Dialysis Patient Gets a Lift Out of Sailing Through Workouts With Others in Same Boat

Twice each week Cathy E. Steen, 30, of Anaheim, and as many as a dozen other active men and women shape their bodies in tough 1 1/2-hour exercise and weight-lifting sessions at Irvine Valley College.

For 3 1/2 hours the other weekdays, Steen and most of her gym classmates cleanse their blood on kidney dialysis machines, the life-saving routine they follow while waiting for a kidney donor.

“I would go into exercise clubs and try to keep up with the others,” said Steen, who once bicycled 1,000 miles, stopping every third day to hook up to a dialysis machine. “What I really needed was to exercise with people who understand.”

Enter Irvine Valley College.

Armed with research developed by St. Joseph Hospital, Orange, on the value of exercise for dialysis patients, “I tried to interest several colleges in the class, but they were all worried about insurance,” Steen said. “Irvine Valley College was about my last stop,” where Bill Hewitt, director of handicapped and special classes at Irvine, managed to get students insured.

Steen had already made the rounds of dialysis units to enroll patients and had a ready class. Formed in April, the class offers slow stretching, in-place exercises, a brisk mile walk, a check of blood pressure and pulse and work on Nautilus machinery.

Southern California Kidney Foundation spokeswoman Norma Cherniss of Placentia said the class is the only one in California and only one of three nationwide. “It’s only been recently that any studies have been made on the value of exercise to dialysis patients,” she said. Instructor Barry Jones of Anaheim said, “I give them the same exercise I give other classes except I reduce the intensity. They’re also not reluctant to let me know their limitations,” a point well taken, agreed class member Rigo Lopez, 46, of Mission Viejo. “Exercise benefits us all, but we know how far we can go,” he said. .

And it’s more than just exercise for the body, said Steen, who has been on dialysis for 10 years after her kidney transplant failed. “This is a way to get out of the house and not think about the (dialysis) machine,” she said. “It can get you down sometimes, so the class helps us bring up our self-esteem.”

Beside knowledge of her own mind and body, “I want to jump into dialysis all the way,” she said. “I want to be aware of what it is to be involved with other people on dialysis and to understand their emotions and what they go through.”

Steen moves at a fast pace. “I’m real, real active,” she said, lamenting the conservative stand of her doctors. “You know, they don’t even want me to go water-skiing, but I do,” she said, grinning.

Statue of Liberty pins, says Lynn Becker, who manufactures them in Anaheim for businesses that give them to employees and customers, are good collector pieces these days. “They’re not as big an item as the Olympic pins, but these will be longer lasting and more valuable,” he said. “The unveiling of the restored Statue of Liberty on July 4 is going to be a one-of-a-kind American celebration.”

When you talk ugly, you talk bartenders.

For instance, the ugliest one in Orange County, said Joanne Ling, of the Orange County Multiple Sclerosis Society, will be the one who collects the most money in the “Ugly” contest for the society by July 7.

And in case they aren’t ugly enough, really big honorary chairman Dennis Harrah, Los Angeles Rams guard, will be visiting participating bars to present ugly kits and to encourage them to pass last year’s $90,000 collection.

“This is a fun way of raising money,” Ling said. “Last year one of the real ugly bartenders had pies thrown at him, and another ugly one shaved his head.”

Though all this is ugly sounding, it’s hardly that. Ugly in this instance is UGLY, standing for Unbelievably, Generous, Lovable, You.

“They really are, you know,” Ling said.

Margaret P. Ramondetti, 56, of Corona del Mar, gave a parting shot to students and administrators on retiring after 35 years as a physical education teacher, all of them at Tustin High School.

“It was a terrible mistake,” she said, “to reduce physical education requirements in high school to two years. Too many children are out of shape now,” the result, she believes, of too many sedentary activities such as movies and television.

“The bulk of the kids don’t do anything (exercise) except at school,” she said, pointing out that the results of a good physical education program during formative years show up later in life.

Acknowledgments--Vicki Katzin of Newport Beach won $250 for submitting “Volunteers--America’s Strength” as the theme for the 1987 National Volunteer Week. A member of Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian, her entry was selected over 700 submitted.