140 year of Shriners
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Shriners benefit valley children with clinics, teleconferencing
BY LINDA J. SIMPSON ,SPECIAL TO VIEW
Posted: Jul. 17, 2012 | 12:32 a.m.
There are two sides to the Shriners. There is a fun side - funny hats with tassels, clowns making balloon animals and driving tiny cars in parades. Then there is the serious side to the organization - helping children with complicated orthopedic or plastic surgery needs.
Few Las Vegans realize that the 800-member Zelzah Shrine Temple, 2222 W. Mesquite Ave., sponsors free community outreach clinics for children. Doctors from the Shriners Hospital for Children-Los Angeles make the trip four times a year.
"People in this town don't know that we are here and that we are happy to help them," said Al Oppegard, 70, potentate (president) of Zelzah and a Sunrise/Whitney-area resident.
In addition to the outreach clinics, more than 100 children were seen last year by doctors via teleconferencing sessions at the Zelzah facility.
One of the doctors who participated in the video conferencing evaluations, Los Angeles Shriners hospital pediatric orthopedist Dr. Anna Cuomo, is scheduled to be at the next outreach clinic.
"We focus on rehabilitation," Cuomo said. "We take children with very complicated problems that require multidisciplinary care and (help) return them back to become productive members of society."
Shriner and Paradise Valley resident Linden Smith, 82, is in charge of the high-tech video conferencing equipment. Licensed RN Harriet Alvarado facilitates the interaction among doctors, children and their parents. Doctors evaluate, make recommendations and the children, depending on their condition, are either scheduled for the next outreach clinic or transported by the Shriners to the hospital in Los Angeles for treatment.
"A burn patient is a good example of the work the Shriners do," said Oppegard. "Insurance may take him through the treatment for his burns, but he doesn't have a finger or nose anymore -- that's when the Shriners pick him up and give him back … anything he needs."
Joe Alvarado, 75, Zelzah chairman of the outreach clinics, speaks before civic groups to spread the word about the clinics. "In a group of 10, someone will raise their hands if they have been touched or helped by the Shriners," he said.
"We now have over 755 little souls on our medical care rolls."
Alvarado shared the story of baby Veronica. Born with a cleft palate and a gaping hole in the side of her face, at 18 months old she wasn't able to eat, Alvarado said. Within one month of coming to the Shriners, Veronica had undergone reconstructive surgery at the Shriners hospital in Los Angeles and was able to smile for the first time.
"We don't treat sick people," said Oppegard. "We fix people. We help them have a life."
Transporting children and their parents to Los Angeles comes at a high cost. Alvarado estimates that the Shriners spend approximately $20,000 per year on gasoline alone. A new van was recently purchased to replace two aging vehicles that had each racked up more than 300,000 miles. One of the vans was donated 10 years ago by entertainer Lance Burton.
"We have one member that has made over 200 10- to 14-hour round trips (to the Shriners hospital in Los Angeles)," said Alvarado. "We are looking for a generous benefactor to donate a good late-model or low-mileage vehicle to help with our transportation program."
The next children's outreach clinic is scheduled for Sept. 29 at HealthCare Partners of Nevada, 1397 Galleria Drive, Henderson. The medical group has donated the use of its facility for the past three years.
"Our staff loves volunteering for the clinics and the opportunity to support the Shriners in their mission to provide quality medical care for local children," said HealthCare Partners practice manager Adriana Solis.
Alvarado considers the volunteer work he does with the Shriners a privilege that has led him to a fuller life.
"We are your neighbors - we are a part of you - we volunteer to work for you," he said.
To learn more about the upcoming Children's Outreach Clinic, call Mary Morris at 382-5554.
Donations can be sent to the Zelzah Shrine Transportation Fund, 2222 W. Mesquite Ave., Las Vegas, NV 89106.
To learn more about the Zelzah Shriners, visit zelzahshrine.com.
Monday, July 16, 2012
Imperial 2013
Friday, July 13, 2012
Burn victim returns to Shriners hospital after 14 years to share his story
By Cynthia Hubert chubert@sacbee.com
Published: Friday, Jul. 13, 2012 - 12:00 am | Page 1B
On his way to and from his family's Tahoe Parkhome in the early 1990s, Evan Duran watched as a magnificent building began to rise from the ground on Stockton Boulevard and X Street.
"I passed by it every day, but there was no sign," he said. "I had no idea what it was."
It was Shriners Hospitals for Children Northern California, which eventually would house the largest pediatric burn center on the West Coast.
 |
Lezlie Sterling / lsterling@sacbee.com |
Little more than a year after the hospital opened in April 1997, the classic Mercury Cougar that Duran was driving burst into flames after a drunken driver struck it on the Capital City Freeway. Duran, a newly minted graduate of Sacramento Charter High School, was on fire.
Two weeks later he woke from a medically induced coma in the intensive care unit at Shriners, heavily sedated with third-degree burns searing his face, back and arms.
"Where am I?" he asked his mother, Chris.
Nurses took him out to the hospital balcony, where he could see the top of Sacramento High's gym. It would be months before Duran realized how lucky he was to have landed in the building he had watched take shape.
On Thursday, 14 years to the day after the accident that nearly killed him, Duran returned to Shriners to see the doctors, nurses and other caretakers who "made me whole again," he said. The occasion was a gathering of a group of high schoolers from across America who are interested in practicing medicine.
The students, members of the National Youth Leadership Forum, seemed riveted as Duran told his story.
Tall and lanky with an engaging manner, he still bears thick scars that are a daily reminder of his ordeal. "See these?" Duran said, pulling at his ears. "These had to be completely redone." He showed off his surgically reconstructed right hand, and his heavily scarred arm.
The crash and its aftermath changed him in more subtle ways as well, Duran told the group.
Before his accident, "I didn't care about anybody but myself," he said. "I had no ambitions, no goals. I was very happy to be a skateboarder and a snowboarder who worked busing tables. I had always hated school and had no interest in college. I was 18, and I just wanted to be free."
He spent six months at Shriners, undergoing a series of excruciating treatments and surgeries to repair burned tendons, skin and muscle.
"I hated the therapists at times," he said. "Everything hurts so much."
But after awhile, he said, he began to get better and realize that the Shriners specialists "only wanted the best for me, wanted me not just to survive but to thrive and do whatever I wanted to do in life."
Staffers took care of his family, too. "They kept me together, honestly," Chris Duran said.
After his release, Duran returned to the hospital numerous times for follow-up treatment. He still views his former caretakers as friends and surrogate family.
Remarkably, the Duran family never got a bill for his state-of-the-art treatment. Shriners still provides care to children up to the age of 18 regardless of a family's ability to pay, but bills insurance companies for treatment of patients who have coverage.
The hospital, which celebrates its 15th birthday this year, specializes in orthopedics, burns, spinal cord injury and plastic surgery to repair cleft palates. Its doctors are considered among the best in the world.
It is now the busiest pediatric burn center in California and "perhaps the United States," said Shirley Thomas, manager of the hospital's ICU. It gets patients from across the globe, drawing most heavily from the western United States and Mexico.
Three years ago, the hospital treated a dozen Mexican children who became trapped in a day care center that went up in flames, said Thomas. More than 40 youngsters died in that tragedy.
Thomas' own son, Cory Bunse, received treatment at Shriners after he suffered a paralyzing spinal injury in an accident on his dirt bike.
The hospital features a school, a gym and a library. It offers counseling to siblings and parents of patients.
"For me, after awhile," Duran recalled, "it felt like home."
Now 32, Duran is attending Sacramento City College, pursuing a dream of working as a professional photographer. He is the photo editor of the college newspaper, the Express. He speaks about his experience as a burn patient to anyone who wants to listen, and volunteers at events for youngsters who have suffered traumatizing injuries, "kids like me," he said.
"Maybe I could be a photography teacher," he mused Thursday with a smile. "Maybe I could even work here at Shriners as a photographer."
"That would be perfect for me."
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)