Pelham News : Health & Fitness

Pelham blood drive organizer now using donations

Salem Editor — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 21:11:00 GMT

When Michele Gordon was organizing a blood and bone marrow drive, the Pelham woman couldn’t have known that the event might help a member of her own family.

Less than three weeks ago, Michele’s husband, Dean, was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. Now, the drive – which was being planned before he got sick – might possibly help him.

“We’re hoping for a big turnout,” said Michele, who wants to enter as many names as possible into a registry of bone marrow donors. “It’s so easy to save a life if you’re a match for somebody.”

The drive will be held Friday, Feb. 20, from 1 to 7 p.m., at Crossroads Baptist Church. The church is located at 43 Atwood Road in Pelham.

AML is a cancer that begins inside bone marrow, the soft tissue that helps form blood cells. The cancer grows quickly from cells that normally turn into white blood cells.

Dean, 48, was diagnosed on Feb. 1, and is a patient at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. He receives blood transfusions almost daily. He recently underwent seven days of chemotherapy, and blood marrow biopsies will determine if the treatment was successful.

He and Michele, a critical care nurse at Lowell General Hospital, have three daughters: college student Krista, 22, Janelle, 16, and Kaleigh, 10. This is the third blood drive to be held at the church, which the Gordons attend, and the first one to include a bone marrow drive.

The bone marrow search has been promoted by Save Giovanni, an organization named after a Belmont baby in need of a bone marrow transplant. His father, Michael Guglielmo, plans to be at the event.

“He has this mission in life to get as many (people) into the registry as possible,” said Michele.

Bone marrow donors should be 18 to 55 years of age and in good health, according to the organization’s Web site. Donations will be accepted to support the cause and reduce testing costs.

“It’s not painful,” said Stacy Osborne, a friend of the Gordons who is helping organize the drive. “It’s a cheek swab.”

Michele, too, wants people to know that being a bone marrow donor is not a painful process. About 80 percent of the time, she said, doctors can get all the stem cells they need through blood. If marrow needs to be extracted, the donor is sedated.

Last fall, Dean was diagnosed with an irregular heartbeat. The fatigue and nauseousness he experienced in December was thought to be a side effect of medicine he was taking. In mid-January, he complained of rib pain. On Jan. 30, he told Michele he was having trouble breathing.

Eventually he saw his primary care physician who ordered blood work, tests that revealed low blood platelet counts. He was admitted to the hospital. Dr. Robert Soiffer of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, who happened to be at the hospital that day, put the pieces together and diagnosed Dean as suffering from AML.

Dean, an otherwise healthy and athletic man who likes to play tennis and hockey and enjoys hiking, had donated blood and helped out at past blood drives.

Now, church members are serving as a “huge support” to her family, said Michele. They’ve provided meals, cleaned their home, and have provided emotional support.

“This hits home for us,” said Osborne. “Dean is a big part of our church.”

Drugs at Pelham High School

Salem Editor — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 20:13:00 GMT

BY JENN McDOWELL

A 16-year-old Pelham High School student was arrested on the second day of school for allegedly bringing narcotics into the school to sell them to other students.

The student’s name is not being released because he is a juvenile. Police are pursuing charges through Salem Family Court for possession of a controlled drug with intent to distribute.

Police were called to the high school Thursday, Aug. 28, at 12:35 p.m. Assistant Principal Leland Brennan Jr. said he got an anonymous tip that the student had prescription pills at the school. Brennan could not say whether that source was a student or not, he said.

“We had a confidential source tell us that he was in possession,” said Brennan. “Our process always is, unless there’s a threat to other students, like a weapon or something like that, we always deal with the student first,” he said, in case the tip is misleading or in error.

After questioning the student in private, the student handed 19 pills to Brennan, who in turn called police, Brennan said. Police were able to identify the pills, 14 of which were the narcotic Adderall and the rest Vyvanse. Both prescription medications are used in treating attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and attention deficit disorder.

The student has been suspended from school, although Brennan said he could not reveal how long that suspension will last.

Brennan said prescription drug use is on the rise among students, but said he and other administrators are making every effort to eliminate all types of drugs from the school.

“I think the prescription drugs are becoming the drug du jour, if you would,” Brennan said, adding they are easily obtained and hidden from view.

Pelham High School has a very stringent medication policy, Brennan said. Students are not supposed to keep any medications on their person throughout the day, and instead have to store them at the nurse’s office. Parents have to give the nurse their written consent to allow their children to have medication at the school.

“We’re trying to monitor it the best we can,” said Brennan, although he added it’s difficult to catch every pill bottle. “If we catch that, it’s confidential, and the parents are notified of our medication policy. I think most of the kids realize that they’re not supposed to have any type of medications on them at school grounds at all.”

The hard part, Brennan said, is sustaining their status as an educational institution without overstepping their bounds by searching the backpacks, purses or pockets of every student who walks through the door.

“We’re trying to keep this as a school instead of becoming invasive,” Brennan said.

Brennan said anonymous tips from students, teachers, faculty and community members are the key to uncovering drug use and sales in the school.

“Students and other people know before we do,” said Brennan. “That bridge, I have found, is the most important part of trying to get a school that is free of drugs.”

The first step in that is getting students to trust that whatever they say will remain completely confidential, Brennan said, which many students are starting to believe.

A large seminar held at the end of the last school year featuring a person who’d been incarcerated for drugs, addiction counselors, police and school administrators talking about drug use among youth was very poorly attended, Brennan said.

“We were kind of upset about the fact that we only got a few parents,” he said.

The climate in the school is swinging in favor of eliminating drugs on school grounds, Brennan said, and more and more people are speaking up when they see suspicious activity that may involve drugs.

“I think the biggest change is people are making the decision to not just say, ‘oh well, I can’t do anything about it.’ They’re deciding to make a stand. They want a drug-free school, and this is their way of handling it, and we’re there to back them up,” he said.

Company won’t pay for school water test

Salem Editor — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 23:30:00 GMT

BY DARRELL HALEN

The lawn-care company that was fined $2,000 for applying pesticides too close to a school well without a special permit has refused to reimburse the Pelham School District for water testing.

Dan Dellanno, owner of LawnMaster of Methuen, Mass., acknowledged in a letter to the school district that the company was fined by the state for not keeping proper distance from the well. It was not done intentionally, and his company is not responsible for water tests the school board ordered, he wrote.

“The products we use are not persistent in the soil and do not leach into wells or water supplies,” wrote Dellanno in his March 8, 2007 letter. “This miscalculation is regretful; we feel that it did not merit a water quality test; there were no traces of pesticides detected in the water supply. LawnMaster is not responsible for the cost of the water test that was performed.”

Dellanno paid a $2,000 fine in January after the New Hampshire Department of Agriculture learned his company applied pesticides at Pelham High School within 400 feet of its gravel-packed well without a special permit.

After he did so, the school board, at the urging of member Linda Mahoney, requested that Dellanno reimburse the school district $1,200 they spent to have the water tested last summer.

While the district waited for results of the test, water dispensers and cups were provided at the high school and school bubblers were wrapped in plastic so they could not be used. Student- athletes were told to bring bottled water to practices.

No problems were found with the water, according to Brian Gallagher, the school district’s business administrator.

At the school board’s March 28 meeting, during which Dellanno’s letter was read, member Michael Conrad reiterated that suing LawnMaster for reimbursement could cost as much as the test itself.

Mahoney said the school district won’t be using the company again.

Recently, the school board and the board of selectmen awarded a three-year landscaping contract to Santastic Landscaping for maintenance of school and town grounds.

The school board requested a clause be placed in the contract that prohibits pesticide applications without their approval.

Headed for fame: Pelham school board chairman talks about hairless state on national talk show

Salem Editor — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 17:55:00 GMT

By Darrell Halen
Staff Writer

When Mike Conrad saw a large bald spot on the back of his head while watching a replay of a Pelham school board meeting on Pelham Community Television, he realized how much he was losing his hair.

Soon, his balding head will be seen by a much larger television audience. Conrad, chairman of the Pelham School Board, was invited to appear on “The Dr. Keith Ablow Show,” a national TV talk show, to get his head shaved.

The episode, which explores the age old question “Are bald men sexy?” will air at 4 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 3, on Boston channel WFXT Fox 25.

Ablow seeks the answer with the help of four models from Howie Mandel’s TV show, “Deal or No Deal.”

“Would you date a bald man?” Ablow – a bald man himself – asked the ladies at the beginning of the show. “Do you find them attractive?”

Conrad, 41, who has been losing his hair for about five years, was one of three men invited to appear on the show.

His wife, Kathy, jokingly refers to her husband’s head as an “Irish yarmulke” during the show.

Ablow, a psychiatrist and author, helps people cope with personal challenges and lead more fulfilling lives in his one-hour daily talk show.

Conrad, the director of client services at The Troupe, a modern media design and production firm in Windham, was scouring the Internet for companies that might need the company’s services when he came upon a posting from the show seeking funny stories from men about going bald.

Conrad shared his story about the school board meeting replay, and eventually was invited to come on the show to have his head shaved.

“Any kind of new adventure – I’m up for it,” said Conrad, adding: “My hair is short anyway so it wasn’t a big difference for me.”

The experience was 24 hours of star treatment. He, Kathy, and their kids, Steven, 12, and Christina, 9, rode in a stretch limo to New York City.

Conrad had his own green room at the Rockerfeller Center at the show’s taping. The show picked up the tab for their travel and lodging.

Conrad has appeared in commercials produced by The Troupe, but this was his first time appearing in a national television show.

“It was interesting to see how a show is produced in New York,” he said.