Each year, nearly  500,000 calls to the Poison Control Center are about children ingesting medicines that belong predominately to parents and grandparents.

Safe Kids Worldwide shares the following tips about keeping your child safe from medicines that could have serious consequences for them.

Have a happy and safe Halloween!

From All of Us at “Can Do” Street On Halloween!

The Partnership for Food Safety Education (http://fightbac.org) offers the following tips for preventing foodbourne bacteria this Halloween:

• Keep all perishable food chilled until serving time. These include, for example, finger sandwiches, cheese platters, cut fruit or tossed salads, cold pasta dishes with meat, poultry, or seafood, and cream pies or cakes with whipped-cream and cream-cheese frosting. Cold temperatures help keep most bacteria from multiplying.
• To keep store-bought party trays cold, fill lids with ice and place trays on top.  Similarly, keep salads and other perishable items in bowls cold by nesting them in larger bowls of ice.
• Arrange food on several small platters. Refrigerate platters of food until it is time to serve, and rotate food platters within two hours.

• Bacteria will creep up on you if you let platters of food sit out for too long.  Don’t leave perishable goodies out for more than two hours at room temperature (1 hour in temperatures above 90°F).

• When whipping up Halloween treats, don’t taste dough and batters that contain uncooked eggs.
• Beware of  unpasteurized juice or cider that can contain harmful bacteria such as E.coli O157:H7 and Salmonella. Serve only pasteurized products at your Halloween party.
• Remind kids (and adults too!) to wash their hands before and after eating to help prevent foodborne illness.
• Bobbing for Apples – Try a new spin on bobbing for apples. Cut out lots of apples from red construction paper.  Write activities for kids to do on each apple, such as “say ABCs” or “do 5 jumping jacks”. Place a paper clip on each apple and put them in a large basket. Tie a magnet to a string or create a fishing pole with a dowel rod, magnet and yarn.  Let the children take turn “bobbing” with their magnet and doing the activity written on their apple.

•  Give children a fresh apple for participating in your food safe version of bobbing for apples .

During Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I am stepping out of my role as creator and writer for “Can Do Street, and stepping into my breast cancer survivor advocacy role. As a survivor of two primary breast cancers, 10 years apart, I’m asking you to consider what you know about your risks for breast cancer.

First, let me share that I am here today because of annual mammograms that found my cancers when they were still small and easy to treat. I didn’t need chemotherapy for either cancer because both were caught very early, before they spread beyond my breasts.

A few years after my first breast cancer, in 1999, I accepted a position as director of  the American Cancer Society’s NYC Patient Navigator Program. During the years I  was with the program, I met with thousands of women and several men diagnosed with breast cancer. Many believed the myths I share below; as a result they did not bother with comprehensive breast exams or, if over 40, annual mammograms.

From 2010 to 2014, I published a breast cancer blog. This experience continues to bring me in contact with women and men newly diagnosed with breast cancer, many of whom felt they had nothing to worry about as a result of believing one or more of the myths that circulate about breast cancer.

Sometimes we embrace myths about breast cancer rather than deal with the realities of the disease. Unfortunately myths can paralyze us and put us in danger. Here are some myths about breast cancer, that many accept as facts:

1. Breast Cancer Doesn’t Run in My Family, I’m Safe – Eighty to eighty-five percent of women who get breast cancer have no family history of the disease.

2. I’m Too Young for Breast Cancer – Breast cancer can affect women of any age. While the disease is more common in post-menopausal women, 5% of women diagnosed are between the ages of 20 and 39 years.

3. Breast Cancer Is a Death Sentence – When caught early, up to 98 percent of women survive at least five years.

4. All Breast Lumps Are Cancerous – Most breast lumps are not cancer, but all lumps should be checked thoroughly by a doctor.

5. Herbal Remedies and Dietary Supplements Can Help Treat Breast Cancer – No herbal remedy, dietary supplement or alternative therapy has been scientifically proven to treat breast cancer.

6. My Breast Lump is Painful, So it Must Not be Cancer – Not true; there’s no correlation between whether the lump is painful and whether it’s cancerous. Any lump needs to be checked by a doctor.

7. Breast Cancer is a Punishment from God- no, it is a disease

8. Stress Causes Breast Cancer – it doesn’t

9. Breast Cancer Jumps from one Breast to the Other – it doesn’t

10.Touching yourself in performing a breast exam is wrong- no, it can save your life

11. Men don’t get breast cancer– yes, they do

12. Mammograms hurt-not as much as childbirth

Risk Factors:

• Having breast tissue
• Aging
• Genetic factors – BRCA gene mutations
• Being significantly overweight
• Having dense breasts
• Moderate to heavy drinking
• Taking hormone replacement therapy

Additional Facts:

• Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women in the United States, other than skin cancer
• One in eight women will get breast cancer in her lifetime.
• Today there are more than 2.9 million breast cancer survivors in the United States.

Until we can prevent breast cancer, early detection is critical to surviving !

• If you are under 40, with no known risk factors, get a comprehensive breast exam when you get your annual pap test. If you are over 40, get an annual mammogram. Make it digital!
• Don’t let being uninsured keep you from getting a mammogram or a pap smear. Call your local Dept. of Health and ask them to guide you in accessing services from the Federal Center for Disease Control’s National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program (NBCCEDP),

Please share these myths, facts and risks about breast cancer with the women in your life.

Sources: American Cancer Society and the National Institutes of Health

As parents we all know that going to bed can be the toughest time of day for young children because it means separation from us and things they enjoy doing.

Bed time can, and often does, become the toughest time of our day as parents. Trying to get our children to bed on a regular schedule for their sake and for our ours can be a real challenge. They need a routine to insure a good night’s sleep. We need down time…our own time to unwind or get to things we can’t do when our children are up and need our attention.

The Sleep Foundation (http://www.sleepfoundation.org) shares information and sleep tips that may make nightly separation and a good sleep a regular happening and not a sometime thing.

Knowing that preschoolers often have trouble falling asleep and staying asleep, parents will have the most success if the stick to a regular bed time and a consistent bed time routine.

The bed time routine needs to be relaxing and have a calming effect. Storytellings, a lullaby, a bit of gentle cuddling are often successful in preparing a child for sleep.

Children need to get comfortable with their sleep environment. They need to sleep in the same sleeping environment every night. The room needs to be cool, quiet and dark, There should be no TV or computer game viewing equipment in the room.

School age children (5-12) need to unwind from the demands and stimulation of school, doing homework, and after school activities that can make it difficult to fall asleep. Research on sleep disturbances for this age group has found that consuming caffeine beverages, such as colas, extensive TV viewing, playing online computer games or surfing the net close to bed time are  major contributors to sleep problems.

Inadequate sleep is a blue print for daytime difficulties such as irritability, poor academic performance in school and social and behavioral problems.

This age group needs to understand the importance of good sleep. Parents and children need to talk about the need for a consistent bed time routine and stick to that routine whenever possible.

Just as with younger children, a winding down time is helpful: listening to soft music, reading a suitable book, working at a quiet hobby are all good choices.

The bedroom needs to be cool, dark and quiet and free of a TV, computer or any electronic game viewing equipment.

Establishing and adhering to bed time routines is not easy. It often takes much effort and patience. But, helping our children develop and maintain good sleep habits is a wonderful life-long gift that only we can give. It makes going to bed much easier.