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TODAY'S ISSUE
Young Suwanee patient creates own ice cream flavor
By Randall Kirsch
for Children's Healthcare of Atlanta
Special to GwinnettForum.com

SUWANEE, JULY 22, 2003 --Gwinnett residents now have a way to support a good cause, enjoy dessert and celebrate National Ice Cream Month, all at the same time.

Throughout July, Cold Stone Creamery locations across the nation - including shops at Discover Mills in Lawrenceville and Medlock Crossing in Duluth - will feature a special ice cream flavor designed by Alexei Bowers, an eight-year-old Children's Healthcare of Atlanta heart-transplant patient from Suwanee. A portion of all Cold Stone Creamery proceeds during July will go to support the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Alexei will make a personal appearance at the Duluth Cold Stone Creamery on July 24 to hand out free scoops of his new creation at "The World's Largest Ice Cream Social." It will be the culmination of a month-long fundraising partnership between the Make-A-Wish Foundation and Cold Stone Creamery, and a high point on what has been a long and bumpy road for the Bowers family.

Alexei was born in the eastern Russian town of Khabarovsk and spent the first 17 months of his life in a crowded orphanage. During the same period, Brett and Anji Bowers, a young Suwanee couple who were struggling to conceive, decided to adopt. In 1996, after a seemingly endless stream of paperwork and months of waiting, they were matched with Alexei.

They traveled for three days to reach him and bring him back to the United States. Alexei flourished in his new home, but in March 2002, when he was six years old, he developed a high fever. After a visit to his family doctor, Alexei was referred to Sibley Heart Center at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, where he was diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy, a condition in which the heart weakens and becomes enlarged. Alexei arrived at Children's with a heart nearly twice its normal size.

Doctors told the Bowers that Alexei would need a heart transplant to survive. While Alexei waited for a donor, his condition continued to deteriorate. Weeks passed, and by the 20th day Alexei had grown weak. His arrhythmias were occurring every 15 minutes and there still was no word of a donor. Brett and Anji began to lose hope.

Finally, a few minutes before midnight on April 15, the family received the long-awaited news that a potential donor was available. An hour later nurses were prepping Alexei for surgery and the next afternoon Children's surgeons performed the heart transplant that saved Alexei's life.

Now, Alexei is healthy and happy and ready to share his signature ice cream flavor with the world on July 24 from 5-8 p.m.

Every day, children like Alexei are saved by transplant operations. The Sibley Heart Center at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta has performed nearly 150 life-saving heart transplants and is associated with Sibley Heart Center Cardiology and the Divisions of Cardiothoracic Surgery and Anesthesia of Emory University School of Medicine. More information about the transplant program at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta can be found on the Web at www.choa.org.

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Gwinnett residents can visit local Cold Stone Creamery locations now through July 31 to support Make-A-Wish Foundation. To enjoy a scoop of Alexei's ice cream creation for free and participate in the "World's Largest Ice Cream Social," visit any Cold Stone Creamery July 24, 5-8 p.m.

ELLIOTT BRACK
Lilburn resident suffers hiking ordeal in Colorado
By Elliott Brack
editor and publisher
GwinnettForum.com

JULY 22, 2003 -- It was to be a grand experience, a trip for 15 persons of Cathy Spraetz's extended family to the high mountains of Colorado. It was well-planned, with Cathy and her husband, Webb, of Lilburn, spending eight weeks getting into shape by repeatedly climbing Stone Mountain.

"The first time we went up Stone Mountain, I had to stop 10 times. But at the end, we could do it in an hour and didn't stop at all," she proudly says.

But their efforts turned into a tremendous ordeal for Cathy, in sharp contrast with the Colorado hiking story which appeared in Gwinnettforum on Friday.

The family came together near Ouray, Colo. on June 26 for a grade two (out of five) hike. Three of the group were graduates of the National Outdoor Leadership School. The group started at 10,000 feet altitude, and planned to hit the summit of Mount Sneffels, at 14,150 feet.

"There was a trail to 12,000 feet. Then we hit lots of scree and big boulders, so we were no longer hiking, but more like mountain climbing. We had no technical knowledge to do it justice.

"At about 13,100 feet, my husband and I felt we had gone as high as we could go, and made a decision to turn around. Others in the party continued, with five getting to the summit, and eight others reaching the saddle at 14,000 feet.

"Going down, boulder fields did not seem to end. At 13,000 feet, I fell, rolling about 20 feet forward and downward. I hit a sharp boulder at full force, cutting through my muscle at mid-thigh, all the way to the bone. I had other sharp rocks lodged in me, and was cut in other areas, and could not walk. It was not that painful. I was in some shock, but with a gash that deep, you are past the nerves."

Cathy was hyperventilating at first, waiting on a rescue team, with others in her hiking group. The temperature was warm, in the high 60s, in full sun, and she got sunburned. She had on shorts, and at first was really warm. The fall was about 12:30 p.m.

Her group decided to send the less experienced people, including her husband, on for help, with the three experienced climbers staying with her, forcing her to drink lots of water. It took the group going down until 2:30 before they had cell phone coverage to call for help.

The first rescue person arrived about 3:30. He checked her vital statistics, and put an oxygen mask on her. Her bleeding had clotted from the sweatshirt and bandana her group had tied on her leg. It was a gaping, moon-shape major wound at her thigh.

Other rescue personnel arrived by 4 p.m. Cathy remembers: "They put me on a litter, with a plexiglass shield over me. They would tie the litter off around a big boulder above me, then with one person on each side, and one at my foot, they lifte me from boulder to boulder, leaning back with the rope, and go down sometimes just two feet. Then they would put me down, tie off on another boulder, and repeat it again and again. It was uncomfortable, and scary going down, and very slow going.

"You are at their mercy. You desperately hope they don't fall or drop you. The plexiglass cover made it a little claustrophobic. And though I had all sort of items to keep me warm, I was cold. The temperature went down into the low 50's while we were on the mountain."

"After a while, I was not so scared, and more interested in what they were doing. They told me that they would talk me down the mountain. Every minute, someone would ask how I was. I remember being so tired, but never thought about sleeping.

"I was, by then, having general overall pain, everywhere, with my hips hurting, and not knowing if I had any broken bones. It was very tiring for the rescuers. At one time there were about 25 people involved, as they would trade and take turns, so they were not totally spent."

It took from 4 until 8:30 to get Cathy to the trailhead. Next was a Jeep ride of 30 minutes to get to the ambulance. "The Jeep driver was gentle and slow, and not so bad. But the ambulance drive was from hell. We made it to the hospital about 10:30 in Montrose, Colo."

Cathy was treated immediately, with IV, antibodies and x-rays, which showed no broken bones. Soon she was stable. They did not disturb the clot that night, though they installed a drain in the wound.

With her fall, she was dirty, cut and bruised all over. "They had this neat tool, developed about 10 years now, that irrigates and suctions at the same time. They cleaned my body like cleaning teeth."

Amazingly, she was ambulatory. "I walked gingerly with a cane that night. I was bruised all over." They released her and she and her family went back to where they were staying. Two days later doctors took 27 stitches to close the wound. Today's she's still mending, but greatly improved.

Yet four weeks after all this, Cathy says: "I would do it again. The hiking was exhilarating, exciting, a real phenomenon, and we had the same view as eagles. Actually, we were up higher than the birds. I could have fallen down Stone Mountain just as easily."

"You can't put barriers in your way. Don't believe you can't do something. And you can never be too careful. But if you have a passion, you have to live and do it."

Though she hasn't hiked in North Georgia, now she and her extended family are ready for more. "Our next destination is Wyoming. We hear their peaks are tamer."

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Cathy Spraetz is executive director of the Partnership Against Domestic Violence, formerly the Council for Battered Women. and has lived in Lilburn for 15 years.

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FEEDBACK
7/22: Not at all happy at recent developments around President

Editor, the Forum:

First let me quote from Tim Reid in the Washington Times:

"ONE BY ONE, all the Presiden's men rounded on George Tenet yesterday, forcing the CIA Director to issue a resounding mea culpa that is likely to bring his career to an abrupt end.

"The first salvo in what degenerated into open warfare within the Bush Administration was fired by the President himself, blaming the CIA for the inclusion of a false claim about Iraq's nuclear weapons program in his State of the Union address last January."

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I am not at all happy about this development. The problem for Bush is that ALL his claims about Iraqi WMD are bogus. Admitting one just lets the next be unravelled.

The problem for conservatives is that everyone not on the left will be tarred by the neoconservatives' lies. So will the Republican Party.

Keep in mind that the left has been on the defensive since Reagan, who's economic and foreign policy successes created a credibility for positions that we have not had since before the Great Depression. This credibility has been squandered by Neocons in their effort to help Israel. The left will make the most of the vulnerability.

As the Neocons have already devastated non-Neocons on the right, silencing them in print and TV media and cutting them off from support and positions, there is little prospect of withstanding the assault that is coming from the left. I hope I am totally wrong. In case I'm not, we had best consider what can be done to prevent a wipeout. Please keep in mind that I am not in favor of the events that I see unfolding. Being realistic doesn't mean one has gone 'pinko left.'

Other potentially serious problems could develop that would add to the pressure.

We are in a perilous situation. It behooves us to give it some thought.

-- Dean Booth, Atlanta

7/22: Thanks to Cathy Kimbrel for sharing her experience

Editor, the Forum:

This Old Lady was very happy to read such an enjoyable, descriptive vacation story in Colorado Friday in the Forum.

I got such a 'nice warm fuzzy feeling" just recalling my memories of trips to much of the same area. Notwithstanding changes and differences of then and now, I just loved Cathy's Kimbrel's story! I also know Ellen and I hope they keep on building the Foundations of Great Memories. Cathy, thanks for sharing

As one gets nearer ninety with "normal" limitations, one finds how basic good friends, working associates and great memories are to later living. Everyone, keep telling us how you are building memories! Sharing is everything

A big thanks to the Forum.

-- Loretta Roberts, Suwanee

7/22: Asks for someone to step up to challenge the status quo

Editor, the Forum:

Are you working for the current establishment? I look forward to the Gwinnett Forum because I am sure you will write something that makes me shake my head and ask, 'Why does he continue to promote what the current government is doing?'

How can you not see that what has happened is keeping the status quo of the current regime in Gwinnett? Dunn was elected to help reign in the current land barons of Gwinnett, when his appointee did not fall in line with a request concerning property that he was wanting to occupy, he wants to give her the boot.

The other commissioners probably did not want him to make such a public display over the incident but agreed to back him so that he would owe them and fall in line with their program of expansion. Dunn now owes the others big time!

The cycle continues. Will someone not step up to the plate and challenge what is happening? Follow the money, and the lack of control that is exercised in the county expenditures and you will find the root of what is really going on in the county.

-- Lee Baker, Lilburn

NEWS ITEM
Attorney General to speak July 25 at Chamber meeting

Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker will address the Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce Governmental Affairs Committee July 25 at 8 a.m. in the Gwinnett Chamber building.

Mr. Baker is a native of Rocky Mount, N.C., and a graduate of the Univesity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was member of the fencing team and 1975 Atlantic Coast Conference sabre champion. He is a law graduate of Emory University, and serves on their board of visitors.