Entries for April 2008

Flying from Washington, D.C., to San Francisco recently, I chatted with two 8th grade girls returning home from a class trip. Amy, a likable jumble of precociousness and naiveté, asked me where I lived and what I did for a living, and we were soon discussing my latest interest: the Internet, adolescents, and how they get information about drugs. She promptly informed me that she isn't "a druggie" and had never searched online for information about drugs.

Though well-versed in the ways of the virtual world—Amy has multiple profiles on MySpace and was featured in a video on YouTube—the girls gave the impression that using it to learn about forbidden or dangerous topics like drugs hadn't crossed their minds. Such details are best gotten from peers and her older brother, Amy explained, adding that plenty of her classmates smoke marijuana. Amy also suggested I write a story about adolescents, drugs, and peer pressure—a common theme in their lives.

Last week, we learned that a chemical called bisphenol A, which is in hard, clear polycarbonate plastics like those used to make many baby bottles, certain reusable water bottles, and even containers for canned foods, may pose health risks. Specifically, the federal government's National Toxicology Program expressed concern that BPA exposure could cause neural and behavioral abnormalities in fetuses, infants, and children.

Since that announcement, Canada has proposed a BPA ban, and retailers Toys "R" Us and Wal-Mart both said they plan to stop selling BPA-containing baby bottles, according to USA Today. Playtex also said it would stop using BPA in its products, and Nalgene, a maker of durable plastic water bottles, said it intends to do the same.

Last night my fiancée and I talked about the eventual day should one of us become ill and the other morph from partner into caregiver. It's not often we let such thoughts pierce our time together—so full of excitement and possibility as we plan our wedding. At least last night's talk was had over red wine and sushi, a favorite ritual. Our odyssey began with admiring our just-arrived save-the-date cards, then moved on to another item on our to-do list: the vows. We've decided to write our own, which will entail actually contemplating the meaning of these lifelong promises. But do any of us ever really think about what these words mean before we're tested? In particular, the "in sickness and in health" part—do we even have the capacity to make that promise with open eyes?

Last June, I did a potentially dangerous thing: I stopped taking Advair, the asthma medication I'd been on for years. I hoped to find that I'd outgrown the need for a twice-daily inhaler. The only way to know for sure, I reasoned, was to try going without it. It's a mistake that many people make, it turns out—and for which they often pay in health problems later on.

Admittedly, quitting my medicine without talking to my doctor first wasn't a smart move. I did fine for a while. But by the fall, I'd developed a raging sinus infection that lasted for four months and chest pains and wheezing that the doctor blamed on my asthma. Back on Advair I went, after a scolding by my doctor not to stop again.

In my sport, gymnastics, injuries were always part of the game, and growing up I was no stranger to the ER. But it wasn't until I had a serious vaulting accident at age 14 that I realized just how dangerous the sport truly is. Running full speed, I hit the springboard. It catapulted me up in preparation to push off the horse and do a back flip. Somehow, my hands missed. My coach dived in to break my fall, but I still slammed onto the mat, banging my head. Blackout. Even in a concussed daze (with teeth through the lip) I remember feeling lucky. It could have been so much worse: I could easily have broken my neck. I'd practiced that vault a thousand times. I'd nailed it in competitions and won regional titles for it.

Needless to say, I wasn't exactly surprised by the latest findings on young gymnasts: Nearly 426,000 kids ages 6 to 17 were treated for gymnastics-related injuries in U.S. emergency rooms between 1990 and 2005, according to a study in April's Pediatrics, an average of almost 27,000 bang-ups a year. Upper-extremity fractures and dislocations were most common among the younger set, while the 12-to-17-year-olds typically strained or sprained their lower limbs. "Many people don't think of gymnastics as a dangerous sport," says study senior author Lara McKenzie, an assistant professor in the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Ohio. But in terms of catastrophic injuries like neck breaks, it ranks right up there with ice hockey, she says.

In terms of danger, the stakes are highest for elite gymnasts who perform the trickiest of skills. Even their mastery, with the watchful eye of a skilled coach, isn't enough to prevent catastrophic injuries:

1980. At age 20, former Soviet Union gymnastics champion Elena Mukhina crash-lands while practicing a signature tumbling pass and is paralyzed. She dies decades later at 45.