UCHealth-Memorial Hospital is sponsoring a          Weekend Retreat for Women who have been   diagnosed with cancer.

We are inviting all women surviving the challenges of cancer to join us at our Bloom and Grow Retreat.

Join Us for Great Conversations, Indoor/Outdoors Activities, Arts & Crafts, Yoga Campfire/S’mores

Where: Camp Shady Brook, Deckers, Colorado    (Elevation 6,500 ft.)

When: Friday, September 15, 2023 10:30 am through Saturday, September 16, 2023 3:30 pm

For more information, contact: Karen Valentine at 719.365.5108 Karen.Valentine@uchealth.org  

Please Note: New this year, all participants must have this form completed by their physician and returned to Oncology Supportive Services no later than September 1, 2023. Fax Number: 719.365.9520

CSB Medical Clearance 2023

Grace, now 20 months, latched right away, then let her mom know when she was hungry and breastfed on demand. No problem.

But, her little sister, Riley, made an early debut recently. Born on June 29 at just 35 weeks, Riley, like many preemies, has struggled in her first days with feeding and gaining weight.

“She just came out of the blue,” said Minarchick, 33. “In some ways, I feel like a first-time mom again.”

Thankfully, the lactation support team at UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital has stepped in to help. Nurses provided Minarchick with donated human breast milk for Riley until Minarchick could produce enough milk herself. And, lactation pros have provided extensive support to ensure that Riley grows and Minarchick succeeds with breastfeeding under more challenging circumstances her second time.

“Our lactation consultant has been just been fantastic in helping me develop a plan. It’s reassuring that Riley will still be able to breastfeed exclusively,” Minarchick said.

A research scientist, Minarchick has studied the benefits of breastfeeding and knew she wanted to give her babies her milk.

‘Love the immunities and the bonding’

“I really like the immunities. Grace has barely been sick. She’s very healthy and I attribute that to breastfeeding,” Minarchick said. “I also really like the skin-to-skin cuddle time. I love being close to my babies.”

The UCHealth system is becoming even more “Baby-Friendly” so more moms like Minarchick can get the breastfeeding support they need to succeed.

Three UCHealth hospitals recently earned the prestigious Baby-Friendly certification: UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital in May and both UCHealth Memorial Hospital Central and UCHealth Memorial Hospital North in Colorado Springs in June. These three hospitals join the first two that led the way. UCHealth Poudre Valley Hospital was one of the first Colorado hospitals to receive the Baby-Friendly designation back in 2009. UCHealth Medical Center of the Rockies became Baby Friendly in 2011.

“Caring for patients and families is one of our greatest privileges here at UCHealth,” said Kathy Howell, Chief Nursing Executive for UCHealth and Chief Nursing Officer for University of Colorado Hospital. “Every maternal newborn nurse is empowered with lactation training education for round-the-clock patient care.”

The World Health Organization and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) launched the Baby-Friendly movement back in 1991 to promote global health by increasing education and support for breastfeeding. In years past, infant formula manufacturers handed out gift bags of free formula in hospitals that often disrupted breastfeeding in their earliest days.

Supporting breastfeeding during the ‘golden hour’ and beyond

More than 20,000 maternity facilities in 150 countries now have the Baby-Friendly designation, including 16 in Colorado. Achieving the status is challenging and hospitals must pledge to support the “Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding,” including:

• Helping mothers breastfeed within the first hour after birth, known as the “golden hour.”
• Keeping mothers and newborns together in the same room.
• Showing mothers how to breastfeed and fostering support groups.
• Giving infants no food or drink other than breast milk, unless medically indicated.
• Promoting breastfeeding on demand and giving no pacifiers that could disrupt breastfeeding.

At UCHealth Memorial Hospital Central, Richiel Dasalla had her son, Aden, on July 5. He was born via a C-section. In years past, mothers who had C-sections sometimes didn’t get the chance to start breastfeeding right away. Dasalla credits her early success with breastfeeding to the immediate “skin-to-skin” contact she got to have with Aden.

“I wasn’t afforded that with my first child. I didn’t see him for four hours,” Dasalla said, adding she believes that birth experience in another state was a big factor on why she gave up on breastfeeding and opted for bottle-feeding.

“I was frustrated, and we were both so exhausted,” she recalled. “Aden latches on quickly. He feeds and seems content. If he’s happy, I’m happy.”

Magical moments for moms and babies

Kezia Hagiwara is a nurse and lactation consultant at UCHealth Memorial Hospital North, who worked hard to help UCHealth’s two Colorado Springs hospitals achieve Baby-Friendly status. She said it’s been a privilege to watch magical moments with new mothers.

For instance, right after nurses at Memorial started giving every mom – including those who had delivered via C-sections – the chance to have skin-to-skin contact immediately after birth, a nurse placed a newborn into her mother’s arms.

“She looked at her new baby, then at the nurse, and with tears in her eyes, said, ‘Thank you. I never got this opportunity with my other babies,’” Hagiwara said.

“I am thankful that we not only changed that patient’s life by adhering to the Baby-Friendly recommendations, but we now are changing all of our patient’s lives and birth experiences for the better.”

Hagiwara said she experiences joy with the moms she works with every day. A mother recently had trouble getting her newborn to latch. She and Hagiwara worked together and the baby finally latched after 36 hours of trying, bringing everyone to tears.

Breastfeeding classes, tailored help and follow-up care at home

At UCHealth facilities, families can learn about the benefits of breastfeeding long before their babies are born through pre-natal visits and breastfeeding classes. Once the baby arrives, mothers work with lactation consultants to create a tailored feeding plan. Nurses promote skin-to-skin contact to establish bonds and successful breastfeeding.

The help doesn’t stop when the mother and baby leave the hospital. They receive a network of resources, including access to support groups, breast pump rentals, outpatient lactation consultants, phone help and in-person appointments.

The UCHealth system is also working to establish virtual visits for breastfeeding support, an effort that the Baby-Friendly evaluators noted and applauded.

Early birth a blessing

For Minarchick, the second-time mom, Riley’s early birth turned out to be a blessing. As Riley was born, her nurses and doctors discovered that the umbilical cord had been wrapped three times around Riley’s neck. Fortunately, the cord was long enough that Riley did not have any breathing problems. But, it’s possible that the cord around her neck could have caused serious problems had she made it to 40 weeks.

“She knew she had to get out,” said Minarchick.

Riley’s birth weight was excellent for a preemie: 6 pounds. But, like many babies born early, she was more interested in sleeping than eating.

As with all premature babies, the lactation pros stepped in right away. Minarchick’s lactation consultant, Sara Aldecoa, immediately helped Minarchick start pumping her milk so she could build up a supply. Then she strategized about options for Riley and Minarchick opted for the donor milk. Aldecoa also helped Minarchick put Riley to the breast regularly and taught her tricks to keep her as alert as possible. Then, to help Riley get back to her birth weight and build energy, Aldecoa showed Minarchick and her husband, Nate, how to give Riley breast milk from a bottle without making it flow so fast that Riley wouldn’t want to do the work of breastfeeding later.

While the process of getting Riley going has been exhausting, Minarchick said the help she received was essential.

“It’s great. If I have any questions, they’re right here, ready to sit down and talk with me and develop a plan that works best for Riley and me.”

Aldecoa is thrilled to now work at a Baby-Friendly hospital.

“It really puts an emphasis on education, so moms can make the best decisions,” she said.

What to do about summer stings and allergies

All of these things may incite allergic reactions, said Dr. Ian Tullberg, director of UCHealth’s six urgent care centers in southern Colorado. As a family practice physician and former EMT, he’s seen it all.

Insect Bites

Most people get a mosquito bite and yes, it itches for a few days and then it’s gone. But some bodies just react badly to bites and stings.

A simple mosquito bite might get swollen, red, hot, and even painful to the touch. A bee sting that hurts one person for a few hours can be fatal to someone else.

“The immune system may fight back so hard against the venom being injected, the patient can have an anaphylactic reaction,” Tullberg said.

“That can be life-threatening. You can actually stop breathing. The good news is, real serious reactions are pretty rare,” Tullberg said.

Anyone who has had an allergic reaction to a bee sting should carry an Epi-Pen with them for emergencies, he added.

Most bee stings can be treated at home by removing the stinger with tweezers and putting ice on the sting site. Benadryl may help with swelling and discomfort.

“However, if your breathing becomes difficult, or if you have an anaphylactic reaction, you need to get to urgent care,” he advised.

Serious reactions like this are rare with mosquito bites, but they can be scary nonetheless.

“If someone gets a really bad mosquito bite that makes their whole arm swell, we can put them on medications that will help the reaction to abate,” he said.

Of course, there are over-the-counter sprays to prevent mosquitos from biting you in the first place, if you suspect they might be present where you are going. There also are some anti-itch medications that can be applied to help the itching.

Spider bites

Most spider bites are harmless. You might not even know you were bitten until it starts itching later. But some spider bites can be bad— that of the brown recluse and black widow spiders in particular.

“Both of them can actually require an emergency room visit,” Tullberg said.

“Unfortunately, not a whole lot of people actually see what bit them,” he added. “If you do see it, try to identify it. If you don’t, and you think the bite is serious, it’s better to be safe than sorry. Get medical help.”

Signs that the bite might be serious include difficulty with breathing.

“If you’re having problems breathing, the ER is your best choice,” he said. “If not, if you’re just having pain, then you can go to urgent care. If it’s more serious, they’ll send you to the ER.”

The treatment for a serious spider bite varies according to what bit you.

“A black widow bite is treated with anti-venom,” Tullberg said. “With a brown recluse, we can only give supportive care, though sometimes we have to do surgical removal of dead tissue caused by the bite.”

Allergies

People do show up at the urgent care clinics with seasonal allergies, but there’s not much that can be done other than recommending over-the-counter treatments, Tullberg said.

“Usually there’s not much else we can do, although some people do develop infections from severe allergies,” he said.

Most effective treatments are now available over the counter, such as Flonase. Some patients may require prescription medications. If over-the-counter treatments aren’t helping, see your doctor, he advised, because “sometimes patients think they have allergies, but it’s really something else.”

“I ended up T-boning a tree pretty good,’’ said Kerr.

A tree branch the size of the fat part of a baseball bat glanced off Kerr’s chest protector, punctured into his neck, and into the back of his shoulder, bouncing off his scapula, and leaving Kerr impaled and dangling from the tree.

“It was just high enough that I couldn’t really touch the base of the tree, or the ground, so I was just hanging from the tree for a little bit,’’ he said.

Using the front tire of his dirt bike as a perch, Kerr managed to pull himself up and extract himself from the branch. He lay on the ground, and the first thought that came to the 42-year-old, was this: “I’m done.’’

A peaceful silence fell over him, and he prayed. “Thank you God for my life. I had a good run. I’m going to miss everybody.’’

Kerr knew where he was — 10 miles away from anywhere, where there’s no cell phone service – and how long it would take for help to arrive.

Eddie Kerr explains how he became impaled on a tree branch while riding a dirt bike in remote Teller County.

“I figured time was not on my side, and I was going to run out of it.’’

Kerr, a truck driver, had about 10 buddies with him that day, and for safety’s sake, they use a “ladder’’ system when they ride. When the lead bikers come to an intersection, they stop and wait for the others. If no one comes, they turn around and go back. One of Kerr’s best friends turned around, and found Kerr on the ground. He raced for help. Then two more friends arrived – one put a glove inside the wound and applied pressure, another held up Kerr’s arm.

Nate Boyce, a paramedic and public information officer with Ute Pass Regional Paramedic Services, recalled that they were dispatched for a “male party who had a neck wound from a stick stuck in his neck.’’

When Boyce and Divide Fire arrived at the trailhead, Good Samaritans offered up their ATVs to the first responders who then rode for 30 minutes before reaching Eddie, who was still receiving direct pressure to his wound from his friend.

“We found him on the trail with probably a dozen bystanders and two deputies from Teller County. …  Eddie was not looking the greatest at that point. There was a significant amount of blood around him.  He was gray and pretty confused.  We got some vital signs. We put some IVs in him and we got a plan together. The bystander was still holding pressure,’’ Boyce said.

By that time, UCHealth’s LifeLine helicopter was overhead.

Dr. Greg Day, UCHealth trauma surgeon, operated on Eddie Kerr after he came to Memorial Hospital Central’s Level I Trauma Center.

“When we got to Eddie, he was packaged, ready to be transported and Ute Pass Regional Paramedic Services had already treated him. They gave him a clotting agent in his neck, so that he wouldn’t bleed. We loaded him onto an ATV and started transporting him to the helicopter,’’ said Matthew Bergland, UCHealth LifeLine flight paramedic.

“The injuries were very, very significant and probably without air transport the outcome could have been much different,’’ Bergland said.

Kerr’s wife, Tammy Kerr, got a call from a friend that Eddie had been hurt. She didn’t think much of it, because Eddie has broken bones before. Then, when the friend said it was “real bad,’’ Tammy got “a weird, hot tingly feeling.’’ She arrived at the hospital a short time later.

Dr. Greg Day, the trauma surgeon who operated on Kerr, said Kerr “carried a lot of the tree with him’’ and needed surgeries to clean the wound of leaves and pieces from the tree. Day said paramedics in Teller County did a superb job. Providing a clotting agent in Kerr’s wound, to keep it from bleeding, was exactly the right thing to do.

Kerr said he had two broken ribs, a broken vertebrae, broken scapula and punctured lungs. He spent seven days in the hospital, arriving on Sunday and leaving the following Sunday.

UCHealth Flight Nurse Ami Bess sits in the cockpit of a UCHealth LifeLine helicopter. Bess cared for Eddie Kerr as he was flown to Memorial Hospital Central’s Level I Trauma Center in Colorado Springs. Matthew Bergland, a flight paramedic, is also pictured.

Nurse Navigator is backbone of support

His circuitous route to the center began, oddly enough, when he felt a twinge in his knee while working out in June 2016. A master cabinet maker, Wisuri had served in Korea for the Army after the war, taught convicts how to build cabinetry in a California prison, and held leadership positions in a vocational school. He wasn’t the kind to drop everything and run to the doctor.

After all, he had planned for months to travel to Minnesota and to Texas, where he had a big job building cabinets. He’d see the doctor when he got back to town.

An orthopedic doctor in Colorado Springs took a look at his knee, ordered an x-ray and then recommended surgery. Before that could happen, though, the doctor asked for Wisuri to have an EKG and blood work done. When the doctor read the results of the lab work, he called Wisuri with an urgent message: “You better get in here.’’

The blood work showed Wisuri was anemic, and his physician, Dr. Jeffrey Kent, suspected that he may be bleeding internally. He asked Wisuri to have another test, a scope done of his abdominal area, so physicians could see where the bleeding was coming from.

The news wasn’t good: Wisuri had cancer in his stomach.

Cancer, unfortunately, was no stranger in his family. In 2010, his wife died of ovarian cancer after she was treated for 20 months at another hospital. Wisuri sought care at that hospital, but there was no availability to treat him. When he came to UCHealth Memorial Hospital, it was his first time, and he didn’t know what to expect but he quickly was introduced to a philosophy of care that was new to him. It involved a multi-disciplinary team of doctors including medical oncologists, radiation oncologists, surgeons, pathologists, radiologists, surgeons, and gastroenterologists, as well as a genetics counselor, social worker, nurse navigators, and clinical trials staff.

“I stumbled onto that system, and unbeknownst to me, it was the best place in the world for me. I became aware of this group doctor approach – it’s how they approach medical care,’’ he said. “The people they have working for me are unreal, and I literally have been amazed with the care that I have received.’’

During weekly multi-disciplinary care clinics for patients with gastrointestinal, neuro, breast and thoracic cancers, physician specialists meet to discuss each individual’s cancer. The physicians with expertise in many disciplines develop a plan of care which is quickly implemented. After a clinic concerning Wisuri, one of his physicians, Dr. Keyan Riley asked Wisuri to be at Memorial Hospital North at 4:30 a.m. the next day so he could have a port placed so chemotherapy medication could be delivered as safely as possible.

“It’s pretty obvious that the patient is the focus and it stays on the patient,’’ Wisuri said. “Based on your need, they will move heaven and earth to get you in there.’’

Lehman, one of two nurse navigators who help patients with gastrointestinal cancers, became Wisuri’s go-to gal. A courteous and amenable nurse, she gets to know patients and provides each individual with support, education and help with understanding a procedure, medication, scheduling and any other needs.

“That, to me, from a patient perspective is the most comforting thing,’’ he said. “They take personal interest in you, they check with you and they do everything within your power to support you and give you guidance and they give you the answers no matter what it is. You have a partner standing next to you to help you through a maze of trees when you don’t know where you are going in that forest.

“The thing for me is I didn’t have to analyze who I needed to call, and wait for a return call. I could call Kathy, and if I left her a message, she would always call me back, even if it was after hours,’’ he said. “Having that navigator, that is a shining star in that system, it truly is. It is so easy to call her and say: “This is my problem.’ ’’

Lehman, who has been a nurse for more than 6 years, said that when she met Wisuri, “We just clicked. I’ll do whatever I need to help him.’’

She was by his side during two rounds of chemotherapy, the second of which was a rough one, landing him in the hospital.

“I’m worried about you,’’ Wisuri remembered Lehman saying at his bedside.

The two rounds of chemo, however, worked, reducing the tumor to the size of a half dollar. On April 3, 2017, he had surgery to remove his stomach. Three subsequent CT scans showed his body was clear of cancer. Though many patients have a feeding tube for three months after surgery to remove the stomach, Wisuri had a tube for one month.

Following surgery, Wisuri wanted to return to the gym to work out so he could regain his strength. He called Lehman to ask what kind of limitations he had on the amount of weight he could lift. In time, he was able to lift 50-pound bags of corn and return to building cabinets.

On May 17, he was scheduled for surgery to repair a hernia, which developed as a result of the large incision from surgery. When the surgeon opened up his stomach, he saw that the cancer had returned. Subsequent tests showed it had spread to his lymph nodes.

“They opened me up and sewed me back up,’’ he said.

Wisuri’s oncologist, Dr. Robert Hoyer, told Wisuri that the cancer is aggressive, and he has only months to live without treatment. He is exploring clinical trials to determine whether he qualifies for one of the studies or experimental medicines.

“That’s where I am today,’’ he said recently. “I’ve got my work cut out for me.’’

Wisuri is not sure what to expect in the coming days, but he is comforted to know that he has people in his corner, a wealth of knowledge and decency, and a nurse navigator that he can call to ask any question, someone to help him navigate through a maze of trees in the forest.