An Inspired Life
Had penicillin been invented, she might have become a ballerina. Or a pilot, or chairperson of General Motors. As it was, Carol Iverson, whose appendix had ruptured, was laid up for no fewer than five weeks in a hospital in Minot, N.D., “where a nurse sprinkled sulfa powder daily on my raw incision.”
Iverson was only 5, but “I remember the nurse clearly. I never forgot her dedication, and I decided to follow in her footsteps.”
It’s many a measle from a two-room schoolhouse “outside of Mohall, N.D.” (itself barely inside metropolitan America) to election by one’s peers as “National School Nurse of 1989,” but Iverson has managed the passage with wit, understanding and an encompassing compassion for today’s stressed-out schoolchild.
Iverson last week was back in San Diego, in whose school system she nursed for 11 years (after stints as head Ob-Gyn nurse at Los Angeles’ Queen of Angels and as colonel in the Air Force Nurse Corps). Sponsored by the Beecham Co., she is on a back-to-school U.S. tour, addressing pupils’ more common health problems: indigestion (“They eat too quickly”), headaches (“Today’s children are under much more pressure to succeed”) and head lice.
Head lice? Schools record some 10 million cases a year, most having little to do with cleanliness. “Even in super-clean Omaha (where she now lives) it’s a yearlong problem,” says Iverson. “The student must be sent home immediately--lice are highly contagious. But rather than shave the head and apply kerosene as they did in the past, the child simply shampoos with something like A-200; the parent does an environmental clean-up (sheets, rugs, etc.), and the child can be sent right back.”
With so many more mothers working, the school nurse, says Iverson, virtually has become a surrogate mother. “They come in with a tummy ache or a headache or some other unconscious stress symptom. I usually give them 10 minutes of individual attention and rest, and send them back to class.
“Sometimes they just need that person they know and they trust. Often enough, these days, it’s the school nurse.”
Catering Pioneers
Somebody comes to your home and cooks your favorite dinner, with ruffles, flourishes and a dessert to die for. That’s the “Dine” part.
Simultaneously--and on the assumption that a laid-back bod animates the appetite -- somebody else gives you and your Significant Other a sensual Swedish massage, the last stroke timed to the first course. That’s the “Pamper” part.
Combined, the sybaritic service is called Pamper and Dine. Matthew Sarver is the professional chef who’ll consult with you beforehand on the meal’s elements (or surprise you, if you choose); bring his own raw materials, utensils, place settings, flowers, and whip up anything from homard to haggis. While Sarver is bopping about your kitchen, Amy Tunick, a graduate massage therapist who’s brought her own table and appropriate music, will tune your torso to the precise point of ease (and no further: “She could relax you so much you’d never make it to the table,” says partner Sarver).
The couple don’t come cheap (from $300 for two hours, including two half-hour massages, to $500 for “extremely formal, upscale service”), but after a February start, they’re already busy enough in the L.A. area to be considering franchising, if they could only find similar pairs with their expertise, their dedication and their professed raison d’etre (“Each in our own way,” says Sarver, “we love to make people feel good.”
“We’ve put something together that’s really in demand,” says Sarver. “Bear in mind that we’re getting into the ‘cocooning ‘90s,’ when everyone wants things brought into their home. It feels good to be a trailblazer.”
The Sticky Side
A person with a lack of gumption (courage, chutzpah, what have you) often is described as a “jellyfish.” Sorry, wrong number.
Virtually colorless, admittedly spineless and resembling nothing so much as James Thurber’s amorphous “blob of glup,” the jellyfish nevertheless packs a powerful punch. Dangling from its central mass, or blobitude, are tentacles tipped with stingers, stingers that keep stinging even after the sucker is dead . And if you’ve ever tangled with one, you remember it.
Glenn Soppe remembers.
Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water, Soppe, family-practice-medicine resident at Long Beach Memorial, has published an article, “Marine Envenomations and Aquatic Dermatology,” in the current issue of American Family Physician.
Soppe, an avid surfer and diver, zeroes in on some of offshore California’s more pestilential prowlers, in particular the jellyfish, “which can be pretty bothersome.”
“Around here,” says Soppe, “they’re usually 4 to 6 inches in diameter with sticky little tentacles hanging from their main body. Sometimes they’ll sting and fall away. Others stick like lace.”
Soppe advises caking the stung area with baking soda and water, or even shaving cream, which aids in brushing the tentacles off “tangentially, so you don’t shove them in. Don’t rub or you’ll release more venom. Scrape ‘em off as you do a bee sting, with a credit card or something. Then soak in diluted vinegar. Not in fresh water--that’ll just disperse the venom.”
Other local hazards are stingrays, scorpion fish, sea urchins . . . all of which are generally avoidable and eminently treatable, if pesky. “Still,” says Soppe, “the most common sting at the beach is sunburn.”
