Suburban Mom
by Euna Kwon Brossman##M:[more]##
I’ve always told my kids to wash their hands and now I have a much better reason to give them than “because I said so.” Turns out that simple act is one of the best ways you can reduce your risk of contracting MRSA, pronounced “Mur-sah”, and an acronym for one of the biggest health scares going on around the country right now, Methicillin-Resistant Staphyloccus Aureus, otherwise being dubbed the “superbug.”
MRSA is one of many different kinds of staph infections and is spread by skin-to-skin contact. It initially shows up as a pimple or skin sore that may be mistaken for an insect bite. MRSA has been making headlines nationally and right here in our own neck of the woods, with three cases being reported in Princeton schools just this past week.
But it is important to keep those alarming stories in perspective. While MRSA is resistant to methicillin, a derivative of penicillin, it is still treatable with other antibiotics. Contracting MRSA does not mean a death sentence nor does it mean your flesh will fall off. It is also not a new “superbug” as some of the recent media reports might suggest, but in fact, has been around for years, first showing up in the early 1960s in hospitalized patients.
What is new about MRSA is that for the first time ever, scientists performed a national study about the incidence of the infection and discovered that the numbers were higher than suggested by previous estimates — almost 95,”000 cases in 2005 resulting in 18,”600 deaths. By comparison, about 17,”000 people died from AIDS during that same period. The release of this data earlier this month in the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association unleashed a firestorm of media reaction. At the same time, it did a huge public service by alerting everyone to the early warning signs and symptoms, so that you can check yourselves and your children, and make sure that no one is suffering from a mysterious skin lesion that could be MRSA. The reality is that you and your kids have a pretty low risk of contracting MRSA and a much higher chance of suffering the usual cold, strep throat, and other seasonal afflictions.
But if it makes you feel better, there are steps you can take to lower your risk of coming down with MRSA or for that matter, any other type of infectious disease. It’s the common sense stuff that we as mothers are always trying to peddle to our children with varying degrees of success. They include washing your hands thoroughly and frequently with soap and warm water, using hand sanitizer if that’s what is on hand (forgive the pun but I do love puns!), not sharing personal items such as towels, wash clothes, gym clothes (the very thought, I know, to most of you, is repugnant and unthinkable, but have you visited a school locker room lately?), covering cuts and open sores with bandages, and very importantly, finishing the full regimen of prescribed medications, especially antibiotics.
I have to confess, this is something I only learned several years ago myself. Not knowing any better, I would often start off on a round of antibiotics, feel much better in the middle of it, then decide to spare my body the burden of unneeded medication coursing through it and dump the bottle out halfway through. WRONG! This is exactly how so many strains of bacteria have become antibiotic-resistant.
Another reason is the overuse of antibiotics. How many times have your children been suffering some malady that nobody can figure out, and so an antibiotic is prescribed to make them feel better, when in reality, they don’t really need it? Consequently, certain bacteria have been able to mutate and evolve, like some out-of-control sci-fi villain, confounding modern medicine and in many cases, creating real dangers.
But certainly, worrying goes with the territory of being a parent, so ask your doctor if you are not sure, and read up about MRSA online. The website for the Centers for Disease Control is a particularly good one and you can find it at www.cdc.gov.
I am now going to move on to another kind of danger that is much closer to home, and literally, around the corner from me on Cranbury Neck Road, where a head-on collision a week ago Wednesday night killed one woman and injured another man and several children. I remember the night specifically because I was driving home with William around 6:30 and with the rain, fog, and lights, visibility was really horrible. Katie told me she wanted to go out and I warned her that the driving was going to be bad. “Mom, don’t you trust my judgment?” she asked in that edgy teenager way.
What I should have said was you don’t have the judgment based on my kind of driving experience, which is 30 years, compared to your two months. I should have insisted that she stay home. Instead, with warnings to proceed slowly and cautiously, I let her drive to Princeton. And that’s when we saw the emergency vehicles go screaming around the corner from the back windows of our home.
The poor visibility, I am sure, had something to do with the accident that night, but that T-intersection at the intersection of Cranbury Neck and Grover’s Mill Road is just horrible, a lethal combination of old, two lane country roads and way too much traffic at way too high speeds. And on any given day, that 90-degree turn around Grover’s Mill Road heading away from the high school is a potential death trap. Last year a high school student crashed into a telephone pole, which came down on his SUV, miraculously missing him and his friends. Just a couple of weeks ago another high school student skidded out and ended up in the middle of the bean field. Making that corner particularly bad are the giant telephone poles which stand on either side of the road like slalom markers on a ski slope.
While I’m at it, traffic around the high school during the morning rush hour is another accident waiting to happen. Coming out after a drop-off, it’s impossible to turn left into the line of commuter traffic, buses, and cars waiting to get into the high school and the middle school across the street.
The dangers are out there, whether it is MRSA, which can be handled with awareness, prevention, and prompt medical attention, or traffic, which can also be handled by such improvements as road realignments, traffic lights, and extra police to direct traffic. When there are children and lives involved, you might want to add a whole lot of prayer to the mix.
To the Editor:
Homework’s Costs
Regarding Euna Kwon Brossman’s October 19 column on the homework load faced by today’s students: Thank you. I am so grateful that you are addressing this issue, and feel a larger discussion in our district about this is warranted.
Children need time for creative, innovative thinking, which only comes through space and time to do this. When I was a child, I spent hours in imaginative play, and this creative imagination is what I rely on to problem solve, it is the resource I rely on to write my books, and it is absolutely central to my work as an intuitive life coach.
When children have time to dream and play and create, they develop a sense of reliance on their own inner resources. Their intuition, which is their own internal guidance system, develops naturally. As adults, the people who can rely on their creative resources and intuition become business owners, CEOs, innovators, artists and people of great passion and resource.
The “word up” on our school system from people inside and outside of the district is that this system pushes children too hard. One mother of a former student described it as a “meat grinder.” The second thing that people say about this district is that it is driven by a faction that wants our children to be pushed in this way. I have never encountered this faction. I’d like to hear from them and discover what exactly they are pushing for.
I have heard of many children pushed to the point of tears because of the work load and external pressure to “perform,” and this has been my family’s experience. I know people who have left the district for this reason.
My deeper concern: What will children taught in this way do when they reach their 20s or 30s? They may wonder, when they are out of the nest, out of college, who they are performing for. They may wonder what they are competing for. They may wonder how they can get back to where they can dream again, play again, and hear what their intuition — that still, small voice — is telling them.
As parents, we have an opportunity to both guide our children, and be guided by their spirit. It is the dance that is the most fulfilling aspect of being a parent. A healthy learning environment is built on this kind of relationship. I’d like to see the resources and brilliant minds of this town begin to explore ways to create learning structures that support children to be all that they can be academically AND allow time for our children to do the creative, playful, imaginative “work” of being children.
Cynthia Yoder
Intuitive Coaching
WW in Turmoil?
Probably most readers of the local newspapers think the West Windsor Township government is in terrible turmoil. Having attended many Council and Planning Board meetings over the past several years I would say, “turmoil – yes; terrible – no.” Regular township business is being conducted and concerns of citizens are being listened to and addressed in a generally efficient and timely manner in a civil/cordial atmosphere by dedicated, hard working individuals. Nothing terrible there by any measure and not much turmoil.
However, there is major turmoil over the proposed Princeton Junction Redevelopment Area. There are many reasons, including the size and complexity of the project and the strongly held diverse views of the decision makers as to what they think will be best in the long term for West Windsor and/or what they understand that residents do and do not want. While they are not the issues being most debated right now, I would suggest that the two conditions discussed below might be contributing more to the discord and lack of unanimity than is generally recognized.
Though this has been designated as an “area in need of redevelopment” it does not look like an area in need of redevelopment. Just think a minute on how these 350 acres compare with any of dozens or hundreds of dilapidated areas you can think of. I very much doubt if anyone, layman or professional, who was not familiar with this project, could come anywhere close to delineating it without guidance. This just might cause others besides me to wonder if this area needs to be redeveloped or at least to question if it needs to be so big an area.
Another fundamental condition that almost assures differences of opinion is the lack of grassroots sponsorship prior to the designation. I don’t believe there was any group or organization getting petitions signed, organizing letter writing campaigns, etc. for any kind of project of the size of the one that is now being promoted by the Administration.
More parking — yes. Improved traffic circulation around the train station area — yes. A town center/transit village/upgrade of the 571 area of Princeton Junction — yes. These are ideas that have had at least some neighborhood support for several years but they are a far cry from a 350-acre project featuring high density, high-rise urbanization.
Bob Akens
Windsor Drive, West Windsor
Sidewalk Issues
Regarding the effort to obtain sidewalks and pedestrian crossings at the Route 571-Cranbury Road intersection (The News, October 5): We had the same problem (challenge?) here in Penns Neck along Washington Road 15 years ago when residents opposed the construction of sidewalks. It was quite a chore walking to the train station in the roadway, through lawns, in the snow, rain, and dark.
The actual cost for constructing the sidewalks was $30,”000; the total cost to the township was $149,”000 according to the township clerk. The other $130,”000? Engineering, right of way access, the lawyers, the payments to residents. The payments are all part of the public record.
The government of West Windsor costs a fortune because the Township doesn’t have staff professionals or representatives who can knock on the door to ask simple questions.
Our politicians are eager to knock on your door and say, “No to 1,”000 dwelling units at the transit village,” but they are scared to death to ask your cooperation in getting sidewalks installed. It seems foolish to have to spend money to condemn property for the public good.
Pete Weale
Fisher Place, bricksco@aol.com
Lighted Crosswalks at D&R Towpath
It is very gratifying to see that pedestrian-actuated illuminated crosswalks have been installed on Alexander and Harrison Roads at the D&R Canal towpath crossings. Many bicycle and pedestrian advocates, including the West Windsor Bicycle and Pedestrian Alliance, have been requesting such safe crossings in these locations for years.
Kudos to Mercer County, Princeton University, and Princeton Township for making these projects a reality. Local residents enjoying the towpath can now cross these dangerous roads more safely. The next step is to install a third safe crossing where the Towpath crosses Washington Road. The speed of traffic is faster on Washington Road, yet as many people cross at this location as they do on Alexander and Harrison Roads, without the benefit of any kind of crosswalk.
I implore the county, Princeton Township, and Princeton University to come together once more and do the right thing for the safety of those who enjoy the towpath.
Ken Carlson
President, West Windsor Bicycle and Pedestrian Alliance
Vote for Greenstein
One needs to have lived in this great garden state only two decades, as I have, to notice the exponential increase in traffic, congestion and development. Fortunately, since the turn of this century at least, politicians at the local and state levels have made a concerted effort to address sprawl.
I am thankful that Assemblywoman Linda Greenstein, well prepared with a planning background as part of her legal career, addressed the needs of the 14th legislative district by securing millions for open space preservation. Plainsboro, Jamesburg, West Windsor, Cranbury, Monroe, Hamilton and South Brunswick have indeed grown substantially over the past years, yet all boast a plethora of parks, open space, preserves, and the resulting green growth.
Traveling along the country back roads in this district, one is struck by the maintenance of farm crops, forests, and fresh water. I hope that these efforts continue in Trenton after January, 2008.
Savanna Jackson Mapelli, Esq.
8 Silvers Lane, Plainsboro
