Gardasil® is a relatively new vaccine that has received a lot of attention from the media, so many parents ask me about it. The American Academy of Pediatrics says giving ‘tweens and teens the human papillomavirus vaccine called Gardasil® before they are sexually active and exposed to genital human papillomavirus (HPV) can cut the risk of cervical cancer by 70 percent.  With stakes this high, I believe it’s important to vaccinate your daughters.

Here are answers to some of the most common questions I hear from parents:
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Father’s Day is this Sunday. While honoring the fathers in your own life, remember to take this opportunity to hone your own fathering skills.

Children form secure attachments with their fathers just as they do with their mothers. When kids grow up without a nurturing father, they are more likely to live in poverty, develop emotional problems, have difficulty in school and engage in risky behaviors.

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Angela, Paul, Anna, Hope and Abigail Petr

With summer approaching, it is easy to be cheerful, but my family is feeling especially blessed and content. We are traveling to Washington, D.C., as family representatives of Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin, and in doing so, have been reminded of our many reasons to be grateful.

It was a little more than four years ago that we delivered our beautiful twin girls, knowing the chain of events to follow would be trying. One of our twins was diagnosed with a complex heart defect in utero and all research led us to seek help from Children’s Hospital. Wonderful professionals held our hands and prepared us for the road to follow. The diagnosis was crushing, but it would have been unimaginable without the support and reassurance we received from the talented and compassionate team at Children’s Hospital. We felt it a near miracle to discover that of all the heart centers in the world, Children’s Hospital in Milwaukee presented the best outcomes for children with our daughter’s condition. We named our daughter “Hope” because we were given so much of that.

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It’s hard to imagine the unimaginable and often frightening to think about the unthinkable, but that’s what we’ll be doing at Children’s Hospital this week.  As we’ve seen with Hurricane Katrina and other large emergencies, disasters do happen. This Wednesday June 17, for the first time anywhere in the country, the U.S. military will assist hospitals throughout southeastern Wisconsin in practicing our coordinated response to a simulated disaster in the community.  The exercise is known as the Red Dragon – Homeland Defense Training Exercise and is the largest full-scale exercise in the United States this year.  Close to 3,000 troops will be spread across 10 hospitals to rehearse our disaster plans and work together to meet crucial medical needs.

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Kids helping kids. You hear that phrase a lot. We at the MACC Fund (Midwest Athletes Against Childhood Cancer, Inc.) often see this in action as kids reach out to help a child with cancer or a blood disorder. Here are just a few wonderful examples:

• Shorewood High School’s “Shorewood Games,” held nearly every four years since 1988 when they were inspired to help a student with cancer named Gus. Special events galore, “Buzz Cuts” for boys and girls and fun between students and faculty helped raise more than $30,000 for the MACC Fund’s fight against childhood cancer and blood disorders. Kids helping kids.\

• The Lake Country Charity Invitational golf event sponsored by Hartland Arrowhead High School includes many of Wisconsin’s finest high school golfers. Brandon, who graduated from high school in 2008 after battling cancer for six years, inspired the team before they teed off through a very emotional letter. He encouraged them to never take anything for granted and to be grateful for their health and for the chance to compete.

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