Inside Gillette Blog

1. What is your position and role at Gillette?  I am an inpatient orthopedic phyiscal therapist in St. Paul as well as an outpatient physical therapist at our Burnsville clinic.
2. What are some of your hobbies outside of work?  I enjoy baking, spending lots of time outside in the sunshine, and traveling
3. Do you have any children or pets? No kids yet, but I have a 3 year old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel named Ellie.
4. If you could travel anywhere, where would you go? I would have to pick Greece for the beaches as well as the history.
5. What is one fun fact about you? My 2 best friends have the same name as I do.

By John Garcia, M.D., Sleep Medicine Specialist

Sleep technologist appreciation week gives everyone an opportunity to celebrate the dedicated service provided by the Gillette Sleep Health technologists. 

Some do not know that four nights a week four technologists are caring for children in the sleep laboratory. During this time the sleep technologist do not take her eyes off the patient. This careful attention allows  for the accumulation of data that is not otherwise easily gathered. It is routine for the Gillette Sleep Health technologists to identify a severe breathing problem or seizure that had been hidden because parents appropriately are not able to stay up all night and gather the data as these trained professionals do.

In addition to providing clinical care Gillette Sleep Health technologists are involved in teaching, policy creation, advocacy, research, and technical applications.  They provide monthly in-service training integrating new technologies in the field.  Two of our group chose to attend the regional policy creation seminar to help begin to alleviate the burden of sleep deprivation on our state's teenagers by advocating for an 8:30 AM high school start time.. The policy and procedure manual integrates recent research into technological applications provided on a nightly basis. These new technologies include average volume assured pressure support, transcutaneous carbon dioxide monitoring and actigraphy to name a few.

The technologists have partnered with almost every clinical subgroup in the hospital here at Gillette including the craniofacial clinic, postoperative nursing group, information technology, and neuromuscular diseases group.  They are involved in ongoing data gathering for research with Rett syndrome, traumatic brain injury, and CPAP mask desensitization.

Together the group of sleep technologist represent over 100 years of total sleep technology experience. Over 1000 children and young adults have been served by the gillette sleep technologist since its inception six years ago. The dedicated service of the Gillette Sleep technologists is appropriately celebrated this week.

Joey Prusak, the 19-year-old manager of a Hopkins, Minn., Dairy Queen store, had just finished serving one of his regular customers when he witnessed behavior best described as a random act of unkindness.  His customer, a visually impaired man, unknowingly dropped a $20 bill from his pocket.  A woman in line behind him quickly picked up the money and slipped it into her purse.  Prusak earned national acclaim when his good deed—refusing to serve the woman, then giving his customer $20 from his own wallet—exploded on the Internet. 

Prusak has since received praise from millions (including Dairy Queen owner Warren Buffett!) for his actions—a good deed he modestly describes as “the right thing to do.”  And this week, Dairy Queen honored Prusak in a way that’s in keeping with the spirit of his actions—presenting a $5,000 check in his name to Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals, the company’s charitable partner.  Locally, those funds will help thousands of children treated at St. Paul, Minn. based Gillette Children’s Specialty Healthcare.

Dairy Queen President and CEO John Gainor also presented Prusak with the company’s prestigious Red Spoon Award in recognition of his actions, which reflect the company’s commitment to integrity

On Saturday, Sept. 28, Gillette Children’s Specialty Healthcare hosted its second annual comedy event, Laugh Out Loud Twin Cities, with resounding success.  The event drew coverage from several television outlets, including KARE, WCCO and FOX 9. It also received significant Twitter interactions from local celebrities, including KARE’s Jerrid Sebesta (the event's emcee, pictured here with headliner Howie Mandel), KS95’s Shannon Holly, the Star Tribune’s Neal Justin, and Howie himself.

1. What is your position and role at Gillette? Do you have a favorite story or memory? I am a Physical Therapist and Rehab Supervisor at the Maple Grove location.  I love all of the pictures and artwork patients have given me over the years.

2. What are some of your hobbies outside of work? I enjoy spending time outdoors and with family and friends. I also enjoy baking and taking pictures.
3. Do you have any children or pets? I have a 5 year old son who just started kindergarten this year.
4. If you could travel anywhere, where would you go? Australia! I have wanted to go ever since I was 10 years old as my uncle had traveled there and had wonderful stories to share. I will get there someday!
5. What is one fun fact about you? I am a cancer survivor of almost 18 years. I was diagnosed when I was 17 and it was always my mission to give back and that is what I feel I do each day at Gillette!

1. What is your position at Gillette?  I am a Senior Interface/Integration Developer in Information Systems.  I am part of the team that builds and maintains Gillette’s interfaces which send data between different applications and organizations.  

2. What are some of your hobbies outside of work?  I enjoy reading, family, gardening, making bad puns, rock hunting, and exploring new places.

3. Do you have any children or pets? Yes, two grown sons and two over grown shih tzus.

4. If you could travel anywhere, where would you go?  My next trip is to Singapore, then Ireland and New Zealand are on the top of my list.   

5. What is one fun fact about you? I was at the Arc de Triomphe to watch the riders finish the 100th Tour de France in July.  
 

I am certain you want a short snippet of why our son is great. Well, I just don’t know how to condense why he is so great into a short sentence. So, I am going to take a chance on faith and my heart and tell you as quickly as I can.

I want people to know what our son Rayf, almost 3, has gone through to be this great. I also want to raise awareness about child neglect and the importance of good foster parents.

Rayf was born at 24 weeks with two grade four brain bleeds, which left him with left sided paralysis and weakness. The bleeding also caused severe cerebral palsy and cortical visual impairment.

Rayf came to us at 10 months old weighing roughly 8 pounds. He had been neglected so badly that his hair and nails had quit growing, which caused his major organs to shut down. He was covered in scabs from scabies tunneling all over his body, and his body and skull were malformed from lying in the same position for so long. He was so weak that he lost his sucking reflex, which made his feedings take two hours. Rayf does not sit, crawl or walk unaided, yet. He babbles but cannot speak.

Fast forward to today and you will find a handsome, happy, blue-eyed boy smiling at you. He is love. He does not know hate. He holds no grudges. He is capable of learning. He has done so many things people said he would never do. He has the most infectious laugh. He amazes us every day. If you spend any amount of time with him and leave unhappy, there is something dreadfully wrong with you. 

I am not saying this journey is going to be easy. We have four children: two biological boys, ages 9 and 8, and God blessed us with Rayf’s baby sister, who just turned 2. We officially adopted them this past spring. We are still saving for a handicapped van, ramp and bathroom for Rayf, but we make the best of it because he is so worth it. I know he was meant to be there. Rayf is our Kid of the Day!

1. What is your position and role at Gillette? I am a Occupational Therapist in the Inpatient Rehabilitation Program.

2. What are some of your hobbies outside of work? Gardening, fishing,  skiing, hiking, and a variety of craft projects
3. Do you have any children or pets? I have 2 step children 18 (Lexis), and 14 years old (Nolan) and 3 dogs (Leo, Gus and Moe)
4. If you could travel anywhere, where would you go? I have many places on my bucket list for travel, Iceland, Ireland, New Zealand to name a few
5. What is one fun fact about you? I used to be a ski instructor in Colorado

By Kristin Ries, OTR

Step inside the Gillette rehabilitation therapies gym and you may notice the inclusion of some new technology helping kids to use their muscles to better be able to do the things that kids do best. One of the newest pieces of equipment in the rehab gym is called the ArmeoSpring.

The ArmeoSpring is used as part of a program for Upper Extremity Functional and Intensive Therapy (UFIT), which also includes therapy activities such as constraint induced movement therapy. These types of therapy activities help kids to strengthen their arm muscles in order to improve their ability to use both arms together for everyday kid activities.
 

The ArmeoSpring is a computer enhanced therapy activity, which uses a gravity-assisted exoskeleton to support a child’s arm as they move and interact with virtual reality activities on a computer screen. The exoskeleton measures the child’s arm movement and grasp as they are motivated to move and have fun with the interactive games.

Kids with weakness in one or both arms caused by a variety of diagnoses are appropriate to participate in UFIT, including using the ArmeoSpring as part of their therapy program. The occupational therapist working with a child using the ArmeoSpring will be interested to hear what kinds of activities he or she would like to be able to better participate in as they begin the therapy program. Our goal together will be to improve a child's ability to participate in everyday activities...including all things kids do best!

Contact an occupational therapist in the Gillette therapy department at 651-229-3900 to learn more information about UFIT or the ArmeoSpring technology.

1. What is your position and role at Gillette? I am a Physical Therapist Assistant in the Rehabilitation Therapies Department.  I have been here for 15 years and practicing Physical Therapy for 18 years.  I am also the facilitator for the Spinal Cord Injury Team here at Gillette.  Do you have a favorite story or memory?  I was working with a patient who was a teenager.  He was getting frustrated with some of the activities he had to do and he would swear in the gym.  I told him that I understood that it was hard and frustrating but he couldn’t swear because there were little kids around.  We came up with a code word that sounded a bit better.  “Suga” became our therapy swear word for the rest of his stay in the hospital.  To this day I still see him and he and I use that same term for things that are difficult. 

2. What are some of your hobbies outside of work? I like to do a variety of things from camping to baking to listening to country music.   I love to play volleyball.  I love photography and I then do Scrapbooking with all the pictures that I take.  I love to travel so coaching and being the manager aka. “do everything girl” for the MN Northstars Quad Rugby team has allowed me to travel many places and take lots of photos. 

3. Do you have any children or pets? I have a Lowchen.  What is that do you ask?  It is a small breed of dog that you may have seen in a Dog show that looks like a little lion.   I don’t care for the professional cut so my “Bear” is all the same length of hair on her body and the hair on her legs and face is a little longer.  She looks like a teddy bear so that is how she got her name. 

4. If you could travel anywhere, where would you go? Australia is my dream vacation spot.

5. What is one fun fact about you? I have a very large family and most of us are very close!  My mom is 1 of 8 so growing up our holiday gatherings were easily 40-50 people.  Today, my immediate family is at 25 and counting.  We all live in either MN or WI too!