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After Keith Berntsen went flying over the front of his four-wheeler 11 months ago, the doctors were blunt:

The most Keith would ever do is wake up, they told his parents, Wayne and Tami Berntsen. Their youngest son would be in a hospital bed the rest of his life.

"You know, you're probably right," Wayne Berntsen remembers telling them. "But I've never given up on anything, and I'm not going to start now."

Accident, aftermath

Keith was 16 that May day, out riding his new four-wheeler south of Clearwater.

By several measures, the flu season that's ending was more like the "moderately severe" 2003-04 season than the mild seasons of the past three years, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday:

• Doctors and hospitals reported that nearly 6 percent of their patients had flu symptoms. That compares with 3.2 to 5.4 percent in the previous three years.

• The percentage of deaths reported each week that were attributed to influenza and related pneumonia peaked at 9.1 percent, up from 7.7 to 8.9 percent in earlier years.

• Forty-nine states had "widespread" flu activity at once. That's a measure of how many parts of a state are reporting patients with flu, rather than a count of how many people are sick. In previous years, the number ranged from 41 to 49 states.

One big difference from the 2003-04 season: There was plenty of vaccine this time.

For busy people on the go, an ideal meal tastes great, is affordable and doesn't max you out on your daily count of fat and calories. We've asked readers to tell us where they order nutritious and delicious restaurant meals locally. You may have already read some readers' suggestions in The Eagle's Alive & Well magazine, and here are more to give you ideas on where to find a meal -- dine in or carry out -- that won't leave you feeling guilty.

We included specific nutrition information when it was available.

SMART SUBSTITUTIONS

"Red Robin -- known mostly for its (not-so-healthy) hamburgers -- has the best side dish of steamed vegetables," said Wichitan Shelley Closson. "They are perfectly cooked -- very lightly sauteed and not swimming in butter. The large bowl includes big hunks of broccoli, baby carrots, red bell pepper strips and snow peas."

She said that she substitutes the veggies for fries and takes half of her burger/veggie meal home to eat later.

Today is Earth Day, designed to celebrate the planet and commit to building a healthier, cleaner world.

"Discover energy you didn't even know you had," the Earth Day Network urges in inviting people to join its effort.

Organizers probably didn't have fitness in mind when they wrote that, but we think today is the perfect opportunity for thinking about ways to "green" your exercise routine. With that in mind, here are seven ideas to get you started.

Reach Karen Shideler at 316-268-6674 or kshideler@wichitaeagle.com.

1. Unplug the elliptical. Electrical devices continue to draw power even when they're turned off. As one person, you won't make a huge impact on the environment -- or your electric bill -- by unplugging. But if everyone unplugged, the impact would be huge.

Nine-year-old Jose Bustamante Jr.' s eye surgery Wednesday at Wesley Medical Center is a story that started in Nicaragua with stops in Honduras, Salina and Nigeria.

Jose lives outside Managua, Nicaragua's capital, with his parents and younger brother. Their house is near a golf course, and the neighborhood boys scavenge stray golf balls to trade and play with.

On March 2, Jose and two friends tried their golfing skills. A ball hit Jose in the left eye, splitting it open.

Surgeons stitched the eye but in the days that followed, the fluids in it drained and Jose lost his sight. His parents were given conflicting information about what to do.

That's where neighboring Honduras comes in. Jose's aunt lives there and works with a network of organizations, including Fellow Man International. It was started by Lisa Armstrong, a Salina nurse, before she moved to Honduras. They agreed that Jose needed additional medical attention.

Construction subcontractor George Evans leaves little doubt how it feels to go without health insurance. "It's hell," said Evans, of Wichita, who joined the uninsured about 18 months ago. When he gets sick, "I try to get over it the best I can," he said.

Like many American workers, Evans used to be a company man with full benefits. But now, he's classified as an independent contractor, meaning that his health insurance is his responsibility.

He said he has been basically healthy, but he worries that if he picks up an illness that takes more than bed rest to cure, "I'll have to try to find a place where they accept people without insurance."

Evans is the kind of person Sedgwick County officials had in mind Wednesday as they discussed newly launched outreach efforts to provide information and assistance to the uninsured.

The goal is for everyone to have a "medical home" -- a clinic, doctor's office or other facility where they can get care over a long period.

Allison and Jeff Hoskins of Goddard leave Saturday in search of a miracle.

Friends and family hope to produce their own little miracle here at the same time.

They're having a garage sale and prize drawings to raise money for the Hoskinses' medical bills.

Allison has Hodgkin's disease, a cancer of the lymph system. It was diagnosed in June, and she went into remission after six months of chemotherapy. But a CAT scan in March showed the cancer had returned and spread.

Jeff also has fought cancer. He learned in July 2006 that he had acute promyelocytic leukemia, a blood cancer. It went into remission in January 2007.

(LDOT) CLASSES HELP TYKES WITH DEVELOPMENT AND RELAXATION WHILE MOMS GET SOME TIME TO BOND.

"Ohhhhh, that flower smells soooo good," Sheryl Haynes says in a singsong voice, taking a deep breath and handing a bright yellow artificial daisy to 9-month-old Eloise Crabb.

"We're going to pretend we're breathing in those wonderful flower smells."

Welcome to Itsy Bitsy Yoga, where "ba ba ba ba ba" is more likely to be the mantra than "om" is.

Itsy Bitsy Yoga was started about a decade ago by Helen Garabedian, a Massachusetts mom, yoga teacher and infant developmental movement educator. Haynes, a mom, yoga practitioner and parent educator in USD 259's Parents as Teachers program, is the only certified teacher in Kansas.

About half of a group of proposals to deal with Kansas' health care problems could be implemented this year, a result that some see as failure and others greet as success.

The proposals include expanding the state health insurance program for children, providing dental care for low-income pregnant women, and implementing a statewide Community Health Record, a patient database of medical information.

Final action on the health reform proposals will be one of the major tasks awaiting legislators when they return to Topeka for their wrap-up session on Wednesday. A conference committee is to craft a compromise bill from the House and Senate versions of the reforms.

The reforms were proposed by the Kansas Health Policy Authority, created by legislators two years ago and charged with developing solutions to Kansas' health care problems. In November, the authority gave legislators 21 recommendations, including a statewide public smoking ban and a cigarette tax increase. Neither of those made it to the conference committee.

The cost of the compromise proposals being considered is about $9 million, a figure that could make acceptance difficult in a year where legislators are faced with revenue estimates that are less than had been expected.

"Nothing is going to make having a baby in the NICU a good experience," says James Wilson, the father of triplets who started life in the neonatal intensive care unit at Wesley Medical Center.

"But this is going to make it a lot easier."

"This" is the Wesley NICU family advisory council, of which Wilson is the chairman.

It's a new concept at Wesley, part of a nationwide focus on realizing that a hospital patient is more than an individual in a bed.

Sarah Mosier, neonatal nurse liaison at Wesley, said families have always been part of the picture in the NICU.

More than 70 cases of measles have been reported in 10 states this year, prompting federal health officials to warn Thursday that travelers and people who haven't been vaccinated are at risk for the highly contagious disease.

No cases have been reported in Kansas.

People with measles usually have a rash, a temperature and a cough. Measles is spread by coughing or sneezing, and the virus can be present two hours after the infected person has left a room. Complications can be fatal, though no deaths have been reported this year.

Nearly all of the cases are at least indirectly tied to travel: Someone was exposed in a foreign country and exposed others after returning to the United States, said Anne Schuchat, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. One of the children was exposed in a doctor's office waiting room.

Only one of the cases was in someone who had been immunized against measles, Schuchat said.

EN ROUTE

Swimsuits?

Check.

Maps?

Check.

The activities that Kelli Scott is hosting Tuesday in Augusta are a payback. In 2005, Scott learned that she had soft tissue sarcoma, a cancer that begins in the body's soft tissues, such as muscles or tendons. It's a rare cancer: Only about 9,500 cases a year are diagnosed, and they occur more often in children and young adults, according to the National Cancer Institute.

Scott, who is 39 and lives in El Dorado, successfully went through surgery and radiation, with support from her family and the online help she found through the Lance Armstrong Foundation.

Then she decided to help the group that had helped her. A year ago, she hosted Dining Against Cancer, a lunch and silent auction fundraiser for the foundation. She had three or four weeks to plan that one and raised a bit more than $1,000.

"This year, I started planning in January," she says, and she hopes to double the amount raised.

LiveStrong Day will be a full-day event at her business, the Sarah Chance Bakery/Serendipity Cafe & Boutique at 418 State St. in Augusta.

Three Wichita food service businesses have been fined by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment for allegedly violating the state's food service regulations.

KDHE issues fines when an inspector documents the same violation on consecutive visits. Fines are subject to appeal.

Here are the businesses, fines and alleged violations:

• El Centenario, 2201 W. Douglas, $500 fine for operating a food service establishment without a license. The fine was issued to Bar Ah.

The business could not be reached for comment.

A new Breast Cancer Survivorship Clinic could begin offering services and support to patients by early next year.

The clinic, which will help patients return to normal life, is a partnership of the University of Kansas School of Medicine-Wichita and the Mid-Kansas Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

It will be patterned after a similar clinic at the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City. That clinic opened in November, and Peggy Johnson of the Mid-Kansas Affiliate said it already has a waiting list.

The Wichita clinic will focus on services a woman -- or man -- needs after treatment. That may include helping women deal with the loss of a vital body part or with family issues, Johnson said. It also will help provide access to clinical trials to prevent recurrence of breast cancer and will provide support groups, information on exercise and conditioning, and nutritional advice.

Oncologist Tom Schulz said, "We won't be taking care of them. We'll just be focusing on these issues" and working with the patients' oncologists and primary-care doctors. Schulz is an assistant professor at the medical school and the first recipient of its Gaines Professorship to boost cancer research.

Beginning Wednesday, Dillons will offer 90-day supplies of certain prescription drugs for $10 and add several women's medications at a discount.

Dillons joins Wal-Mart and Target in offering the discounted drugs; the other stores announced their low-price drug programs last week.

Dillons' move is an expansion of a program it launched earlier this year, offering $4 prescriptions on 30-day supplies of more than 300 generic drugs, said spokeswoman Sheila Lowrie.

The women's medications will be $9 for a 30-day supply or $24 for a 90-day supply and include drugs such as tamoxifen to treat breast cancer, estrogen-methyltestosterone for hormone replacement, and alendronate, the generic version of Fosamax, for osteoporosis.

For more information about which drugs are on the list, visit www.dillons.com/generic/ or call 877-479-5478. The updated list won't be available until Wednesday.

Which water bottle is the right one for you?

It used to be easy to drink water: You turned on the tap and filled a glass.

Now, we balance the convenience of portable water with the environmental impact of disposable bottles and the health impact of sturdier ones.

What to do?

Depends on what your concerns are.

Richard Schodorf takes issue with Wichita's ranking as one of the worst 25 cities nationwide for its "walkability."

And he wants to do something about it.

Schodorf, a former assistant U.S. attorney and now president of Sunflower Title, is working with city and county leaders to get mileage markers and signs along Wichita's walking paths and to get 20,000 Wichitans committed to walking at least 30 minutes a day.

Today, he'll present his plan to the Wichita Park Board. He also is working with county officials.

He's putting his money where his mouth is: He is willing to spend $30,000 for the mileage markers and signs. Schodorf wants mileage markers every half-mile and signs at entry points to walking paths throughout the area.

Krista-Marie Gillespie of Wichita says that she has read a lot of diet books and that "The Biggest Loser Success Secrets" is "one of the better ones."

The book features profiles of some of the contestants from the TV show along with advice from them on what they did to get through the rocky road of weight loss.

Gillespie, 29, says the book "was very motivational" and filled with realistic advice about subjects such as how much time should be devoted to exercise and how to monitor food intake.

She likes the book's "flag" approach, with green, yellow and red behavioral flags to watch for. A green flag behavior, for example, is drinking lots of water. A yellow -- relying on caffeine for energy -- means time to re-evaluate. And a red is "You're definitely slipping."

Other things she likes:

Vicky Wiebe walks through the supermarket shaking her head these days over rising food prices. "We're struggling with it," said Wiebe, who works for the Butler County Health Department in El Dorado and whose husband is self-employed.

"And I know there are a lot of people that have it a lot worse than we do," she said.

One of those whom Wiebe knows well is Tricia Castleman, an El Dorado resident who receives money for food through the federal Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program, which seeks to help low-income families. Castleman is raising her 3-year-old grandson, Zander.

The two women collaborated recently with others to produce "Wonderful Incredible Cooking," a 52-page softbound cookbook that's being given to WIC recipients in Butler County.

The cookbook is designed to help WIC recipients get more fruits and vegetables into their families' diets -- a goal that nutritionists say practically everyone needs to work on.

Teresa Richards is a wife, a mother of two and a fifth-grade teacher at Cloud Elementary School, which doesn't leave her much time for exercise. So she was delighted to try a book-DVD combo called "15 Minute Total Body Workout" by Joan Pagano and even more delighted to find that it met her needs.

"I liked it," she says. The book has full-color pictures of the exercises, plus instructions on how to do them. Reading it first made it easy to follow the DVD routines.

The format calls for using an exercise ball and hand weights (soup cans could be substituted, Richards says) as part of the exercise routine. The first of the four 15-minute segments was fairly easy, she says.

"Each one gets a little bit harder."

Richards started watching what she eats last July and has lost 50 pounds by limiting portions and eating healthfully. She added exercise in January, so she is fairly new to it and says the book and DVD were a good fit for her.

THESE MOTHER-DAUGHTER WORKOUT BUDDIES FIND BENEFITS THAT GO FAR BEYOND FITNESS

They've watched each other make health a priority. They've made new friends. They've taken pride in their own and each other's accomplishments.

They've visited new shopping places.

And they've found a new depth to their relationship.

Those are among the benefits when mothers and daughters work out together, say three pairs of Wichita women who do.

The U.S. Court of Appeals on Friday reinstated a lawsuit contending that Wesley Medical Center and other hospitals owned by its parent company deliberately understaffed registered nurses to increase profits.

A three-member panel of the 10th Circuit Court in Denver returned the class-action lawsuit to federal district court in Wichita for further proceedings against the Hospital Corporation of America.

"I don't file cases that are meritless," said Kansas City lawyer Lawrence Williamson, who filed the case in 2006.

After U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten dismissed the lawsuit two years ago, HCA asked for sanctions against Williamson, including that he pay $400,000 to the 11 lawyers it hired to defend the suit. Marten denied the sanctions.

"The 10th Circuit decision shows the defendants' attacks on me personally were unfounded and that my clients' claims are legally sound," Williamson said.

There's a good chance you have them, if you're a woman -- though you may not know it unless your doctor happens to mention fibroids or they're causing you problems.

Most of us have some vague idea of what fibroids are -- but not much knowledge about them unless we or someone we're close to is plagued by them.

For a better understanding of this common female complaint, we turned to Wichita obstetrician-gynecologist Travis Stembridge, who also is director of the ob-gyn residency program for the University of Kansas School of Medicine-Wichita.

What are fibroids?

They're benign -- noncancerous -- tumors of the smooth muscle wall of the uterus, and they're the most common cause for hysterectomies. Some grow on the inner wall of the uterus; some grow on its outside; some grow in the muscle. They can be the size of an apple seed or the size of a grapefruit.