Terrie Hall speaks from experience about the harmful effects of smoking

This week, a 52-year-old Lexington, N.C., grandmother will receive the Surgeon General’s Medallion, one of the highest honors in public health. 

You'll recognize Terrie Hall from the startling anti-smoking commercials she has appeared in as part of the "Tips from Former Smokers" national tobacco education campaign. 

A lifelong smoker, Hall developed mouth cancer and throat cancer that led to surgery to remove her larynx. She has a permanent stoma, or hole in her throat, and a voice prosthesis that must be replaced every few years.

She'll will receive the award in a ceremony Wednesday morning in Washington.

Here's a link to the story I wrote about her last year:

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/05/21/3257516/nc-woman-sends-anti-smoking-message.html

Charlotte fundraiser features Lee Woodruff

Lee Woodruff, wife of ABC News correspondent Bob Woodruff, will be in Charlotte Feb. 14 to help raise money for patient rehabilitation efforts at Carolinas Rehabilitation. The fundraiser is at noon at Charlotte Country Club.

The Woodruffs co-wrote the 2007 book, “In An Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing,” about the roadside bomb in Iraq that left Bob Woodruff with severe brain injury. Since then they founded the Bob Woodruff Foundation (ReMIND.org) to assist wounded service members and their families in receiving the long-term care they need and help them successfully reintegrate into their communities.

Lee Woodruff, who now works as a contributing editor for CBS This Morning, is also the author of "Perfectly Imperfect: A Life in Progress," a personal look at the many roles played by a modern American wife, mother, daughter and friend. 

Most recently, she published a novel, “Those We Love Most,” about a family that deals with the tragedy of having their young son hit by a car driven by a teenager in their neighborhood. 

Tickets are on sale for $50 each. Order by calling Kelly Osborne at 704-355-1955.

Charlotte party for epilepsy, mustache shaving

Charlotteans are invited to a viewing party Friday to watch CNN's "Situation Room," where Republican stategist Alex Castellanos will shave his 41-year-old mustache in support of epilepsy research.

Castellanos, a former Morehead scholar at UNC Chapel Hill, will shave his mustache live at 4 p.m. to honor a challenge he made last month with friend David Axelrod, President Obama's senior campaign strategist.

The arrangement began before the election when Axelrod appeared on on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" with Joe Scarborough and bet his facial hair that Obama would win Michigan, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania in the presidential election -- which he did.

Instead of growing a mustache, as he had promised, Scarborough said he would donate $10,000 to Citizens United for Research in Epilepsy, the charity founded by Axelrod's wife, Susan. The couple has a daughter with epilepsy.

In response, Axelrod said he would still shave his 40-year-old mustache if they could raise $1 million for CURE. The money came in, and Axelrod shaved his mustache in December, live on "Morning Joe."

That same day, Castellanos announced he would also shave his longtime mustache if CURE could recruit 500 new donors in a month. The challenge drew 527 new donors, who raised more than $115,000 for CURE.

Hosts for the viewing party are Bodgan Ewendt, executive director for CURE, and his wife, Jackie, who have a home in Charlotte. The party is open to the public and starts at 3 p.m. at Hampton Inn & Suites SouthPark at Phillips Place. RSVP at Jackie@cureepilepsy.org.

Is making the bed hazardous to your health?

If you don't like making the bed, here's a good excuse not to.

Researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem have associated the act of applying a fitted sheet to the mattress with a malady called "sheet fitting palsy."

They've identified the injury in people who spend a long period of time repeatedly trying to pull a fitted bed sheet over the corner of a mattress.

Caused by continuously flexing the wrist, the injury results in a tiny stroke in the artery of the hand and blood clots that cut off blood flow to the median nerve, producing numbness or weakness.

A case study was described by Wake Forest neurologist Dr. Francis Walker and colleagues in the September issue of the journal Clinical Neuromuscular Disease.

The victim was an active 73-year-old woman who was unable to slip the last corner of a fitted sheet over a mattress and had to ask her granddaughter for help. Sometimes she noticed a "pins and needles" feeling in her hand, but didn't think much of it. After she shook her hand, it would go away.

A few weeks later, when she tried to make the bed again, she tried without success to get the fitted sheet on. To her surprise, her thumb dropped down, limp, when she moved her hand from the bed corner. She couldn't tie her shoe or button a sleeve with her right hand.

Dr. Mary Lyles suspected acute carpal tunnel syndrome and called Walker to perform nerve conduction studies and an ultrasound.

Walker's study showed something few physicians have seen, the report said. "High resolution color flow Doppler showed a rare persistent median artery that had blood flow in it in the forearm, but not at the wrist where it was next to a swollen, injured median nerve."

Shortly after those tests, the patient had surgery to relive some of the pressure on the nerve, but her thumb remained limp. The surgeon advised her to strengthen it by going through the motions of her everyday activities. Just trying them could be helpful.

Slowly that strategy worked. It took nearly a year for the nerve in her wrist to grow the new pathways that allowed her to open and close a bag clip.

Researchers say the injury has also been reported in basketball players and people who perform a lot of push ups -- because of trauma to the wrist.

E! News Anchor Giuliana Rancic in Concord

E! News anchor, fashion expert and breast cancer survivor
Giuliana Rancic will speak Sept. 15 in Concord at "Women's Symposium: Empowering Women to Better Health."

Rancic, at right, had a double mastectomy in late 2011. She is co-star of E!'s popular "Fashion Police" team and has been on the red carpet interviewing celebrities at the Oscars, Grammy Awards and Golden Globe events. She is the author of two books, "I Do, Now What?" and "Think Like a Guy: How to Get a Guy By Thinking Like One."

The daylong event, sponsored by Carolinas HealthCare System, will also feature physician-led sessions on various health conditions, interactive exhibits, demonstrations, a fashion show, and Zumba class.


It will be held at the Embassy Suites, 5400 John Q. Hammonds Dr. NW from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Registration is $35 at the door, $20 in advance. Lunch and refreshments included. See www.carolinashealthcare.org/womens.

What doctors can learn from Cheesecake Factory

Surgeon and writer Dr. Atul Guwande has a new piece in the Aug. 13 edition of the New Yorker about how to improve medical care by taking hints from managers of Cheesecake Factory, the national restaurant chain.

On an interview with NPR today, I heard him describe his mother's knee replacement surgery and how they chose her surgeon because of his "factory-like" approach -- standardizing the surgical techniques and equipment so that outcomes could be more predictable.

It makes a lot of sense, as Guwande always does.

Here's a link to his article, "Big Med," with the subtitle: "Restaurant chains have managed to combine quality control, cost control, and innovation. Can health care?"

The generous act of a loving son

I'm saddened by the death of Lewis Deaton (above left), 59, of Davidson. The beautiful obituary, written by his longtime partner Jon Guttman (right) , describes many of the reasons why so many people loved and respected Lewis, who died July 26 of pancreatic cancer.

I'll remember him most for one generous act of love.

Twelve years ago, in August 2000, Lewis' father, Rock Deaton, a popular Davidson resident and ardent fan of Davidson College athletics, died after surgery. That left Lewis' mother in a predicament. Eugenia (center) had lost her sight in recent years, and Rock had been her sole caregiver. She couldn't live alone.

Lewis, their only living son, had left North Carolina for New York City, where he and Jon had established, exciting careers. What would they do?

Despite the culture shock -- especially for Jon, a native New Yorker -- the two men decided to move to Davidson to care for Eugenia. I wrote this story about their decision in August 2001. By the time Eugenia died in 2006, Lewis and Jon had put down roots and chose to stay.