Living Healthy

2003 saw endless evolutions in the health care landscape.

Good news first: The Cancer Center of Santa Barbara was able to purchase a new radiation therapy machine that promises to greatly reduce side effects from treatment for certain cancers. It’s reported to be the only one of its kind between Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area.

Also, the county public health department discovered that South Coast residents aren’t that unhealthy compared to the rest of the state — but they should wear their bike helmets more often.

It seems appropriate advice given regional nonprofits’ attempts at developing safer routes to schools, where kids can ride and walk in order to fight the growing and alarming obesity epidemic that became apparent in the area in 2003.

Organizations have sponsored myriad of public outreach events, like the Nutrition Olympics throughout the year to educate kids and adults on the importance of diet and exercise — and it appears their efforts have been well received by the community.

Through the year, other organizations have been actively working to treat autism, and a research center at UCSB is one of the country’s best.

But then there’s some bad news, too.

St. Francis Hospital closed its doors mid-summer, marking the end of an era and the closure of an institution that has played host to the births and passings of countless locals.

One of the most controversial aspects of the closure was the loss of the area’s only geriatric psych ward, and older patients were soon seen being bused to other counties for treatment.

While it might not have caused the hospital’s downfall, it surely didn’t help that governmental health care reimbursements are among the state’s lowest. With providers receiving less and less money for care, some are retiring early and others are moving out of state as stressed head hunters try to recruit new physicians to the area.

Some doctors are so fed up with the situation that they’ve started their own retainer practices, where they accept several thousand dollars a year per patient to remain on call.

On the corporate side of things, Mentor and Inamed, two South Coast medical device firms, have applied to reintroduce their silicone gel breast implants — banned for years over reported but somewhat unproven side effects — to the American market.

And on the personality side of things, plastic surgeon Dr. John Padilla made headlines locally after one of his patients passed away following a minor procedure. Although it was the second of his patients to die after surgery this year, a coroner’s report exonerated him from medical negligence.

AN ODDBALL DAY IN THE LIFE OF...

Of course, no year is complete without at least some truth being stranger than fiction.

This fall, a bovine at a Dos Pueblos High School cow pie bingo contest went AWOL, ran down Highway 101 for several exits and promptly disappeared into a Goleta lemon grove. Nobody has yet to turn it in, and administrators were said to be a little upset.

But they probably weren’t as upset as one Santa Barbara resident who chained herself to her front yard honeysuckles throughout the summer. Protesting the city’s requirement that she trim back the vines, she claimed an assortment of constitutional violations and her story went national — but when her front yard antics landed her in the hospital with a heart problem, the city came around and chopped them down anyway.

That smarts.

It also smarts when you get slapped with a dead animal, too: back in May, a fight took place between two UCSB frat brothers whose weapons consisted of nothing but a corpse.

Apparently the two were trying to whack each other in the face with a dead catfish that was floating in the school’s pool during a sorority fundraiser. One hit the other with the animal, whose two-inch long barb impaled the victim above the temple.

Paramedics weren’t amused, but did offer some advice: next time, use a cod.

When locals weren’t smacking each other with dead fish, they were involved in a series of street name smack downs, the first of which involved Magnolia Lane — no wait, Dixon Street — no, never mind, Magnolia Lane — no wait, Dixon…

Whichever it was, is, or will be, the tiny San Roque cul-de-sac was originally named Dixon Street — until the City Council changed it to Magnolia Lane in 2001 at the request of homeowners, who, through their lawyer, felt they’d suffer “irreparable damage” if they didn’t change the name to something less frumpy, dumpy, banal, nonpoetic, ugly, repugnant and artistically uninspiring, quote-unquote.

Woe were those living on Dixon Street, a road with such an undignified name.

And woe was Kathleen MacQuiddy Galbraith, who wrote to the city to say that the street was named after her grandfather and his son Dixon, and could you please change it back, thank-you-very-much.

Oops.

So the council reversed its decision — and then reversed its reversal this fall. It’s now Magnolia — for the time being. Stay tuned.

In the area’s other street name scrap, residents of Santa Claus Lane failed at an attempt to change the road to Seaside Village Drive.

The year just past also saw its share of cop chases, including an attempt by IV youth to steal a car. They turned it on and drove off through the city — but forgot to turn on the lights. They promptly ran into a light post and fled through a field, where law enforcement quickly apprehended them.

Another would-be car thief actually hopped into a squad car and drove off — the only perplexing thing is that before getting into the car, his hands were cuffed behind his back. Officers caught him without much effort.

Perhaps the year’s most spectacular car chase took place between Ventura and Los Olivos, where a man in nothing but his underpants led officers on a 100 mph pursuit before crashing into a North County vineyard and sprinting into the grapevines in his Skivvies.

Oh well — just another day on the sunny South Coast.

– Nathan S. Welton