Insider Health

Amy Klawitter took good care of her breasts. She performed regular monthly self-exams and went for annual mammograms. Healthy and happy – and only 42 years old – she didn’t think much about breast cancer. Then, out of the blue, she received a breast cancer diagnosis that totally altered her perspective. But Klawitter was lucky. She was able to take advantage of a new form of treatment called oncoplastic surgery that gives women greater options with better results. It’s changing the way the medical profession approaches this disease. “I went for my regular mammogram last December and was told everything…

  Nestled among the soaring stone and glass towers of the ever-expanding Aurora St. Luke’s Medical Center is a tranquil rooftop garden with more than 1,900 plants and 19 ornamental trees. In June, the South Side medical complex at Oklahoma and 27th opened its $4.9 million, 14,000-square-foot “Healing Garden.” There, patients and visitors are greeted by a mural of a sycamore tree, symbolic of healing. An indoor conservatory is encircled by a garden of deciduous trees, evergreen shrubs, fragrant perennials, 400 tropical plants and several water features. The garden, the first of its kind in Wisconsin, was 100 percent donor-funded,…

Twelve days after giving birth, at the age of 36, Marguerita Hill suffered a stroke. Her symptoms began with the worst headache she’d ever had. “It was so severe that I couldn’t sit down, I couldn’t lay down, I couldn’t do anything,” she recalls. Her fiancé suggested she take two Tylenol and try to rest, and she said no way. “I told him, ‘This is a headache where I need to go to the emergency room.’ ” It took the ER staff a while to discover the horrible truth: A blood vessel had burst and was bleeding in her brain.…

Tracy treated casualties in the Vietnam War, the Gulf War and Afghanistan, and rose to colonel while sandwiching her Army career around a 15-year break to raise a Wisconsin family. Now, she’s back on active duty at San Diego’s Balboa Naval Medical Center. I first came into the Army in 1967 and went to Okinawa, where we served the wounded from Vietnam. A lot of fellows got hurt. During the Tet Offensive in 1969, our hospital doubled in occupancy. We were working six days a week, 12 hours a day, getting 60 air evacuees every other day. We had them…

The first time Jeff Capstran was diagnosed with melanoma, at the age of 25, the treatment was relatively straightforward. The cancer was surgically removed – with no chemo, no radiation. The next time, things weren’t so simple. Thirteen years after his original diagnosis, he noticed a lump in his left thigh – the same limb that had been affected before. His dermatologist took a tissue sample and told him there was nothing to worry about. But the bruising and pain from the procedure lingered for what seemed like an unusually long time. Capstran went back to the dermatologist twice, but…

When B.J. Brill names her life stressors, the list is not short. A demanding job. Long hours and not enough sleep. A mother-in-law with a fractured pelvis. A brother-in-law with cancer. An uncertain economy. Most of us can relate to Brill’s concerns – as well as her method of dealing with them. “I was a big binger on candy and fast food,” says the 44-year-old application analyst and former staff nurse at Wheaton Franciscan. “That was my coping mechanism; that was my comfort.” Eating, in short, is how she dealt with stress. But in 2007, Brill decided enough was enough…

The woman inhouse slippers leaves her Northwest Side apartment building carrying a plastic bottle to the van on the street. What seems an everyday activity – taking out the trash, perhaps – is anything but. She opens the bottle and dumps about 100 used drug needles into a medically safe container and gets an equal number of clean ones in return. It’s all part of a needle exchange program run for 15 years by the AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin (ARCW). Matt Hazelberg, the ARCW worker driving the van, knows the apartment building is a drug house, where addicts may…

If you’re not careful, lean times can hurt your health. Whether it’s cutting the gym membership in an effort to scrimp or reaching for comfort foods to help deal with stress, the ongoing recession can lead to decisions that aren’t so good for your well-being. Luckily, this summer brings a wealth of opportunities to take care of yourself – all with minimal strain on your wallet. From exercise classes to disease management seminars to learning opportunities for kids, local hospitals and health care systems offer a wide range of courses to help community members take their well-being into their own…

More women in the United States are working out than ever before – and it’s not just college athletes who are closing the gender gap. Between 1972 and 2000, the number of women of all ages participating in recreational and competitive sports jumped a whopping 800 percent. That’s great news, and not just because of the wide range of health benefits. Studies show women who exercise miss fewer days of work, have better body images and report being happier than their sedentary counterparts. Yet whether they’re elite athletes or weekend warriors, women are susceptible to certain injuries and medical conditions…

Growing up in Baraboo and Madison, Jake Bidwell knew early on he wanted to be a doctor. A high school athlete, he considered going into sports medicine or orthopedics. But after seeing teammates lack access to health care for injuries, he changed his mind. “I realized the best way to help the situation and make the most out of my life would be to work in an area of need,” he recalls. “If I was a primary care doctor, pretty much anyone could access me if I put myself in the right type of practice.” Today, Bidwell practices family medicine…