Fever

"I guess I'll take my chances." I hear this a lot from patients when I fail to convince them about proper management and prevention of H1N1 flu. Why would someone in this day and age think like that? Why, when we have a rapid test to diagnose the flu; when we have two novel antiviral medications; when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are providing more timely information than one can read? Part of the problem is access to treatment. Most Americans don't have equal access to our arsenal against influenza, and much of that arsenal is imperfect.

The weather is warm without being scorching. The breezes are benign. And the weekend has an extra 24 hours. These are ideal conditions for an outbreak of "landscape fever," an affliction that sweeps across the region during Memorial Day weekend. Clad in garden gloves, wearing hats, their skin slicked with sunscreen, the afflicted will be outdoors rearranging the terrain, planting, trimming, laying down decorative stones. Bill and Sandy Fritz, for example, will be pulling up old stones and putting down a new flagstone path at their southern Pennsylvania home.

You might think doctors and nurses have discovered some secret formula for fighting the misery-inducing common cold. Turns out, the classic prescriptions of rest, fluids and an over-the-counter pain reliever and fever-reducer like aspirin, acetaminophen or ibuprofen topped medical staffers' personal choices in a survey of 43 medical workers by Dr. Kathi J. Kemper of Children's Hospital in Boston.Other findings:* 81 percent used some cold medication; 60 percent favored fever reducers, while a third used decongestants.

A 16-year-old junior at Annapolis High School died Saturday of bacterial meningitis, prompting Anne Arundel County health officials yesterday to seek people who had come in close contact with her and might have been exposed to the disease.The student, Cara Margaret Petrini, was taken to Sinai Hospital in Baltimore on Friday, after complaining of flu-like symptoms last week.The girl "was relatively better for a few days," said Dr. Sohail Qarni, a county Health Department consultant for communicable diseases.

It's a mystery that has stumped doctors and historians for almost 2,500 years: What killed Pericles, the leading statesman of ancient Athens, and helped to crush one of the greatest cultures the world would ever see?You'd think the clues were all there. Historians were left with a detailed account of the symptoms that claimed not only Pericles but a quarter of the city's population in 429 B.C. -- fever, pustules, chest pain, and a thirst that drove crazed victims to leap into rain barrels.

Mom's the best. Apple pie is fine.But if you really want to make an American's heart pound, you're talking white-line fever -- horsepower, cubic centimeters of displacement, bucket seats and a wild, swinging needle on the tachometer.For you Americans who love cars, central Florida is the place to go.You can settle into Orlando for a heavy dose of internal combustion or head in almost any direction -- east to Daytona and Edgewater, north to Ocala and southwest to Sarasota.Piston-heads, prepare to be dazzled.

Local actress Joy Ehrlich reprises her tour-de-force performance in Wallace Shawn's one-person show, "The Fever," at Villa Julie College Feb. 19-21.Ehrlich, an instructor at Villa Julie, first performed "The Fever" at the Theatre Project last season. In the Obie Award-winning play, she portrays a woman tormented by guilt over the inequity between the privileged classes -- of which she is a member -- and the impoverished, tortured citizens of the war-torn, Third World countries she visits.

EVERYONE IN my house has been sick recently: fever, achiness, a violent cough that starts deep within your chest and feels like you're about to hack up a pancreas.At one point, all three kids were home sick from school and I was simultaneously dying on the couch, a situation so grim I kept hoping someone would break in and smother me with a pillow to end the misery.Here's something I learned from the whole experience: Don't bother trying to make conversation with your kids when they're sick.

OK, OK. So the next millennium doesn't really start until Jan. 1, 2001. Try telling that to all the folks marketing millennium fever by hyping New Year's 2000.If you've reached the point where it's "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em," you might want to consult "The Millennium: A Rough Guide to the Year 2000" -- a pocket-size, 264-page guide from the travel gurus at Rough Guides.Along with information on festivals, projects and mega-events, author Nick Hanna tries to offer advice about the dreaded "Y2K" computer chaos some fear might occur on Jan. 1, 2000.

Wild-card fever -- DOWN -- The Yankees were ruled out of the AL East race when they fell eight games behind the Orioles last July 4. A week away from Independence Day, the O's trailed wild-card leaders Boston and Texas by 10 1/2 and 9 1/2 games, respectively, going into yesterday. Do the math. Calculators optional.Pete Smith -- DOWN -- Career National Leaguer has pitched with leads in all three AL starts but averaged fewer than five innings. He has yet to claim a win and carries a 9.64 ERA.Doppler radar --DOWN -- The Orioles thought they had stolen a 5 1/2 -inning win Tuesday, but a supposed four-hour rain delay became an 86-minute bathroom break.

WNBA Finals, Game 5 Fever@Mercury 8 p.m. [ESPN2] Indiana missed a chance Wednesday night to clinch in front of Colts stars Peyton Manning and Reggie Wayne. Let's see if the Cardinals' Kurt Warner and Larry Fitzgerald show up tonight in Phoenix for the decisive fifth game. What would they see? Maybe a Hail Mary basket put up by the Fever's Katie Douglas, near left, or the Mercury's Diana Taurasi.

"I guess I'll take my chances." I hear this a lot from patients when I fail to convince them about proper management and prevention of H1N1 flu. Why would someone in this day and age think like that? Why, when we have a rapid test to diagnose the flu; when we have two novel antiviral medications; when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are providing more timely information than one can read? Part of the problem is access to treatment. Most Americans don't have equal access to our arsenal against influenza, and much of that arsenal is imperfect.

WNBA Toliver leads Sky past Fever, helps Chicago near playoffs Kristi Toliver (Maryland) came off the bench to score 19 points, Candice Dupree and Mistie Bass had 15 points each and the host Chicago Sky beat the Eastern Conference-leading Indiana Fever for the first time in four meetings this season, 86-79, on Thursday night. "Anytime you can get that kind of contribution from the bench and then your starters come along [and] finish the game for you, that's a huge thing," said Chicago coach Steven Key, whose team closed in on a postseason berth.

WNBA Turnovers doom Mystics in 82-70 loss to Fever Tamika Catchings scored a season-high 28 points, grabbed 10 rebounds and was 14-for-14 from the free-throw line as the Eastern Conference-leading Indiana Fever defeated the host Washington Mystics, 82-70, on Tuesday night. Catchings also had three steals as the Fever (12-3) used its pressure defense to force the Mystics into committing 20 turnovers and turn a five-point, fourth-quarter lead into its seventh double-digit win of the year.

Coxsackieviruses can cause many clinical syndromes that overlap with other viruses, including common cold symptoms, fever, sore throat, rashes, eye infections and diarrhea, says Dr. Robert Ancona, chief of pediatrics at St. Joseph Medical Center. He writes that the three most identifiable syndromes caused by coxsackieviruses are: acute hemorrhagic conjunctivitis, herpangina and hand, foot and mouth disease. * Preschool-age children, especially those 11/2 to 3 years old, are most at risk to catch these viruses, though any age group can be affected, especially with acute hemorrhagic conjunctivitis.

Many parents worry too much about the danger of childhood fevers and tend to overtreat even the mildest temperatures, according to research unveiled yesterday by Johns Hopkins doctors. A little fever, they say, may actually be good for kids. The findings confirm what pediatricians have heard from panicked parents over the years - especially those who call because their child has a temperature of 99 degrees (it's not technically a fever until it hits 100.4 degrees, doctors say). Often, they report that they've given more medication than necessary for higher temperatures.

The stories were hard to believe at first -- tales of autistic children coming down with fevers and suddenly acting like a normal child. Youngsters who routinely told their parents to go away instead said, "Play with me." Children who usually shunned physical contact cuddled up to mom on the couch. Many parents were sure their doctors would think those stories were sheer fantasy. But Dr. Andrew W. Zimmerman, a pediatric neurologist at Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore, heard so many of these accounts over the course of his 40-year career that he decided to see if science would back them up. In a surprising finding published in this month's issue of the journal Pediatrics, Zimmerman and his colleagues determined that fever-induced improvements did, in fact, occur in more than 80 percent of the 30 autistic children they studied.

Soccer -- D.C. United traded defender Bobby Boswell, the 2006 Major League Soccer Defender of the Year, to the Houston Dynamo yesterday for goalkeeper Zach Wells and a conditional 2009 draft pick. WNBA -- The Indiana Fever hired Lin Dunn, an assistant on Brian Winters' staff with the Fever the past four years, as its eighth coach. Winters was 78-58 in four seasons and took the team to the playoffs three times, but the Fever averaged just 72.9 points last season and Winters was let go with one year left on his contract.

The weather is warm without being scorching. The breezes are benign. And the weekend has an extra 24 hours. These are ideal conditions for an outbreak of "landscape fever," an affliction that sweeps across the region during Memorial Day weekend. Clad in garden gloves, wearing hats, their skin slicked with sunscreen, the afflicted will be outdoors rearranging the terrain, planting, trimming, laying down decorative stones. Bill and Sandy Fritz, for example, will be pulling up old stones and putting down a new flagstone path at their southern Pennsylvania home.

Good morning --Ben Roethlisberger --You had a slight fever Monday night? But you didn't play so hot.