Only Positive News

This is great news for people suffering from heart problems: Congenitive heart failure, which is caused by the loss of heart muscles, affects almost 5 million Americans.  Even with all of the treatments physicians currently have, the current prognosis for congentive heart failure isn’t good.

Researchers have conducted studies by injecting failing hearts with the patient’s stem cells.  The studies have shown that these hearts have begun to pump blood more efficiently.  While more studies are needed before this can become a routine procedure, this is a great step forward in from simply treating symptoms to actually working to repair the “problem”.

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Courage can sometimes be a nebulous concept to define, we know it when we see it, but to put to words what it is, sometimes eludes us.

But it hasn’t eluded Amy Fenzel-Mergott.  She’s 32, the mother of two, the coach of a high school’s girls soccer team, and she’s battling breast cancer.  But instead of wringing her hands, she’s taken a bring it on attitude.  She’s getting treatments and living life to the fullest, even through the pain.  She’s trained and competed in a triathlon, looking forward to one the following year.  She’s not letting it conquer her spirits or her resolve.

There are no pity parties, nor will there be.

While she’s not alone in the diagnosis, she stands out as an example to her team and her community of pressing on despite all odds, and reaching out to others in the process.  She’s special because she chooses to fight and not let the disease win.  We should all be so courageous in the face of hardships in our own lives, overcoming and not capitulating to the troubles.

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Mike McCoy is not just any sheriff.  He is a sheriff with a kind heart and a lot of endurance.  This Peoria, Illinois sheriff runs for the kids at the St. Jude Hospital in Memphis.  McCoy says that he runs for them because they can’t.  McCoy began staging runs in 1982.  Back then their goal was $25,000 and they were unable to meet it.  Today, their goal is $1 million and they should top it in pledges and donations. 

McCoy has always said that nothing would keep him from running for the kids.  However, this year McCoy’s pledge was tested when he was hit by a truck in January.  The truck hit both him and another runner shattering McCoy’s pelvis and almost killing him.  The doctors believed that he would never be able to run again but McCoy wasn’t going to let that happen.  He may be slower than he was in the past, but he is more motivated than ever.  He believes that he has been given a second chance for the children he dearly loves and cares for.

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Animals and animal lovers should be very happy today.  A piece of legislation called the Pets Evacuation and Transportation Standards (PETS) Act has been approved and finalized by both the house and senate.  It’s now just waiting for the President’s signature and approval.

The PETS Act will require local and state authorities to include evacuation of pets in their emergency preparedness plans to qualify for FEMA grants.  The act also outlines the need for FEMA to help agencies in making these plans and arrangements.  Finally, it will ear-mark funds to allow for pet-friendly emergency shelters.

Since two-thirds of American households have pets, this is great news.  During the Hurricane Katrina disaster, many families had to choose between their own safety and the safety of thier pets (who in many cases are considered a member of the family).  Once this bill is passed, they won’t need to make those heart-wrenching decisions during times of disaster anymore.

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Belle, a beagle, received a “Vita” award on Monday in Washington, D.C.  After her owner, Kevin Weaver, collapsed from a diabetic seizure Belle bit into his cell phone and called 911. 

Belle had been trained to summon help in case of these circumstances.  She had been taught to bite the number 9 on the phone to call 911.  “There is no doubt in my mind that I’d be dead if I didn’t have Belle,” says Kevin Weaver.

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After 65 years a pair of siblings, separated during the Holocaust, have found finally found each other.

Hilda Shlick, 81, thought she had lost her entire family during the atrocities of the Holocaust.  Her grandsons Benny and David launched an internet search upon learning her maiden name, using the database through Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial.

The twenty year old grandsons found an entry, mistakenly listing their grandmother as dead.  They used that to trace the family, finding the fates of the rest of the family save one sister.  They also discovered that one of Hilda’s brothers, Simon Glasberg, was still living and in Canada.

They connected and met at the memorial in Israel, reunited at last, having not seen each other since they were separated in 1941.  They were overjoyed to find each other, finding still living family.  While the remainder of the family has passed on, they were hugging and crying and kissing each other, putting aside the sadness of others lost.

The database says the siblings are the second case of Holocaust survivors finding remaining family still living.  They are optimistic the success of Hilda and Simon will encourage others to seek out living family leading to more happy reunions.

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The space shuttle Atlantis has completed a job well done.  While docked at the International Space Station for about a week, the astronauts spent three spacewalks successfully attaching solar wings to the space station that will eventually help generate one-quarter of the station’s power (there will be another pair of wings added by 2010).  They’ve undocked from the station, orbited around the space station to check out their work and will return to Earth on Wednesday morning.

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Some people have no problem living with guilt.  They go on living as if they had never done anything wrong.  For others living with guilt is not that simple. Guilt nags at the mind and at the soul.  One Logan, Utah man had that problem.  As a child, he would steal candy in his backpack with his friends.  Shawn Seamons and is friends would steal more candy than he and his friends could eat in one week.  “I think we would just stash our backpacks full of candy, and just have an afternoon of sugar high and absolute fun,” says Seamons. Joanne Hansen, the owner of The Island Market where they stole their candy, never even knew that the kids were the candy thieves she had been battling.  The guilt weighed on Seamon’s mind for six years until yesterday when he came into the store and wrote a $200 check for Hansen.  He felt that he needed to pay her back for the years of candy that he and his friends had stolen.  “They would’ve never known. I know,” says Seamons and that is why it makes a difference.  Seamons could not bear to live with the guilt of knowing that he stolen candy from the store and paying Hansen back helped him to relieve some of that pressure.

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A 10 year old caramel-blonde cocker spaniel who had been relinquished by his owner four months ago has found a new “leash” on life.

Whiskey was cast in a New York based production of Annie out of a group of 11 other shelter dogs.  He posed for pictures and licked his 12 year old co-star, Marissa O’Donnell.

He will understudy the role of Sandy, the dog that befriends the orphan Annie.  The main dog filling the role, Lola, was also found in a shelter.  The choice of using otherwise forgotten dogs adds a new depth to the performance of a story that chronicles a lonely girl and her adoption by a billionaire.

The shelter has said that they hope that this role will help find a new home for Whiskey, and his son Cocoa, who were given up when their owners could no longer care for them.

It would be a charming and beautiful parallel to the play for the dogs.  The publicity should be a step in the right direction.

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Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon, of Vancouver British Columbia, decided to make their diet compliment their already green lifestyle — especially when they found out that most of the food that North Americans eat travel an average of 1500 miles before reaching our plates.

They made a commitment to only eat food from within a 100-mile radius of their home for an entire year.  Sure, they ate a lot of potatoes and spent a lot of time exploring their 100-mile radius to find the foods they’d enjoyed eating before this change, but they also learned a lot about how people eat:

 First of all, eating locally means eating or preserving fresh food and avoiding meals from the box and other pre-packaged items.  Secondly, they discovered that there are a lot of foods available locally once they learned the seasons and about seasonal foods.  Third, they also realized that eating locally means avoiding many of the preservatives and added sugars and fats that other foods “offered” them.

After their one-year experience they did incorporate some of their favorite foods back into their diet such as olives, beer and chocolate, but their experience has made them more committed to eating locally as much as possible.

Overall, Smith and MacKinnon were forced to answer intriguing questions involving self-sufficiency and how North Americans spend their time and have a lesson that everyone could learn a little from.  The best part?  This idea of eating locally and self-sufficiency has spread and people all over North America are giving it a try — some for a few weeks and others for just one meal, but either way it sure does raise awareness.

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