Thursday, February 13, 2014
Childhood cancer and amputation are no match for United States Olympic Sled Hockey teams Steve Cash...
Thud. Creak.
Thud. Creak.
Ms. Diehl offers a big grin, but the teacher's welcome isn't enough to calm her newest kindergartner. Not when there's at least 25 cold, perplexed stares fixed on him as he carefully works his way past his whispering classmates to the open seat at the back of the room.
Thud. Creak.
It's the first day of school in Overland, Mo., and Steve Cash can't hide his bald head, freshly shaved since the start of chemotherapy. Nor can he hide the creaking noise he makes when he awkwardly takes a step with his new right prosthetic leg.
As the day goes on, Cash's classmates pepper him with questions -- the kind full of blunt straightforwardness that only young children ask.
"What's wrong with your leg?"
"Why do you walk funny?"
"Why do you look like that?"
In October 1992, Cash was diagnosed with a type of bone cancer in his right knee called osteosarcoma. When he was three, he underwent complex surgery that resulted in the amputation and recreation of his leg. Doctors amputated from right below the knee up to the top of Cash's femur. They then took the perfectly healthy lower part of his leg, turned it around so that Cash's heel and ankle could be made into a knee joint and attached it to his hip. Cash would wear a prosthetic from his "knee" down, the first of which had a wooden core that produced the creaking noise when Cash walked.
Learning how to be upright and ambulatory following surgery took six months, and even then they weren't skills he mastered. Coming to terms with his new life took time as well, roughly eight years.
His peers often didn't help much. As Cash struggled throughout elementary school to learn how to use his new "knee" and run as if he had two normal legs, his classmates would bully and mock him.
"That really drew a lot of attention," Cash explained of having to kick his right leg outward and swing it around when he would attempt to run.
"I kind of dreaded going outside and playing with the other kids."
Some days brought worse ridicule than others. He'd come home from school and lock himself in the tiny bedroom he shared with his three older brothers. He would lie on his bed and wonder why he had to go through all of this.
Growing up, all Cash wanted to do was be like everybody else. With two of his brothers interested in hockey, it wasn't long after Cash was walking around with his prosthetic that the 5-year-old was strapping on hand-me-down Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Rollerblades for the first time.
Cash spent countless hours practicing skating with the help of his mother on the patio out behind the family's gaudy, yellow, aluminum-sided two-story house on Osgood Avenue. It was during these hours that Cash was changed. He felt free.
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Russell Isabella/USA TODAY SportsWith Steve Cash between the pipes, Team USA will defend the gold medal at the Sochi Paralympics in March.
"I didn't want to give that feeling up," he said.
When he was 8, Cash got his first taste of hockey. After duct taping pillows and newspapers to his legs for makeshift pads, Cash would stand in front of the fence in his backyard and face shot after shot from his brothers. Before Cash knew it, five or six hours after school would pass as afternoons gave way to nightfall.
"All I ever wanted to do was get home, put on the skates or put the pads on and play hockey with my brothers," Cash explained. "It was really kind of like a paradise and it still is to this day."
By the time he was a sophomore in high school, Cash had followed his older brother James' path to the net. All the years spent playing stand-up inline and ice hockey against older kids on his brothers' teams had turned Cash into a standout and starter on the varsity inline team.
That same school year, Steve was at a local inline tournament in St. Louis when he met Mike Dowling. Dowling was at the event promoting a sled hockey team he coached, and told Cash a little bit about the adaptive sport that has its players propel themselves with two 3-foot-long hockey sticks that have spikes attached.
That weekend, Steve was on the ice with Dowling's Disabled Athlete Sports Association Jr. Blues on a trial basis. It wasn't long until the trial became permanent.
Steve's success between the pipes didn't skip a beat as he transitioned to sled hockey. In January 2005, he was spotted at a tournament in Detroit by the coach of the United States men's national team and an invitation to try out in Colorado Springs, Colo., soon followed.
Five months later, Steve was on an airplane for the first time by himself as he flew out to Colorado. The tryout was a three-day jaunt, but he made the most of it, giving up only one goal through four scrimmages against the adults. By the end of the weekend, Steve had made the team.
"It totally changed the way I felt about his future and what he could accomplish," his mother, Tracy, said. "I always kind of feared that he wouldn't be what he would've been without cancer."
"Having a disability doesn't necessarily make you who you are. It's just something that forces you to live life in a different way."-- Steve Cash
Learning now how to play the sport he loved in a sled wasn't Steve's only new experience. Sled hockey provided his first encounters with others just like him.
Prior to joining the Jr. Blues, Steve had never met someone else with a disability. His first practices with the team, and with kids younger than he was, and sometimes with disabilities worse than his, were an eye opener.
"Looking back on it now, I can see why other kids stared at me," he said, remembering that it would take him 15 to 20 minutes to get ready for practice, but some of his teammates would require 45 to 60 before they could get on the ice.
His teammates on the Jr. Blues showed Steve how fortunate he was. Looking around, he realized his disability and life could be much worse and that there was more to life than what he had previously known.
Despite it all, Steve was still uncomfortable being around others with disabilities. It wouldn't be until after his first couple of trips with the men's national team that this unease would go away.
It was then that he realized, "Having a disability doesn't necessarily make you who you are," he said. "It's just something that forces you to live life in a different way."
The atmosphere inside UBC Thunderbird Arena during the gold-medal game of the 2010 Vancouver Paralympics was not like anything Steve had experienced. He was on Team USA when it won bronze at the Torino Games, but he was a backup in Italy. It isn't like being a starter in a country that, when it comes to hockey, vehemently loathes anything red, white and blue.
At 1:40 into the second period of the decisive contest between the U.S. and Japan, action on the ice was whistled dead. Japanese captain Takayuki Endo was awarded a penalty shot after being interfered with from behind on a breakaway resulting in Endo barreling into Cash.
One of Japan's biggest offensive threats was now looking to even the game at 1-1.
The arena rumbled as nearly 8,000 fans made their presence known before Endo took the puck at center ice. Many were Canadian and chanting in unison, practically pleading for their neighbors from the south to fall short.
"You could feel it through your bones," Cash remembers. "It's something that I can feel to this day."
As Endo touched the puck, Cash sat still in the crease, focusing on the moment and what it would mean if he stopped the penalty shot. Endo, a double amputee known for his ability to change direction, came skating down the slot.
"Don't commit too early," Cash thought to himself, waiting for Endo to make the first move. "Be calm and be composed."
But the move never came. Instead, Endo snapped a shoulder-height shot toward Steve's glove side, which the netminder snatched.
With 1:55 left in the game and momentum on its side, the U.S. went on the power play still leading 1-0. The Japanese tried to kill the penalty and equalize on the scoreboard, but the Americans continued to work the puck. Less than 40 seconds after Noritaka Ito was sent off for holding in his offensive zone, Taylor Lipsett deflected a shot from the low slot past Japan's off-balance goalie for the U.S.'s gold medal-insuring second goal of the game.
As the American flag arose high above the ice toward the end of the gold medal ceremony, the national anthem played over the public address system. Steve and his teammates sang along, their arms draped around each other. The medal dangling from Steve's neck felt weightless.
"We worked so hard," said Cash, whose shutout performance in each of Team USA's five games in Vancouver set an individual Paralympic record that, in the current system, can never be broken.
"It was that moment when we were singing the national anthem that I knew that we were going to be bound as brothers forever."
Following the Vancouver Games, Cash became a local celebrity at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, where he is studying business. He was featured on the cover of a magazine that's published at the university and people stopped him to shake his hand and hear his stories.
As time has passed and people have come and gone on campus, Cash has become another face in the crowd. For someone who so badly wanted to be normal growing up, he doesn't mind the lack of attention as he juggles college courses with strengthening his post-hockey résumé, all the while preparing to defend his gold medal at the Sochi Paralympics in March.
Those close to him, though, see the 24-year-old for something more: an example of perseverance.
Older brother James explains, "Anything I am going to run into in life is probably just a speed bump compared to the mountain that he climbed over."
Every little bit helps as Lee Bissell reaches out to help Jean Winsor with her mortgage...
Unemployed worker Jean Winsor was close to breaking point after her jobless benefits expired at the end of December.
She wore extra layers to keep warm in a bid not to run up her electricity bills and contemplated selling her living room furniture to make her monthly mortgage payment of $481.
That's when hope came calling in the guise of CNNMoney reader Lee Bissell, who read about her plight and offered to pay Winsor's mortgage for a month. CNNMoney first wrote about Winsor in December, when she was among a million Americans who lost jobless benefits.
Bissell is not a millionaire with thousands of dollars to spare. In fact, she is a federal worker living in Herndon, Va. supporting a sick husband, a 15-year-old daughter and an 8-year-old son.
What resonated with Bissell was that Winsor had worked as a home health care aide for 12 years before losing her job.
Bissell's 64-year-old husband is struggling with end-stage dementia, and aides like Winsor have been a godsend.
Bissell wanted to express her gratitude by helping one health care aide in need.
"I don't know that I can do it again. But in that moment, it felt right," said Bissell. "I feel really blessed I can do something like that and not worry about paying my own bills."
Winsor dissolved into tears when she heard Bissell wanted to help. She hasn't been able to find work after losing her job a year ago in Shinglehouse, Pa.
Winsor sent Bissell a thank you card with a copy of her receipt to express how grateful she was and also to attest that she used the check to pay for her mortgage.
"It made me feel like a heel in one sense and very blessed in another," Winsor said.
Winsor is among more than 1.6 million jobless Americans entering their sixth week without federal benefits.
It has meant really tough choices for the long-term unemployed. Winsor borrowed money from a friend to pay car insurance in January. Last week, she borrowed a car from another friend to get to the grocery store, because she couldn't afford to fuel up her own car.
Extended federal benefits expired the week of Dec. 28. The program first went into effect during the recession, in June 2008. Benefits were put in place to help unemployed workers who couldn't find jobs and whose state unemployment insurance had run out.
Back then, the jobless rate was 5.6%. It later climbed to more than 10% in 2009, and the government extended or expanded the federal benefits 11 times into the weak recovery,most recently in January 2013.
Members of Congress have attempted to extend benefits over the past several weeks but haven't been able to get enough support.
Federal worker Bissell was hopeful that Congress would step up its compassion for the struggling jobless and extend federal jobless benefits.
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Canadian ski coach Justin Wadsworth lends a hand to Russian skier Anton Gafarov at the Olympics in Sochi....
You don't have to win a medal to be branded an Olympian. Sometimes you don't even have to compete to show what true sportsmanship is about.
Justin Wadsworth proved that.
During the men's cross-country sprint in the mountains above Sochi, Wadsworth, the head coach of the Canadian team, ran onto the course Tuesday to help a Russian skier who had fallen three times and broken a ski.
The base of Anton Gafarov's left ski had come off. Forget about reaching the podium; Gafarov looked as if he would suffer an inglorious defeat by not finishing the race.
So what compelled Wadsworth to help a rival when no one from the Russian coaching staff rushed to Gafarov's aid?
It just seemed like the Olympic thing to do.
"I was on the course with spare skis and poles for Alex [Harvey, a member of the Canadian team that didn't qualify for the sprint final]," said Wadsworth. "I just went to watch. The Russian fell on the big downhill before the finish area and broke a ski. I was surprised no one else on the course gave him anything.
"I went over and gave him one of Alex's spare skis. It was about giving Gafarov some dignity so he didn't have to walk to the finish area."
Wadsworth was an Olympic skier for the U.S. before becoming a coach.
This was not the first time a coach had helped a cross-country skier from another country. At the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, Sara Renner and Beckie Scott were racing in the team sprint final when Renner broke a pole.
Watching from the sidelines, Norwegian coach Bjornar Hakensmoen gave Renner a new pole which allowed her not only to finish the race but to win a silver medal with Scott. The Norwegians came in fourth, meaning that Hakensmoen's heroics may have cost his own team a medal.
For offering his help to Renner and Scott, Hakensmoen was applauded by Canadians and showered with gifts. Renner sent him a bottle of wine. A Canadian businessman donated 8,000 cans of Maple Syrup to the Norwegian embassy, which was also flooded with letters and phone calls from appreciative Canadians. Hakensmoen rode in the Calgary Stampede parade and had his Turin moment made into a TV commercial.
Asked if he was expecting a parade through Red Square, Wadsworth laughed and replied: "We help because we know everyone works so hard in our sport. Everyone wants fair results. I watched and couldn't understand why no one was helping him. I guess the Russian staff didn't have a spare ski. It was a matter of allowing him to finish the race."
Gafarov finished dead last in his final run and applauded the fans for cheering him to the end.
As for Canadian sportsmanship at the Olympics, Larry Lemieux showed his true colours in the sailing event at the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Lemieux sailed off course to help the Singapore entry that had capsized in the water.
Lemieux's rescue efforts scuttled his medal hopes in the Finn class.
However, at the sailing medal ceremony, Juan Antonio Samaranch, the president of the International Olympic Committee, presented Lemieux with the Pierre de Coubertin Medal for Sportsmanship. "You embody all that is right with the Olympic ideal," Samaranch said.
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Angelina Egan gets surprised by her Army Sargeant dad Christopher Egan at a Carolina Hurricanes hockey game...
Nothing beats a grand return of a soldier from overseas, especially when that reunion comes at an NHL hockey game to the surprise of his/her family.
Young Angelina Egan and family had the pleasure of attending the Carolina Hurricanes' game on Saturday night against Montreal when she was called up to take part in some big screen fun. While she was distracted by the spinning boxes in the Hurricanes' version of the classic shell game, the surprise was being set up behind her.
After she won the game, she received her reward. Not only did she get a $25 gift certificate to spend in the arena but she got her dad back, Staff Sargeant Christopher Egan. Egan wasn't scheduled to come back to the States for another couple of weeks, or so his daughter thought.
The result was an emotional reunion and a huge ovation from the crowd on hand to witness the reunion. The players and officials, too. Always awesome, great job on helping out, Hurricanes.
Monday, February 10, 2014
10-Year-Old Jonas Corona Already a Veteran At Helping LA’s Homeless..."Everyone Should Have a Home"
Jonas Corona, the 10-year-old founder of Love in the Mirror, is being honored by Civic Duty for his dedicated service to Los Angeles’ homeless population. Civic Duty cofounders Dr. Michael Omidi andJulian Omidi are in awe of the young man who relentlessly displays a level of compassion and commitment way beyond his years. Love in the Mirror provides children in need with food, toiletry kits, toys, and school supplies.
“Love in the Mirror was one of the first charitable organizations my brother and I supported more than two years ago when we began to ramp up our philanthropic work. I’m still astounded by the commitment and leadership of Jonas Corona and the tremendous impact his efforts have made to those in need,” says Julian Omidi, Civic Duty cofounder. “Jonas’ compassion for others and desire to inspire others to the same kind of work, well it’s simply incredible. He’s truly special … one of a kind.”
The outreach of Love in the Mirror increases every year. In four short years, more than 30,000 children and families have been served through the charity’s sock drives, PB&J sandwich giveaways, and Toys for Tots campaigns. This year Jonas is helping his younger brother Maximus start Ocean Maximus Beach Clean-up which kicked off January 12, 2014 in Long Beach and is also beginning preparations to establish a sorely needed youth shelter in Long Beach.
“This world could certainly use a few more Jonas Coronas,” says Civic Duty cofounder Dr. Michael Omidi. “He has helped so many and also serves as a powerful role model for others, motivating them to volunteer their time and do what they can for others. Jonas is 10-year-old dynamo! I can’t wait to see what he does next.”
In 2009, during one of his monthly visits to feed homeless people on Los Angeles’ Skid Row, Jonas saw children lined up and waiting for food. Wanting to do more than hand out food once a month, Jonas and his mother Renee inquired about helping out at local shelters but strict minimum age requirements did not allow him to volunteer. Jonas was 6 years old. Not easily dissuaded, Jonas founded Love in the Mirror and his first organized drive yielded four truckloads of food, clothing and toys which he delivered to one of the shelters that had not allowed him to volunteer.
Love in the Mirror (http://www.loveinthemirror.org) helps homeless children obtain not only the food, clothing, and school supplies they need in everyday life, but also provides programs to empower children to succeed in future endeavors. Jonas Corona chose the name Love in the Mirror because he believes that “every kid should look in the mirror and love themselves-everyone should have a home.”
Waitresses Amy Sabani, Sarah Seckinger and Amber Kariolich receive tip of a lifetime from a complete stranger...
ROCKFORD - Boone County Family Restaurant waitresses Amy Sabani, 25, Sarah Seckinger, 23, and Amber Kariolich, 28, stared in disbelief Saturday as a blond-haired woman inexplicably handed them each $5,000 checks.
Sabani at first thought her check might say $500. But on closer inspection, she saw, yes, it was $5,000. She tried to decline it.
But the woman whose identity the waitresses and restaurant are protecting, insisted that she and the other waitresses take it.
"I want you girls to take these to help with school and everything else in life," the woman said over their objections. "Yes, you can take it. You put that in your pocket. God sent me here to help you."
It had been a slow morning at the restaurant that serves up tasty-looking cinnamon apple pancakes. As the waitresses "folded" silverware, they had been chatting about life, the student loans and bills piling up and dreams of returning to or finishing school.
Seckinger had noticed the woman watching them, but had thought maybe the she was merely interested in what they were saying.
Seckinger has worked at the restaurant for six years but dreams of becoming a police officer. She has previously tested to become a Boone County Sheriff's Police deputy.
Seckinger said although she has a single semester left to earn her associate degree in criminal justice, it had become too expensive for her. She plans to use the money to return to school, finish the degree and perhaps get a leg up at the next police officer test.
She plans to continue working at the restaurant.
"It's like a family here," Seckinger said.
That could be because Boone County Family Restaurant is a family-owned restaurant at the intersection of Routes 173 and 76 in Caledonia operated by Matt Nebiu. His father and uncle founded the business in 1982.
Nebiu said although the woman had been in the restaurant before, she wasn't a regular.
"I've never seen anything like this in 30-something years here," Nebiu said. "I've heard of it in other places, but not in this town or this area."
Sunday, February 9, 2014
Amputee Dennis Aabo Sorensen becomes the first person in the world to "feel" in real time with his new bionic hand...
Nine years after an accident caused the loss of his left hand, Dennis Aabo Sørensen from Denmark became the first amputee in the world to feel – in real-time – with a sensory-enhanced prosthetic hand that was surgically wired to nerves in his upper arm. Silvestro Micera and his team at EPFL Center for Neuroprosthetics and SSSA (Italy) developed the revolutionary sensory feedback that allowed Sørensen to feel again while handling objects. A prototype of this bionic technology was tested in February 2013 during a clinical trial in Rome under the supervision of Paolo Maria Rossini at Gemelli Hospital (Italy). The study is published in the February 5, 2014 edition of Science Translational Medicine, and represents a collaboration called Lifehand 2 between several European universities and hospitals.
“The sensory feedback was incredible,” reports the 36 year-old amputee from Denmark. “I could feel things that I hadn’t been able to feel in over nine years.” In a laboratory setting wearing a blindfold and earplugs, Sørensen was able to detect how strongly he was grasping, as well as the shape and consistency of different objects he picked up with his prosthetic. “When I held an object, I could feel if it was soft or hard, round or square.”
“The sensory feedback was incredible,” reports the 36 year-old amputee from Denmark. “I could feel things that I hadn’t been able to feel in over nine years.” In a laboratory setting wearing a blindfold and earplugs, Sørensen was able to detect how strongly he was grasping, as well as the shape and consistency of different objects he picked up with his prosthetic. “When I held an object, I could feel if it was soft or hard, round or square.”
From Electrical Signal to Nerve Impulse
Micera and his team enhanced the artificial hand with sensors that detect information about touch. This was done by measuring the tension in artificial tendons that control finger movement and turning this measurement into an electrical current. But this electrical signal is too coarse to be understood by the nervous system. Using computer algorithms, the scientists transformed the electrical signal into an impulse that sensory nerves can interpret. The sense of touch was achieved by sending the digitally refined signal through wires into four electrodes that were surgically implanted into what remains of Sørensen’s upper arm nerves.
Micera and his team enhanced the artificial hand with sensors that detect information about touch. This was done by measuring the tension in artificial tendons that control finger movement and turning this measurement into an electrical current. But this electrical signal is too coarse to be understood by the nervous system. Using computer algorithms, the scientists transformed the electrical signal into an impulse that sensory nerves can interpret. The sense of touch was achieved by sending the digitally refined signal through wires into four electrodes that were surgically implanted into what remains of Sørensen’s upper arm nerves.
“This is the first time in neuroprosthetics that sensory feedback has been restored and used by an amputee in real-time to control an artificial limb,” says Micera.
“We were worried about reduced sensitivity in Dennis’ nerves since they hadn’t been used in over nine years,” says Stanisa Raspopovic, first author and scientist at EPFL and SSSA. These concerns faded away as the scientists successfully reactivated Sørensen’s sense of touch.
Connecting Electrodes to Nerves
On January 26, 2013, Sørensen underwent surgery in Rome at Gemelli Hospital. A specialized group of surgeons and neurologists, led by Paolo Maria Rossini, implanted so-called transneural electrodes into the ulnar and median nerves of Sørensen’s left arm. After 19 days of preliminary tests, Micera and his team connected their prosthetic to the electrodes – and to Sørensen – every day for an entire week.
On January 26, 2013, Sørensen underwent surgery in Rome at Gemelli Hospital. A specialized group of surgeons and neurologists, led by Paolo Maria Rossini, implanted so-called transneural electrodes into the ulnar and median nerves of Sørensen’s left arm. After 19 days of preliminary tests, Micera and his team connected their prosthetic to the electrodes – and to Sørensen – every day for an entire week.
The ultra-thin, ultra-precise electrodes, developed by Thomas Stieglitz’s research group at Freiburg University (Germany), made it possible to relay extremely weak electrical signals directly into the nervous system. A tremendous amount of preliminary research was done to ensure that the electrodes would continue to work even after the formation of post-surgery scar tissue. It is also the first time that such electrodes have been transversally implanted into the peripheral nervous system of an amputee.
The First Sensory-Enhanced Artificial Limb
The clinical study provides the first step towards a bionic hand, although a sensory-enhanced prosthetic is years away from being commercially available and the bionic hand of science fiction movies is even further away.
The clinical study provides the first step towards a bionic hand, although a sensory-enhanced prosthetic is years away from being commercially available and the bionic hand of science fiction movies is even further away.
The next step involves miniaturizing the sensory feedback electronics for a portable prosthetic. In addition, the scientists will fine-tune the sensory technology for better touch resolution and increased awareness about the angular movement of fingers.
The electrodes were removed from Sørensen’s arm after one month due to safety restrictions imposed on clinical trials, although the scientists are optimistic that they could remain implanted and functional without damage to the nervous system for many years.
© LifeHand 2 / Patrizia Tocci
Psychological Strength an Asset
Sørensen’s psychological strength was an asset for the clinical study. He says, “I was more than happy to volunteer for the clinical trial, not only for myself, but to help other amputees as well.” Now he faces the challenge of having experienced touch again for only a short period of time.
Sørensen’s psychological strength was an asset for the clinical study. He says, “I was more than happy to volunteer for the clinical trial, not only for myself, but to help other amputees as well.” Now he faces the challenge of having experienced touch again for only a short period of time.
Sørensen lost his left hand while handling fireworks during a family holiday. He was rushed to the hospital where his hand was immediately amputated. Since then, he has been wearing a commercial prosthetic that detects muscle movement in his stump, allowing him to open and close his hand, and hold onto objects.
“It works like a brake on a motorbike,” explains Sørensen about the conventional prosthetic he usually wears. “When you squeeze the brake, the hand closes. When you relax, the hand opens.” Without sensory information being fed back into the nervous system, though, Sørensen cannot feel what he’s trying to grasp and must constantly watch his prosthetic to avoid crushing the object.
Just after the amputation, Sørensen recounts what the doctor told him. “There are two ways you can view this. You can sit in the corner and feel sorry for yourself. Or, you can get up and feel grateful for what you have. I believe you’ll adopt the second view.”
“He was right,” says Sørensen.
32 year old new dad Ben Johnston donates a kidney to Dr. "Frank" Jolesz a man he had never met...
QUINCY, Mass. (AP) — When a new father from Quincy read that his college buddy’s next-door neighbor in Brookline was ill and in desperate need of a kidney, he did what few people would even consider.
He volunteered to be tested to see if he was a match.
He was.
Ben Johnston, a 32-year-old songwriting student at Berklee College of Music, decided he would donate a major organ to a total stranger.
The man who needed the kidney was Dr. Ferenc ‘‘Frank’’ Jolesz, 67, who was suffering from kidney failure for the second time. His daughter Marta Jolesz donated a kidney to him about seven years earlier.
‘‘There’s a huge shortage of available organs and people are dying every day’’ Marta Jolesz, 37, said. ‘‘The average person is on the waiting list for five to 10 years. Most people don’t have that kind of time. My dad didn’t have that kind of time.’’
The Brookline TAB profiled Jolesz and his efforts to find a donor via a website and Facebook last August.
‘‘If the TAB wouldn’t have run the article, I wouldn’t have found out about it,’’ Johnston said.
‘‘Basically, when I first read about it, I thought, ‘Oh, he'll have no problem finding a donor,'’’ Johnston said. ‘‘Then, I thought if this person was my father or my father-in-law or someone I cared about, and he didn’t find a donor, I'd probably be angry.’’
The idea got lodged in his mind and didn’t go away, and Johnston said he’s not sure why.
‘‘I even waited a few days to tell (my wife),’’ said Johnston. ‘‘I thought it would go away, and it didn't.’’
Johnston’s wife, Heidi, is the pastor of the Faith Lutheran Church in Quincy. She had just started a new job and given birth to the couple’s son, Oliver, two months before. She was not enthusiastic about her husband undergoing a major elective surgery, so she spent about a week contemplating the decision, spiritually.
‘‘Every week I stand up in the pulpit and ask people to step outside their comfort zone and care for people in need,’’ Heidi Johnston said. ‘‘I thought, ‘This is the opportunity that we've been given to do that,’ and I thought I should support Ben.’’
Ben Johnston did some research and learned that most donors are back on their feet in a couple of months. Also, the hospital staff emphasized that he was free to change his mind at any stage of the testing, which took about two months.
Ben Johnston is composing a song about his organ-donation experience. This is the first verse of what is tentatively titled ‘‘Goodbye, Dear Kidney.’’
After a third of a century, you up
and left me
Jumped right in to some other man
All my scars are still healing, and
I've got the feeling
I won’t be seeing you again
You left a hole deep within in me,
and I'm just beginning
To fill up the space the best that I can
And though sometimes I miss you,
the truth is I wish you
A long happy life with him
So goodbye, goodbye dear kidney
If I start to cry, if my tears don’t dry, forgive me
It’s hard to let you go, but in my heart I know
You’re better off without me
So goodbye, goodbye dear kidney
Heidi said she was with the Jolesz family while Ben and Frank were in the operating room, which was a great comfort. Ben’s surgery went very quickly.
‘‘The kidney started perfusing (taking in blood) instantly,’’ said Heidi. ‘‘We were hugging and crying at Brigham and Women's. That was incredible. That certainly bonds you. The daughters were in Ben’s hospital (room) rubbing his head and feet.
Jolesz wasn’t able to do a face-to-face interview because of the drugs he is taking to suppress his immune system, but he wrote in an email that he’s feeling much better.
‘‘Ben gave me the gift of life, something that I almost lost,’’ Jolesz wrote. ‘‘Words are not enough to express my gratitude for Ben and Heidi’s selfless act of helping me. My hope is that what they did for me will motivate others to help those in need.’’
Ben served two tours of duty in Iraq when he was an officer in the Army. His job was building bridges and other kinds of road construction. He said that he felt ambivalent about his work and the war in general, but donating a kidney was something he'd do again if he could.
It’s now just over two months after the operation and Ben said that except for the occasional pain at the incision, ‘‘I'm pretty much back to normal, and to me, that’s such a small amount of time to give someone a new lease on life. I would do it again.
‘‘It was the most amazing thing I've ever done. Heidi made me a scrapbook for Christmas, and I get emotional looking at the pictures and reading what his daughters wrote.’’
Everybody interviewed for this story said that they hope it encourages more people to donate kidneys.
‘‘Everything aligned for Ben and he was able to give the gift of life to my father and help our family,’’ said Marta Jolesz. ‘‘This journey has been truly unbelievable, and we feel so fortunate to find not only a donor, but a donor like Ben and his family.’’
Saturday, February 8, 2014
Message in a bottle found off of Nova Scotia 58 years after it began its journey...
BOSTON – It was April 1956, and the No. 1 song was Elvis Presley’s “Heartbreak Hotel.” At the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod, scientist Dean Bumpus was busy releasing glass bottles in a large stretch of the Atlantic Ocean.
Nearly 58 years later, a biologist studying grey seals off Nova Scotia found one of the bottles in a pile of debris on a beach, 300 miles from where it was released.
The drift bottle was among thousands dumped in the Atlantic Ocean between 1956 and 1972 as part of Bumpus’ study of surface and bottom currents. About 10 percent of the 300,000 bottles have been found over the years.“It was almost like finding treasure in a way,” Warren Joyce said Friday.
Joyce found the bottle Jan. 20 on Sable Island, about 185 miles southeast of Halifax.
He contacted scientists at Woods Hole and dutifully gave them the time and place information Bumpus had asked for in a postcard inside the bottle. His reward will be exactly what Bumpus promised in 1956 to anyone who returned a bottle: a 50-cent piece.
“I didn’t want the reward, but they said they are sending it to me anyway,” Joyce said, chuckling.
Joyce said the bottle had been sand-blasted over about 75 percent of its surface. He could still read the words, “Break This Bottle,” so he pried off the rubber stopper. Inside, there was a note from Bumpus explaining that the bottle was among many being released to study the ocean.
In those days, there was no other way to study currents, said Steven Jayne, a senior scientist at Woods Hole.
“We didn’t have satellites to track currents like we do now. So the only thing you could do was to see where something started and where it ended up,” he said. “That was a pretty good approach.”
Using the number on the postcard, Woods Hole workers tracked the bottle found by Joyce to a group of 12 released not far off Nova Scotia on April 26, 1956.
Woods Hole archivist David Sherman said three other bottles from the same batch were found within a few months after they were dropped in the ocean: two in Nova Scotia and a third in Eastham, on Cape Cod. There’s no way to tell for sure when the bottle Joyce found washed up on Sable Island, but judging by its sand-worn condition, it may have been there for decades, Sherman said.
Bumpus needed thousands upon thousands of empty bottles for his well-intentioned littering of the seas. In September 1959, he solicited colleagues’ help, writing in a memo: “All hands are respectfully requested (until further notice) to bring their dead soldiers to the lab and deposit them in the box just inside the gate. Whiskey, rum, beer, wine or champagne bottles will be used to make drift bottles. Any clean bottles – 8 oz. to one quart in size will be gratefully received. Bottoms up!”
Bumpus died in 2002. About 270,000 of his bottles remain unaccounted for, Sherman said.
“Some of them were probably damaged, some were probably kept as keepsakes, and the rest, who knows? We may find some more in the future,” he said.
“I think everybody loves to find a message in a bottle.”
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