This February, use Olympic athletes as your motivation to move more.

Aerobic activity makes our hearts stronger and more efficient at pumping blood. Including year-round aerobic activity not only keeps our hearts healthy but our minds and bodies as well. Even during the cold winter months, it’s possible to exercise both indoors and outdoors.

As the temperatures continue to drop, it becomes less desirable to choose outdoor activities for exercise. With proper clothing, walking or running outside still is an option. Fun ways to stay active and get physical activity during the winter months include: (more…)

Mark your calendar for Saturday, Feb. 13, and Sunday, Feb. 14, and join us for the Great American Soccer Marrowthon!

As someone who sees children – from infants to young adults – with cancer and other blood disorders such as aplastic anemia and sickle cell anemia every day, I know just how important marrow donation is. Thousands of patients with leukemia and other life-threatening disease can be saved through transplants.

To help raise awareness, The Milwaukee Kickers Soccer Club will be hosting the second annual Great American Soccer Marrowthon this weekend. The event will feature 24 hours of continuous soccer to benefit Be The Match and the Milwaukee Kickers Soccer Club.

Here are the highlights for this weekend:

• Meet Kate Markgraf, co-captain of the USA Women’s Olympic Gold Medal Soccer Team. She’ll be signing autographs Saturday from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. She will have her medals in hand for you to see!
• Sign up to get in on the soccer fun.
• Sign up for the Be The Match donor registry.
• Donate blood on Saturday. Blood donations are important for children going through chemotherapy.

Join us this weekend!

-David Margolis, MD, program director, Blood and Marrow Transplant, Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin

Learn more about Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin at chw.org.

Editor’s note: To celebrate the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver which begin Friday, Feb. 12, we’ll be publishing several sport-themed blogs throughout the 16-day run. Enjoy!

And the winner of the Foresters’ Most Caring Radio Station in North America is 107 in Columbia, Mo.

Carole and I would like to thank everyone who stepped up to the plate and voted for WKLH 96.5 during this three-week contest. Our community is quite special, and we should feel very proud of our efforts. We truly are blessed to have such a wonderful, nationally known, state-of-the-art pediatric facility right here in Wisconsin – and better yet, right here in our own backyard.  You stepped up to do this for the kids, and we’re so proud of the Wisconsin community. (more…)

During the cold, snowy Wisconsin winter nights, I like to enjoy a cozy fire in our fireplace, sip hot cocoa and bundle up in a warm sweater. Sadly, winter also means a higher risk of home fires.

Did you know that over half of home fires happen late at night when people are sleeping? A nighttime house fire can be devastating, but knowing a few facts may protect your family if you wake up in the middle of the night and smell smoke.

Kids sleep more deeply than adults, and that may make it more difficult to wake them during an emergency. I recently read a study that said young children often sleep through normal smoke detector alarms or respond so slowly that they can’t escape within the critical three-minute time period. This makes it easier to understand why more than 50 percent of child deaths from fire occur when children are sleeping.

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It’s a funny headline that invokes funny images – toddlers running down the halls of congress, infants putting on their best diapers to impress and teenagers texting about a critical vote.

It’s a funny image, because this could never happen. Children – from the youngest to the oldest – don’t get opportunities to speak up on issues that impact their lives. Think of the numerous laws that impact children – abuse, neglect, reimbursement or disability, to name just a few. Yet who do we rely on to make sure those affected are heard?

Advocacy efforts rely on the strength and action of volunteers who care about kids and want to make a difference. Children are not able to represent themselves on issues that directly impact their care. (more…)