On the Move: The Health Benefits of Running

Whether it's a 5K, 10K, Color Run, Tough Mudder or Marathon, it seems as though everyone is out for a run. Once reserved only for die-hards, more and more people are running for the experience and the fun than ever before. Many also see it as a way to relieve stress after a busy day, an opportunity to get a group of friends together or to simply help out a good cause.

Regardless of the reasons or motivations, there are many health benefits for those that pick up this sport.

Read the full article.

2013 Radnor Run Lung Champion: Robert Stavenger

Diagnosed at the age of four with cystic fibrosis, Robert Stavenger knows the importance of clean air.

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a genetic disease that causes thick mucus to form in the lungs, pancreas and other organs. In the lungs, this mucus blocks airways, causing lung damage and making it difficult to breathe. Air pollution is detrimental to all of us, but for patients with lung diseases, it is particularly harmful due to damaged airways being more susceptible to infection. Because of his story and his support of clean air, Stavenger has been named the Lung Champion of the 36th Annual Penn Medicine Radnor Run.

The Radnor Run is a five-mile race and one-mile walk/fun run that will be held on Sunday, October 27th. The money raised helps the American Lung Association provide important programs, including asthma camp, smoking prevention/cessation for teens and adults and clean air initiatives.

Being diagnosed at such a young age, Stavenger recalls how he didn’t know any other way of living and, because of that, never thought much of his "chores" that included getting aerosol treatments and chest physical therapy twice a day.

"I was relatively healthy as a child," Stavenger said. "The most challenging thing I remember as a child related to CF was in fourth grade. The class was discussing what we wanted to do when we were older and I said I wanted to go to college. One friend - a very supportive friend - wondered why I would 'waste my time', because I wouldn't live much past graduation."

Although Stavenger says "this was devastating to hear", he used it as a source of motivation and decided that he would never let CF make decisions for him. This mindset helped Stavenger not only complete his undergraduate studies, but pushed him to get his Ph.D. and to pursue a career in antibacterial drug discovery.

Unfortunately, during his second year of graduate school, Stavenger fell very ill and needed to be hospitalized.

"It was the night before Christmas break and I had just finished giving a seminar," Stavenger said. "I started coughing and the inside of my chest felt wet. I coughed again and a mouthful of blood appeared."

The next morning, Stavenger called his physician and was given oral antibiotics. With little change and more bleeding events, Stavenger was rushed to the emergency room the following day where he started a course of IV antibiotics and, luckily, recovered quickly.

Over the next 15 years, though, his health got progressively worse. Numerous hospital stays and an increase of IV antibiotics were only the start. In 2008, Stavenger became quite sick and was hospitalized for several days. During his stay, he was told that he would need supplemental oxygen 24-hours a day.

For two years, Stavenger continued to live his life as he always had, working full time and even traveling. His lung function continued to decline, though, and Stavenger was getting sick much more frequently.  He also struggled with day-to-day activities such as playing with his daughter and his need for oxygen had gone up dramatically. Finally, one Saturday morning, things got even worse for Stavenger.

"I simply couldn’t get out of bed. I didn’t have enough energy to stand up," Stavenger recalls. "I was taken to a local hospital to be stabilized, and then transported to Penn Medicine's Medical Intensive Care Unit (MICU)."

While in the MICU, Stavenger's lungs were "washed" in an attempt to cleanse them. This helped only for a bit, but he quickly went downhill again. With few options remaining, doctors gave his wife the news: matching lungs had been identified and surgery would occur the following day.

"I remember waking up and asking my wife if I was too sick for a transplant. Basically, if I still had any hope," Stavenger recalls. "I had no idea the transplant had already taken place."

"It's been over two years post-transplant," Stavenger says. "It is an incredible feeling to take a deep breath and know that I am able to do so only because of the help of countless people, the support of family and friends and a difficult sacrifice from a stranger and their family. I am so thankful and still have so much to look forward to in my life."

 It took Stavenger quite a while to get back to where he was prior to the surgery. He exercised a great deal and adopted a healthy lifestyle. While exercise and a healthy lifestyle are important for Stavenger, clean air is at the core of good health.

"Air quality impacts every single person," said Stavenger, "But it has a much larger impact of individuals that suffer from diseases that affect the lungs."

Stavenger encourages people to participate in the Radnor Run in an effort to help spread the message about clean air and help the American Lung Association raise money for the prevention of, and research into new treatments for, lung disease.

EVENT DETAILS

When: Sunday, October 27, 2013
Where: Radnor Township building, 301 Iven Avenue, Wayne Pa.
Register for the Penn Medicine Radnor Run today.

Talking about Suicide

Earlier this week my friend Steve Moffic wrote a powerful post about his experience as a psychiatrist dealing with suicide. He presents a moving discussion of how difficult it was to think and talk about the suicide of a patient he treated in residency. Here's the concluding paragraph of Steve's post:

Legal fears, confidentiality concerns, shame, and stigma are formidable obstacles. But talk we must, for talking—and listening—is a key to prevention and treatment. Any clinician knows that most who survive serious suicide attempts end up being glad they did, if they receive the help they need. They wanted to relieve the terrible psychological pain, not to die. Although the suicide will relieve the pain (as in the song from Mash, “Suicide is Painless”), it can cause intense pain in loved ones. Those left behind need the same forgiveness, relief of guilt, and community support that I received from my supervisors and fellow residents. Like a rock thrown into the river, the ripples of suicide can be mighty and wide. 

In my experience, learning to talk with patients about their suicidal ruminations posed more of an emotional than intellectual challenge. When I first encountered seriously suicidal patients I was tempted to try to "talk them out of it." There were three main ways I considered doing this: persuading them that their problems were solvable; emphasizing the reasons they had for wanting to be alive; and, imagining the impact of suicide on family and friends.

Luckily, wise supervisors pointed me in another direction. The task, they told me, was to find out what made suicide seem like such an appealing alternative. Over the years I learned to probe what I called the "logic" of suicide. What made suicide seem like the right thing to do? What was the source of its magnetism?

I found this approach easy to describe but hard to do. My own temperament is somewhat rigidly optimistic. Some aspects of my growing up were difficult, and in retrospect I believe I learned to see life's glass as half full rather than half empty as a way of warding off depression. My father's brother killed himself when I was 13. I didn't know him well, but I believe that even as a youngster I sensed the pain he experienced. When my two sons were teenagers they teased me about my determined attention to the bright side of life with the term "poptimism."

When I first read The Myth of Sisyphus in high school, I was transfixed by Albert Camus' opening sentence: "There is only one really serious philosophical question, and that is suicide." I thought - "this man gets it" - and underlined page after page. But it took me years of clinical practice to truly "get it." When is a patient's wish to turn off the ventilator a "competent refusal of treatment" and when does it represent a "irrational" suicidal impulse that should be impeded? These are great questions for an ethics seminar, but when I was called upon to make real decisions in real time I learned at a vastly different level.

Thanks to Steve Moffic for so vigorously bringing the importance of talking about suicide into open discussion!