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Thursday June 30, 2005
Ex-basketball player helps African victims of AIDS
Continued from page 3B
bring him closer to pursuing
his life’s goal.
But he was stranded at
Kennedy Airport when a
friend’s offer of lodging fell
through. Tb get by, Bekale
said, he lived with other
Africans in New York City’s
Brooklyn borough and ped
dled knockoff watches before
coming to Washington, where
a family took him in and sent
him to high school in the
Vuginia subui-bs.
He left for Penn State on a
basketball scholarship in fall
1998. His parents died not
long after he started classes
—his father the following
June and his mother in
March 2000.
After earning a bachelor’s
degree in business adminis
tration in 2002, Bekale
focused on creating
Hoops4Afiica. a follow-up to
his efforts while in school to
help improve the quality of
life in Africa.
In college, he sent his team
mates’ used basketball shoes
to Gabon for the players
there. Bekale also raised sev
eral thousand dollars to help
provide clean drinking water
in his native Ibhibai^a.
Hoops4Afiica is partnering
vrith the Land O’Lakes dairy
company, which works with
farmers in sub-Saharan
Africa. The company has a
regional office in Kenya and is
helping Bekale with logistics
on the ground, said Tom
Verdoom, a vice president of
the Arden Hills, Minnsetoa-
based company
Land OX-akes will supple
ment Hoops4Afiica’s message
about HIV/AIDS prevention
with a pointer of its own
about the importance of good
nutrition —including milk
and other dairy products.
“Getting the right kinds of
nutrition into people afflicted
with the HIV/AIDS virus is a
very important component of
their well-being,” Verdoom
f said in an interview.
What Bekale is trying to
accomplish is not unique.
Celebrities often help raise
awareness about AIDS, other
illnesses and charitable caus
es.' But knowing firsthand
how young Africans admire
American basketball players,
Bekale and his supporters say
what he is trying to do can
save lives.
“The (AIDS) problem is so
enormous. It’s a pandemic,”
said Congressman Donald
Payne, who helped
Hoops4Africa qualify for tax-
exempt status. “I think that
there’s room for many organi
zations to spring up and try
and get the word out to young
people.”
On the Net:
Hoops4Afiica:
/\\^vw.hoops4africax)rg
United Nations Joint Program
■ on AIDS:
wwwMnaids^rg
Drinking too much water
could be a dangerous thing
Continued from page 36
all over the natural wonder
warning of the dangeit
This year, the once-unrecog-
nized problem made medical
headlines after a study
showed more than 10 percent
of runners in the 2002 Boston
Mai'athon frnished the race
with below-normal sodium
levels, a condition called
hyponatrenria.
The reason? They drank too
much water diuing the hours
they were running, so much
that they flushed sodium
jfrom theii* bodies, dangerous
ly upsetting them electrolyte
balance.
When that happens, water
enters the body’s cells, which
then swell. If swollen brain
cells start pressir^ against
the skull, the i*esult is brain
damage, paralysis, coma and
sometimes death.
“We observed that hypona
tremia occurs in a substantial
fraction of niai'athon iTumerc
and can be severe,” the
author's of the study, pub
lished in the New England
Joiuiial of Medicine in April,
concluded. “(It) has emerged
as an important cause of
race-related death and life-
threatening illness among
marathon runners.”
Hyponatremia did in fact
kill one nmner that year-a
28-year old woman who was
stiTiggling badly the last six
miles. Suffering nausea,
fatigue and muscle weak
ness-symptoms similar to
dehydration-she assumed
that was the problem,
chugged 16 more ounces of
fluids, then collapsed and
died.
Her blood sodium levels
had plunged to 113 mil
limoles per hter of blood.
Hyponatremia begins to
occur at sodium levels below
135, and becomes hfe-threat-
enir^ at about 120.
When Carol TVifts got to
Tucson Medical Center die
day she coUapsed recently,
her sodiimi level had plunged
to 122.
“She was zoned, completely
out of it. She was on her way
down,” said Thfts’ dau^ter,
Judy Rodin, who found her
mother that moi’ning dming
a routine stop and called 911.
Obviously, at 80, Carol
T\ifls was no marathon nm-
ner or Grand Canyon hiker.
But she faithfully drank
about 10 passes of water a
day, practicing what she
thought was a good habit.
That morning, when she felt
so bad, she downed four
glasses of water quickly,
thinking hydration would
help what felt like an irregu
lar heartbeat. Tufts was also
on medication for hyperten
sion and osteoporosis, and
also suffered mild hypothy-
roidism-a condition that can
exacerbate sodium loss.
“We see this frequently,
especially in elderly people.
The cause usually is all the
water they’re drinking, com
bined with the medications
they may be taking,” said Dr;
Ramakrishnan
Subbureddiar, a geriatric spe
cialist who treated Tlifts dur
ing her rehabihtation.
Now restricted to six cups of
fluids a day Tlifts has recov
ered, and is more cleai’headed
than she has been in months,
both she and her daughter
say
“I’m drying out, so to
speak,” Tufts laughed.
Books lead to discussion on loss of
friendship among four women
Continued from page 36
Bethesda, Maryland “But
just because 5^u’re a guy you
don’t always know how to
talk about it.”
Either way, finding a way to
make peace isn’t always pos
sible.
Though she misses her
friend, Eng says she has no
wish to reconcile because of
the emotional trauma
involved. “Now in my 30s, I’ve
rcafized it’s OK to have
friends on different levds,”
she says. “They don’t have to
premise to be there for the
rest of my hfe.”
There are those, however,
who do feel the need to reach
out to friends they’ve once
written off.
Amalie Young was so trou
bled by a 2001 breakup with
one of her best friends, who
lives in Oregon, that she sat
down a few months ago to
write her a letter—in part to
apologize for, as she sees it,
being too controlling of hei*
friend.
‘1 hied to make it as much
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about me—that I hadn’t been
a good friend,” says Young, a
30-year-old former reporter
who recently finished culi
nary school and is lookii^ for
a job in New York.
Her friend wrete back a few
weeks later—and they’ve
since spoken on the phone.
“The weight of not speaking
to her was lifted,” says Young,
who hopes to visit her mend
this summer. “The door’s now
open to communicate.”
Offill says several people
who’ve read “The Friend Who
Got Away” have told her
they’d like to reconcile with a
friend. “A few people,” she
says, “are even sending the
book to the friend they’re no
longer close to as an olive
branch.”
On the Net:
w^vw'friendw'hogotawayroin
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