasize that we have not yet “created the kinds of programming that can help to accommodate people who grew up in very dangerous times so they can navigate a more peaceful adulthood well. And that’s really one of the big challenges of our times, to develop those accommodations at every level of public health.”

Because American Indians are disproportionately affected by violence and the ten factors identified in ACEs, it makes sense that the community is disproportionately impacted by the related disorders.

Porter stressed the importance of looking at the determinants of health and how science is applied as well as paying attention to ACEs in terms of the life course. She emphasized the “Role of Time and the “life course approach that recognizes the role of time in shaping health outcomes.” Different kinds of supports are more meaningful in different times of life.

Sherry Guzman, Mental Health Manager, Tulalip Family Services
Photo/Julie Corley

Asked if Tulalip Tribes had conducted any research on ACEs, Sherry Guzman, Mental Health Manager in the Family Services Department, said Tulalip Tribes was one of a handful of tribes that agreed to participate in a statewide network a few years ago. She said, “Most tribes were very leery at first, but I went forward with it because I saw the value of it. It enabled me to see the difference in average of WA State versus Tulalip Tribes. I like the ACEs model because it gives a base to compare something to.”

Guzman noted that Tulalip conducted a sampling test, but the findings are clinical information, so she was unable to discuss it. However, she noted that she “was really amazed at the results,” which is not unlike responses in non-Indian communities as well.

The Behavioral Health Department is continuing its work and has scheduled an all-staff information and training session at the administration building on September 17 at 9:00 am. Asked if her department has planned any community educational sessions, Guzman said it would come later after the staff becomes better educated.

Guzman, a Tulalip tribal member, earned an MSW, and she has worked for the Tulalip Tribes for nearly twenty years, beginning on October 20, 1995. She has 8 children, 35 grandchildren, and 16 great-grandchildren. “I am very blessed,” said Guzman. Guzman added that the Tulalip Tribes are “state licensed for our chemical dependency, gambling, and mental health programs.” She noted that the department has a brochure and website that are nearly ready to be published.

As mentioned, several studies have documented the validity of ACEs testing and its value to healing in American Indian communities. Of course, privacy and anonymity must be assured.

Subsequent stories will also consider federal government obligation to American Indian health; personal interviews, treatment experts; and finally, the series will explore the potential of ACEs science and education in prevention and for building individual and community resiliency for American Indian people and tribes.

Kyle Taylor Lucas is a freelance journalist and speaker. She is a member of The Tulalip Tribes and can be reached at KyleTaylorLucas@msn.com / Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kyletaylorlucas / 360.259.0535 cell

September Brings National Safety Preparedness Month

Mr. Electric^®has tips to Safely Operate generators

WACO, Texas (Sept. 3, 2014) – September is National Safety Preparedness Month and Mr. Electric wants homeowners to be able to safely use generators when power outages occur. Generators are helpful when temporary power is necessary, but there are hazards that come with using electric generators. Mr. Electric has tips to keep homeowners safe and better prepared to use generators for when disaster strikes or the need arises.

Mr. Electric wants to remind homeowners that permanently placed standby electric generators should be installed by a licensed electrician. Portable generators are used often and these tips should be considered when doing so.

Shock and electrocution

Never directly connect a generator to the electrical system of a home or office.

Attaching it directly to the home without a proper transfer switch installed by a qualified, licensed electrician can cause the wire to be energized for a long distance. This could put workers and others in the area at risk of electrocution.

Protect the generator from the elements

Keep the generator dry

If necessary, protect the generator with a canopy. Never use the generator in wet or rainy weather or manipulate the electrical components if you are in standing water. Correctly storing and maintaining generators will prolong the life of the unit.

Carbon Monoxide (CO₂) poisoning

Never use a generator indoors.

Carbon Monoxide is a toxic gas that is colorless and odorless, and can pose a threat when allowed to build up in an enclosed space. Opening windows and doors may not prevent Carbon Monoxide from building up and are not adequate ventilation. Generators should only be operated outside and at a safe distance from housing structures.

Fire Hazards

Before refueling, shut down generator and allow it to cool.

Generators get hot while running and will remain hot for a period after being shut down. Generator fuels can ignite after coming in contact with hot generator parts. Allow the generator to shut and cool down before adding fuel.

Being aware of the inherent hazards of electric generators will help prevent harmful situations. These tips from Mr. Electric will keep homeowners safe while operating permanently placed and portable generators.

About Mr. Electric^®:
Established in 1994, Mr. Electric is a global franchise organization providing electrical installation and repair services. Recognized by Entrepreneur magazine among its “Franchise 500,” Mr. Electric franchisees provide these services to both residential and commercial customers at almost 200 locations worldwide. Mr. Electric is a subsidiary of The Dwyer Group, Inc., family of service franchises. For more information or to find the location nearest you, visit MrElectric.com.

M’ville students learn about cardiac arrest

Marysville-Pilchuck senior Jason Kent practices CPR.— image credit: Brandon Adam — Marysville-Pilchuck senior Jason Kent practices CPR.
— image credit: Brandon Adam

By: Brandon Adam, Arlington Times, August 29, 2014

MARYSVILLE — The Marysville School District was visited by the Nick of Time Foundation at Marysville Getchell High School.

The school district was on the wait list for three years, and they decided that the MG campus would be the best meeting ground for Marysville students this week.

Nick of Time aims to raise awareness of sudden cardiac arrest, the leading cause of death in young people during exercise.

Nick of Time travels to various schools in Washington to promote its message.

“Kids need to know that their hearts are healthy,” executive director Darla Varentti said.

Varentti’s son, Nicholas “Nicky” Varrenti, was a victim of sudden cardiac arrest. The 16-year-old was a standout football player for Mill Creek High School in 2004, but died of sudden cardiac arrest in his sleep.

The foundation was started in 2006 to educate students and schools about the risk and procedures dealing with sudden cardiac arrest.

Students from MG, Marysville-Pilchuck and Tulalip Heritage were scanned for potential heart defects, trained in CPR and the use of the automated external defibrillators.

“The AED is the only thing that can save you during a cardiac arrest,” Varrenti said.

Doctors use an echograph and sonograph to look for electrical and structural anomalies in the heart that could trigger a cardiac arrest.

“You can’t just hear it,” Varrenti said. “You have to see it.”

“I got to talk to a doctor, and I want to be one someday so that’s really cool,” M-P senior David Gloyd said. “And I learned to do CPR.”

Varrenti was pleased with the turnout.

“It’s been great. We’re really happy,” Varrenti said. “We had close to 400 kids today.”

USDA Announces $5.7 Million in Training Grants and other New Resources to Help Schools Serve Healthier Meals and Snacks

Source: USDA

WASHINGTON, August 21, 2014 – Agriculture Under Secretary Kevin Concannon today announced additional tools to help schools serve healthier meals and snacks as students return for the new school year.

The announcement includes $5.7 million in Team Nutrition grants to state agencies administering the National School Lunch and Child and Adult Care Food Programs. The grants will help states expand and enhance training programs that help schools encourage kids to make healthy choices. Several states will use the grants to increase the number of schools implementing Smarter Lunchroom strategies, which are methods for encouraging kids to choose healthy foods that were developed by child nutrition experts. Research has shown these strategies successfully lead to healthier choices among students. USDA is also funding 2,500 toolkits to provide school districts with the resources they need to take advantage of research on Smarter Lunchroom strategies.

In addition, USDA is re-launching the HealthierUS School Challenge, a voluntary program which provides financial awards to schools that choose to take steps to encourage kids to make healthy choices and be more physically active. All schools participating in the National School Lunch Program and the School Breakfast Program have the option to participate in HUSSC. Schools earning HUSSC designation receive a financial award, ranging from $500 to $2,000, based on the level of achievement.

“We’re committed to supporting schools who want to ensure students head back to a healthier school environment this fall,” said Concannon. “Parents, teachers, and school nutrition professionals want the best for their children, and want to provide them with proper nutrition so that they can learn and grow into healthy adults. USDA is proud to support the Smarter Lunchroom movement that provides schools with practical, evidence-based tools that they can use to help their students have a healthier school day.”

Smarter Lunchrooms, developed by the Cornell Center for Behavioral Economics in Child Nutrition Programs (BEN) Center and funded in part by the USDA, is a set of best practices that have been shown to help encourage kids to make healthy choices. By using environmental cues such as better product placement and using creative names for healthier foods, these practical, research-based techniques increase student selection of healthier items and reduce plate waste. By changing the display and placement of fruit, for example, the researchers saw a doubling of sales. Similarly, creative naming and display of vegetables increased selection by 40 to 70 percent. Concannon said the Smarter Lunchroom strategies are also being incorporated into the criteria for HealthierUS School Challenge.

The new support for schools announced today builds on a number of resources that USDA has provided to help schools provide students with healthier food options, including technical assistance, resource materials, and $522 million in grants and additional reimbursements. More than 90 percent of schools report that they are successfully meeting those nutrition standards, which were based on recommendations from pediatricians and other child health experts at the Institute of Medicine. Research has shown that a majority of students like the healthier meals and that the standards have successfully increased consumption of fruits and vegetables. New Smart Snacks in School nutrition standards implemented this school year will offer students more whole grains, fruits and vegetables, leaner protein, lower-fat dairy – while decreasing foods with excessive amounts of added sugar, solid fats, and sodium.

USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service administers 15 nutrition assistance programs. In addition to NSLP and SBP, these programs include the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the Summer Food Service Program, and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) which together comprise America’s nutrition safety net. For more information, visit www.fns.usda.gov.

Salal harvest permits for Olympic National Forest on sale on four dates starting next month

Source: Peninsula Daily News

OLYMPIC — Olympic National Forest has announced four dates on which permits for commercial salal collection will be sold.

The dates are Sept. 10, Nov. 5, Jan. 7 and March 18 at the Forks, Quinault, and Quilcene district offices.

Salal is an understory shrub commonly used in the floral industry.

It grows in dense thickets throughout Western Washington and Oregon.

A total of 100 permits will be available on each of the sale days, divided among different harvest areas.

Each permit will cost $150 and can be used for up to two months.

On each sale day, 50 permits will be offered from the Quilcene office for harvest areas located within Mason County and the east side of Clallam and Jefferson counties.

Twenty-five permits will be offered from the Forks office for the west side of Clallam County.

Twenty-five permits will be offered from the Lake Quinault office for harvest areas within Grays Harbor County and the west side of Jefferson County.

Harvest unit boundaries are defined by roads or recognizable land features. A map of the harvest areas will be distributed with the sale of each permit.

Permit holders will be limited to no more than 200 hands per day. One hand equals about 20 to 25 stems.

The Forest Service recommends that salal harvesters wear at least one piece of high-visibility clothing while in the woods.

A lottery system will be used if the demand for permits exceeds the supply.

A valid United States picture identification will be required at the time of purchase, and those buying the permits must be at least 18 years of age.

Cash or checks only will be accepted; credit and debit cards will not be accepted.

Only one permit may be purchased per person per sale day.

For more information about salal permit sales, phone Chris Dowling, special forest products program manager, at 360-956-2272.

Contaminated heroin can cause botulism

Heroin users who inject the drug have been showing up at Harborview with Clostridium botulinum wound infections, better known as botulism.

Increased botulism infections seen in the region’s heroin users

Tulalip, Niki Cleary

In an alert from the Snohomish County Health District, local health officials were notified that Harborview Medical Center is seeing more heroin users coming in with Clostridium botulinum wound infections. Their conclusion? Likely an infected batch of heroin is being sold in this area. While many community members may not recognize the bacterium, they’ll probably recognize it’s affects, widely known as botulism.

“Normally we see this [botulism] in preserved foods,” said Bryan Cooper, ARNP Family Practice Provider at Tulalip’s Karen I Fryberg Health Clinic. “Tar heroin comes from a plant, it’s sap from the poppy, so basically the sugars there provide food for this particular bacteria. We talk about pasteurizing food, we kind of flash heat them to kill the bacteria, but they [drug dealers] don’t do that with heroin, because they don’t care.”

In any case, killing the bacteria with heat won’t solve the problem.

Cooper continued, “When users heat heroin to melt it and inject it, they kill the bacteria. But it’s not the bacteria that cause the symptoms. The bacteria produce a neurotoxin as a waste product, so even though the bacteria is dead, the neurotoxin is still there. The neurotoxin causes the double vision, slurred speech and other symptoms.”

The neurotoxin causes paralysis. When the paralysis affects the heart or lungs, the affected person dies.

“The treatment is to get an anti-toxin as soon as possible,” said Cooper. “Here’s the thing, if the onset is rapid, if it’s a high dose or you are susceptible to it, it can progress so fast that you don’t have signs and symptoms. When it goes to your respiratory system, it’s all over.”

Things to look for: Double vision, blurred vision, drooping eyelids, slurred speech, difficulty swallowing, dry mouth and muscle weakness. The user may also note blood colored discharge at the injection site.

“People who have been around a heroin user will notice that they ar acting differently.” Cooper described the effects, “You don’t necessarily get slurred speech with heroin. Here, we’ll actually see drooping eyelids while the user is awake. There will be difficulty swallowing, and even when they’re not high, these symptoms won’t go away.

“It can progress to death pretty quickly depending on the dose,” Cooper warned. “If you experience any of these symptoms, you need to neutralize the toxin as soon as possible. If we saw someone here with a confirmed case, we would send them to the emergency room and call the Snohomish County Health District so they could get the anti-toxin there right away.

“You can liken it to a snakebite,” Cooper said. A rattlesnake bite might be a low enough dose that you’ll live through it, but it’s not worth the risk of waiting. The sooner you receive the anti-venom, or in this case, the anti-toxin, the less damage it will cause.

“Recovery from botulism can last for months,” Cooper explained. “You want to administer the anti-toxin as early as possible to reduce the severity. Even though you’ve given the anti-toxin, the damage is already done. Your body has to recover from that damage.”

Injection is the likeliest way to contract botulism from heroin, but even smoking heroin doesn’t guarantee that you won’t be exposed to the disease.

“Bad teeth, bleeding gums, these can all be entry ways for botulism toxin,” described Cooper. “According to the World Health Organization (WHO), inhalation botulism is similar to foodborne botulism, but symptoms become noticeable from one to three days after exposure. It’s possible that smoking contaminated heroin could cause a user’s clothing to be contaminated. The contaminated clothing could then expose others to the toxin. The WHO’s recommendation is for the patient to shower and their clothing to be stored in plastic until it can be decontaminated by washing in soap and water”

Although, he acknowledges that heavy drug users may not notice if they are affected, Cooper explained that community members and other users can save a life by looking for these symptoms.

“There are some of us who give people rides,” said Tulalip citizen Willa McLean, “so, awareness is crucial. In case we see something on the individual, we’ll know what to do.”

Cooper pointed out that this won’t affect all needle users, for example, if you have diabetes and inject insulin, you are safe because the legal product you receive goes through numerous safeguards to ensure that it’s free from contaminants. Likewise, you can’t catch botulism the way you can catch the common cold.

“Botulism is a toxin given off by bacteria, so when the user injects contaminated heroin and therefore the toxin, they are essentially poisoned. If the needle is shared, there’s a risk that there may be a small amount of toxin in the needle or syringe. It’s not a pathogen, therefore not blood borne, airborne or contagious.”

For more information about botulism check on-line at http://www.cdc.gov/nczved/divisions/dfbmd/diseases/botulism/professional.html.

Native Woman Seeks to Shed the Pounds on ‘Biggest Loser’

courtesy NBCJackie Pierson says she put on a lot of weight after her father was diagnosed with cancer in 2004. — courtesy NBC
Jackie Pierson says she put on a lot of weight after her father was diagnosed with cancer in 2004.

Indian Country Today

Jackie Pierson, 36, is a former high school athlete and mother of two. She also weighs 291 pounds, and would rather not. She’ll be competing in the next season of the NBC show The Biggest Loser, which begins September 11.

This edition of the series has a theme of “Glory Days,” and features sports stars who are well over their fighting weight. Two former NFL players are among the contestants, as is former professional tennis player Zina Garrison. Pierson, who originally hails from Winnipeg, Manitoba, and is Sagkeeng First Nation, didn’t get to the professional level, but her athletic resume is impressive. According to the official NBC website:

She was a high school basketball player who won multiple MVP, All-City and All Star awards, was captain of her team when they won the state championship and was named MVP for that game. In addition, she was a high school volleyball player and captain of her high school varsity team for two years in a row; played soccer, baseball and rugby; and threw the javelin in high school. Pierson was on track to a successful college basketball career when an ankle injury ended her dream of continuing to play.

Pierson currently lives in California, but early buzz on social media shows strong support from Winnipeggers for their hometown sports hero.