My sister Mallory made the front page of her hospital's newsletter on the same day that Eli made headlines here in the Springs. I'm so proud of both of them!!!
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Mallory Addison loves her job. You can tell it by the way she approaches a two year old who needs some diversion with a wagon ride. You can tell it by the way she sympathizes with a mother who has to separate from her child for surgery or a procedure.
"It really is a dream job," she says. "Any hospital visit for a family can be a traumatic event.
My social work background and working with children and families allows me to help ease that trauma."
Mrs. Addison has both a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in social work from the
University of Georgia. Her previous experience includes working in domestic violence shelters and in the policy division of the Georgia Department of Education.
A typical day for her includes making rounds of patients in the Children’s Center with a watchful
eye for those who will be in the hospital longer than three days. She also tries to sense an immediate need in a patient or family member. She explains, "Perhaps a mother and father have been up all night and just need to run and get a cup of coffee. I tell them I’ll watch their
child. Or perhaps a child has been without his or her parents for awhile and just needs someone to color with or watch a movie. I have the time to do that."
Mrs. Addison’s training helps her identify where a child is developmentally in order to
communicate through language and ‘medical play.’ For example, if a child has to have a port inserted into their chest for easier access for medicine, a doll with a port is used to help the child
understand the procedure a little better. "I can spend time with patients that nurses don’t have or answer questions parents may be too intimidated to ask," she said. "I can distract children from their pain, explain their procedure in words they understand, help them cope with
being in the hospital, play games with them when they just get bored. I can also
plan a birthday party or just give a parent a break."
"Recently a child missed their first two weeks of first grade," she said. "So I did
homework with her. I also provide sibling and parental support, working in the
Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, inpatient and outpatient rooms." Nurses and
physicians also make referrals to her. Mrs. Addison was especially happy
recently that she was able to occupy a 22-month old throughout an hour and half
wait time prior to a CT scan. She was able to reduce his anxiety so that he could complete the CT scan without having to be sedated. Sedation would have increased his length of stay and
given the child medications that could have been prevented. She adds that she has the unique
opportunity to build relationships with pediatric patients and their families, but also the
responsibility of providing anxiety-decreasing therapeutic techniques that ultimately can
decrease the patient’s length of stay.
Before the end of the year, Mrs. Addison hopes to add other services to her already full day,
including pre-op parties, holiday parties, chronic illness support groups, art therapy, music groups and movie and popcorn. Mrs. Addison’s supervisor, Penny Harrison, says she can
already see the benefits of having the new child life specialist on the floor and said volunteers
recently overheard parents talking about how helpful Mrs. Addison had been to them.
The child life specialist position is funded for two years by the Children’s Miracle Network at The Medical Center, and will be re-evaluated after that time for its effectiveness.
__________________________________
Eli's article appeared on the front page of the Woodmen Edition today...
http://www.waltpub.com/wood.pdf
Bremer Qualifies to Compete for Olympic Gold
BY JAKE BLUMBERG
This summer, a dream 21 years in the making was realized for a man who has spent nearly his entire life physically testing his body in the Colorado Springs altitude. On June 24, Eli Bremer earned a birth in the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China, by winning the gold medal in the
Pan American Games in Rio de Janero, Brazil. Bremer’s first place in the modern pentathlon secured him a guaranteed spot in Beijing next August; a spot Bremer has been working towards since he was seven years old.
"I began swimming when I was seven, and that’s where I like to say I began my Olympic pursuit," Bremer said. It is a pursuit the 28-year-old Bremer did not necessarily envision early in his life. "I wasn’t introduced to the modern pentathlon until I was in high school," Bremer
said. "I was into swimming and horses at the time, and realized that I wanted to be a
pentathlete when I was about 14 or 15."
The modern pentathlon is considered by some to be an all-encompassing test to determine the most well rounded athlete. The five-event competition combines the sports of running, swimming, horseback riding, shooting and fencing to determine an overall pentathlon champion.
Bremer finished the 1.82 mile cross country run in a time of 9:48:50 minutes to complete his championship effort, after entering the last stage of the competition in first place. It was a victory Bremer earned with sweat and hard work while training at the U.S. Olympic Training
Center.
With an average training day that consists of a 10-mile run, a four-mile swim, along with an hour worth of shooting and a half hour of fencing, Bremer certainly earns his position in the Air Force World Class Athlete Program. Currently, Bremer is on active duty with the U.S. Air Force as a captain. A graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy in 2000, Bremer’s active duty role allows him to train full time for a chance to win Olympic gold. "They basically release you from your job to train," Bremer said. "They pay you your normal salary to train and be a good ambassador for the Air Force, which includes a lot of public speaking work, along with USOC tours and the media."
It is an occupation some may consider enviable: flying from country to country competing for the honor of one’s nation, with cheering fans urging you toward success. In many senses, Bremer would agree. "I love my job. I probably will never love another job as much
as I love this," Bremer said. Yet, his world is not all glory filled, with winner’s podiums and hounding media. Most is in fact spent sore and tired, endeavoring to recover from his most
recent international trip.
"On one hand, it is great how much I get to travel," Bremer said. "On the other hand, I basically
have been jet lagged from March through August." In the past seven weeks, Bremer has been on three trips traversing more than 10,000 miles—each. Before trips to Italy, Brazil and Germany for competitions this summer, Bremer spent time in Cairo, Mexico, England and the entire month of May in Europe. "I have spent over two weeks of my life this year inside an
airplane," Bremer said.
It is the lifestyle and strain on his body that has Bremer planning to retire after his time in
Beijing. "I have accomplished what I have set out to accomplish [qualifying for the Olympics],"
Bremer said. "I want to make a great hit at the Olympics, really make a run at it, and then let
some of the young guys move up."
Yet, retirement is no sure thing for Bremer, who is approaching a time period in his life that
could be, by his own account, his best four years for competition. Thus, Bremer is not ready
to completely commit to his retirement in 2008, though the world outside of the sports arena
is certainly calling. Bremer’s family tree reads as a veritable who’s-who in both local and national politics. His father, Duncan Bremer, served as El Paso County commissioner from 1994-2002, and made an unsuccessful run at the United States Congress last year. Eli’s uncle, L. Paul Bremer was an ambassador under President’s Reagan and George Bush, and served as the head Iraqi Coalition Provisional authority for President George W. Bush from May 2003 to June 2004. It is a lineage that may help steer Bremer to Washington, D.C., himself after Beijing.
"I am looking into applying for an internship with a program called the White House Fellows,"
Bremer said. "Only about 11 to 19 people are accepted each year, but if you do make it, you get
to work directly with a Cabinet member for a year, learning Washington from the inside out."
It is an opportunity one feels Bremer is most certainly up to; for anyone who can spend two
weeks on an airplane and still run 10 miles a day can probably run circles around those in Washington. For Bremer, it is just the next challenge to train for. "It will be very different not
working out every day, but it would be rewarding," Bremer said. "This is just not the type
of occupation you can do your entire life."
__________________________________________________
Mallory Addison loves her job. You can tell it by the way she approaches a two year old who needs some diversion with a wagon ride. You can tell it by the way she sympathizes with a mother who has to separate from her child for surgery or a procedure.
"It really is a dream job," she says. "Any hospital visit for a family can be a traumatic event.
My social work background and working with children and families allows me to help ease that trauma."
Mrs. Addison has both a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in social work from the
University of Georgia. Her previous experience includes working in domestic violence shelters and in the policy division of the Georgia Department of Education.
A typical day for her includes making rounds of patients in the Children’s Center with a watchful
eye for those who will be in the hospital longer than three days. She also tries to sense an immediate need in a patient or family member. She explains, "Perhaps a mother and father have been up all night and just need to run and get a cup of coffee. I tell them I’ll watch their
child. Or perhaps a child has been without his or her parents for awhile and just needs someone to color with or watch a movie. I have the time to do that."
Mrs. Addison’s training helps her identify where a child is developmentally in order to
communicate through language and ‘medical play.’ For example, if a child has to have a port inserted into their chest for easier access for medicine, a doll with a port is used to help the child
understand the procedure a little better. "I can spend time with patients that nurses don’t have or answer questions parents may be too intimidated to ask," she said. "I can distract children from their pain, explain their procedure in words they understand, help them cope with
being in the hospital, play games with them when they just get bored. I can also
plan a birthday party or just give a parent a break."
"Recently a child missed their first two weeks of first grade," she said. "So I did
homework with her. I also provide sibling and parental support, working in the
Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, inpatient and outpatient rooms." Nurses and
physicians also make referrals to her. Mrs. Addison was especially happy
recently that she was able to occupy a 22-month old throughout an hour and half
wait time prior to a CT scan. She was able to reduce his anxiety so that he could complete the CT scan without having to be sedated. Sedation would have increased his length of stay and
given the child medications that could have been prevented. She adds that she has the unique
opportunity to build relationships with pediatric patients and their families, but also the
responsibility of providing anxiety-decreasing therapeutic techniques that ultimately can
decrease the patient’s length of stay.
Before the end of the year, Mrs. Addison hopes to add other services to her already full day,
including pre-op parties, holiday parties, chronic illness support groups, art therapy, music groups and movie and popcorn. Mrs. Addison’s supervisor, Penny Harrison, says she can
already see the benefits of having the new child life specialist on the floor and said volunteers
recently overheard parents talking about how helpful Mrs. Addison had been to them.
The child life specialist position is funded for two years by the Children’s Miracle Network at The Medical Center, and will be re-evaluated after that time for its effectiveness.
__________________________________
Eli's article appeared on the front page of the Woodmen Edition today...
http://www.waltpub.com/wood.pdf
Bremer Qualifies to Compete for Olympic Gold
BY JAKE BLUMBERG
This summer, a dream 21 years in the making was realized for a man who has spent nearly his entire life physically testing his body in the Colorado Springs altitude. On June 24, Eli Bremer earned a birth in the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China, by winning the gold medal in the
Pan American Games in Rio de Janero, Brazil. Bremer’s first place in the modern pentathlon secured him a guaranteed spot in Beijing next August; a spot Bremer has been working towards since he was seven years old.
"I began swimming when I was seven, and that’s where I like to say I began my Olympic pursuit," Bremer said. It is a pursuit the 28-year-old Bremer did not necessarily envision early in his life. "I wasn’t introduced to the modern pentathlon until I was in high school," Bremer
said. "I was into swimming and horses at the time, and realized that I wanted to be a
pentathlete when I was about 14 or 15."
The modern pentathlon is considered by some to be an all-encompassing test to determine the most well rounded athlete. The five-event competition combines the sports of running, swimming, horseback riding, shooting and fencing to determine an overall pentathlon champion.
Bremer finished the 1.82 mile cross country run in a time of 9:48:50 minutes to complete his championship effort, after entering the last stage of the competition in first place. It was a victory Bremer earned with sweat and hard work while training at the U.S. Olympic Training
Center.
With an average training day that consists of a 10-mile run, a four-mile swim, along with an hour worth of shooting and a half hour of fencing, Bremer certainly earns his position in the Air Force World Class Athlete Program. Currently, Bremer is on active duty with the U.S. Air Force as a captain. A graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy in 2000, Bremer’s active duty role allows him to train full time for a chance to win Olympic gold. "They basically release you from your job to train," Bremer said. "They pay you your normal salary to train and be a good ambassador for the Air Force, which includes a lot of public speaking work, along with USOC tours and the media."
It is an occupation some may consider enviable: flying from country to country competing for the honor of one’s nation, with cheering fans urging you toward success. In many senses, Bremer would agree. "I love my job. I probably will never love another job as much
as I love this," Bremer said. Yet, his world is not all glory filled, with winner’s podiums and hounding media. Most is in fact spent sore and tired, endeavoring to recover from his most
recent international trip.
"On one hand, it is great how much I get to travel," Bremer said. "On the other hand, I basically
have been jet lagged from March through August." In the past seven weeks, Bremer has been on three trips traversing more than 10,000 miles—each. Before trips to Italy, Brazil and Germany for competitions this summer, Bremer spent time in Cairo, Mexico, England and the entire month of May in Europe. "I have spent over two weeks of my life this year inside an
airplane," Bremer said.
It is the lifestyle and strain on his body that has Bremer planning to retire after his time in
Beijing. "I have accomplished what I have set out to accomplish [qualifying for the Olympics],"
Bremer said. "I want to make a great hit at the Olympics, really make a run at it, and then let
some of the young guys move up."
Yet, retirement is no sure thing for Bremer, who is approaching a time period in his life that
could be, by his own account, his best four years for competition. Thus, Bremer is not ready
to completely commit to his retirement in 2008, though the world outside of the sports arena
is certainly calling. Bremer’s family tree reads as a veritable who’s-who in both local and national politics. His father, Duncan Bremer, served as El Paso County commissioner from 1994-2002, and made an unsuccessful run at the United States Congress last year. Eli’s uncle, L. Paul Bremer was an ambassador under President’s Reagan and George Bush, and served as the head Iraqi Coalition Provisional authority for President George W. Bush from May 2003 to June 2004. It is a lineage that may help steer Bremer to Washington, D.C., himself after Beijing.
"I am looking into applying for an internship with a program called the White House Fellows,"
Bremer said. "Only about 11 to 19 people are accepted each year, but if you do make it, you get
to work directly with a Cabinet member for a year, learning Washington from the inside out."
It is an opportunity one feels Bremer is most certainly up to; for anyone who can spend two
weeks on an airplane and still run 10 miles a day can probably run circles around those in Washington. For Bremer, it is just the next challenge to train for. "It will be very different not
working out every day, but it would be rewarding," Bremer said. "This is just not the type
of occupation you can do your entire life."