0 Comments | Roanoke Times & World News, Jan 3, 2010
Tech student, cancer survivor still proud of her battle scar
Erika Kratzer is an unlikely calendar girl, baring as she does a 12-inch belly scar stretching from her sternum to below her navel.
But the Virginia Tech doctoral student will for the sixth year in a row grace the cover of the “Colondar,” a swimsuit-style calendar featuring survivors of colon and rectal cancers.
The 2010 Colondar features 14 survivors, and Kratzer shares the cover this year with Cathy Aiken, an 86-year-old diagnosed with an advanced form of the disease in 1950.
This year the message of early detection is particularly urgent, as public health officials have documented an uptick in diagnoses of people younger than 30.
Kratzer said she suffered for months with symptoms before being diagnosed nearly a decade ago. She was 22.
House fire forces family from home
Members of a Pulaski family has been displaced after the lights on their Christmas tree caught fire Monday and spread to their furniture.
It was the latest in a string of at least six fires that have caused serious damage to New River Valley homes this month.
The fire at a home in the 100 block of Bertha Street was reported at 12:52 p.m. Monday, Pulaski Fire Chief Bill Webb said.
The family who rented the wood-frame home — a man, a woman, four children and a dog — weren’t home at the time, Fire Marshal Chip Hutchinson said. A neighbor saw smoke coming from the house and called 911, he said.
Hutchinson said the fire was caused by an electrical problem with the lights hung on an artificial tree in the living room. He said it was unclear whether the lights shorted out or simply got too hot aiken news
News of the week
News of the week
0 Comments | Roanoke Times & World News, Jan 3, 2010
Tech student, cancer survivor still proud of her battle scar
Erika Kratzer is an unlikely calendar girl, baring as she does a 12-inch belly scar stretching from her sternum to below her navel.
But the Virginia Tech doctoral student will for the sixth year in a row grace the cover of the “Colondar,” a swimsuit-style calendar featuring survivors of colon and rectal cancers.
The 2010 Colondar features 14 survivors, and Kratzer shares the cover this year with Cathy Aiken, an 86-year-old diagnosed with an advanced form of the disease in 1950.
This year the message of early detection is particularly urgent, as public health officials have documented an uptick in diagnoses of people younger than 30.
Kratzer said she suffered for months with symptoms before being diagnosed nearly a decade ago. She was 22.
House fire forces family from home
Members of a Pulaski family has been displaced after the lights on their Christmas tree caught fire Monday and spread to their furniture.
It was the latest in a string of at least six fires that have caused serious damage to New River Valley homes this month.
The fire at a home in the 100 block of Bertha Street was reported at 12:52 p.m. Monday, Pulaski Fire Chief Bill Webb said.
The family who rented the wood-frame home — a man, a woman, four children and a dog — weren’t home at the time, Fire Marshal Chip Hutchinson said. A neighbor saw smoke coming from the house and called 911, he said.
Hutchinson said the fire was caused by an electrical problem with the lights hung on an artificial tree in the living room. He said it was unclear whether the lights shorted out or simply got too hot
aiken news