Facebook to the rescue

On June 3rd, 2010, a new chapter in the story of my life unfolded. I can't say that I never expected it to happen, but I never thought I would be dealing with it before I turned 50. Because on June 3rd, I had chest pain, shortness of breath, and pain shooting down my arm. I went to the emergency room at my local hospital, and, after a cardiac catheterization, I was told I had an artery in my heart that was 95% blocked, and I needed to have a stent implanted. I was transferred to Boston Medical Center, one of the top cardiac care hospitals going.

There was little or no warning. I was doing some housework (that'll teach me) when the shortness of breath started. It was a muggy day, so I attributed that to a "bad air day". But when the chest pain hit, I felt something was wrong. I sat down, and it went away. Almost as soon as I resumed my activity it returned, now with the arm pain. I ended up in the hospital for five days. In addition to all the medical stuff, something else very interesting happened to me. An epiphany of sorts. I learned that there are actually people out there who care about me. I never imagined that was possible.

I've mentioned many times on this blog that I am on Facebook. Through this network, I have gotten reacquainted with many people from my past. But while I was in the hospital, I had my smart phone with me, and had access to Facebook with it. I posted that I was hospitalized. The wishes started flowing in. While some were the token "Get well soon" type, some were paragraphs being written by people I would never have expected. Daily, I was getting several comments encouraging me, wishing me well, and offering support and assistance to me. I was overwhelmed.

Normally, a hospital stay is endless hours of hoping someone will visit. But my Facebook friends did something for me I never imagined a social network site could do.

It made me feel loved.

That, my friends, is a feeling I have little experience with. But, for the first time in a very long time, I felt as though, if something bad happened, I would be missed. When that dawned on me, I was overcome with emotion. My Facebook friends reached out their virtual arms to me, and enveloped me in one, big, cyber hug.

The 2 stents they put in my heart are meant to heal the physical pump in my body.

My friends on Facebook helped heal a wounded, broken heart.

You tell me which is more important.

Thanks for reading, and take care.

An Urgent plea from PetePedia...

There used to be a television commercial where a woman said a friend told her about a shampoo, and she liked it, so she told two friends, and they told two friends, and etc.. Soon, the screen was full of women all telling two friends. I am hoping that this blog has the same effect.

A woman I went to high school with recently got on Facebook, and we contacted each other. She told me about her daughter, Caitlyn, who isn't quite two yet, and has a disease known as XP. Basically, this darling little child cannot be outside exposed to UV rays, as she is extremely reactive to them. I cannot imagine the amount of care raising a child with this condition would take.

Also living in the same house, is an elderly relative with Parkinson's Disease. He also requires special equipment, and much attention. The house this family lives in is much too small, and ill-equipped for the challenges that they face, yet they struggle daily to take care of their loved ones.

The woman, when she is not at home taking care of her family members, is a Nurse Practitioner in a facility where she cares for elderly patients. The size of this woman's heart and her spirit of giving knows no bounds.

There is currently a campaign on Facebook to nominate this family for Extreme Home Makeover, in hopes that the show will pick them to receive a home that suits the needs they have. In my opinion, this is exactly the kind of family the show was designed for.

So I am asking all the readers of this blog to click on the link, and nominate the McCabe family. Feel free to copy and paste the link in your social network status.

I've told two friends. I hope they tell two friends, and so on, and so on.

Thanks.

Click here to nominate the McCabe Family

It still amazes me...

It never ceases to amaze how someone or something that has little or no effect on your life one day, can sometimes have a tremendous effect on another day. Yesterday was one of those days for me.

First, the back story. I went to a high school with 3,500 students. Pretty big. There were five buildings, some multi-leveled. So it is not hard to believe that you might go to school with someone there and never know they existed. Being a teen-aged boy, I tried to be aware of as many teen-aged girls as I could be. I say aware, because, in reality, I was generally too shy to approach any of them. But I was aware of them.

Thirty years later, one of those girls sent me a friend request on Facebook. She included a note that said, "I don't know if you know who I am, but I was always aware of you". Wow! My thoughts exactly. You see, I was aware of her back then too. She was quite attractive, and had a smile that hinted at an air of mystery. Believe me, I was aware. So I accepted the friend request. And I haven't regretted it for a moment.

My new friend commented on some of my Facebook postings and links, and it became quite evident she was intelligent and had a cool sense of humor. Those were two things I never knew about her in school. She had posted on her Facebook about being sick, but I never inquired during the occasional chats we had online. One day though, she posted a note on her Facebook page. The effect on me was astounding.

She wrote about returning home from a treatment she needed. As she wrote about about the trip in to the hospital, her husband's sense of humor, the personality of her doctor, and the feelings she had when the doctor gave her test results, I read along along, smiling at one sentence, and biting my lip on others. Then she relayed a story about a young couple with children she had encountered in a restaurant on the way home. The interaction between her and this couple was simply breathtakingly refreshing. But it's what she wrote afterward that hit me like a frying pan to the face, and literally welled my eyes with tears.

She wrote about how this experience with the young couple cheered her up. She wrote how this young couple had validated her faith. She wrote about being inspired to live her life, however long or short it may be, to the max. And I wept.

I am not often touched emotionally by things. It's probably my biggest flaw as a human being. But reading her words made me realize that I have wasted a good portion of my life. But no longer. I have no reason not to experience my life to the max, instead of watching flow by me like a lazy river. I have no excuses to look at things and see the inherent beauty in them. I have no cause to just be an apathetic jerk, as I have been in the past. This young couple inspired her, and now she has inspired me. I hope that this blog will help me to pay it forward, and inspire someone out there as well.

In school, I was aware of a cute teen-aged girl.
Yesterday, I became aware of a beautiful, inspirational woman.

Take nothing, or no one, for granted my friends.

You just never know.

The Annual Event...

I just got back from my annual excursion to the SSAAC Flea Market in Mansfield, Massachusetts. The SSAAC is the South Shore Antique Auto Club, one of the largest clubs in New England, if not the country. They have held this event for longer than I have been alive, and that's a while.

I started attending this show with my older brother. He is "in to" cars, and would buy and sell at the meets each year. I spent a good portion of my childhood, teens and so on following him to this event. We would camp out for the weekend, as it is a three day event. Grills would be cooking burgers, hot dogs, sausages, chicken and whatever else we could get a hold of. Beverages flowed from ice-filled coolers. Friends would gather, and fellow vendors, some who we hadn't seen since the previous year, would catch up on the goings on in our lives.

As the years went by, things changed. As I got older, got married, and had a family to support, I couldn't spend as much time at the meet, going home each night to be with my family. As my brother got older, and developed some health issues, he was bringing less and less merchandise each year. This year, we collectively had very little for sale, but still went because it is our tradition. This was, and still is, the one weekend my brother and I put aside to bond with each other, and we both relish this weekend each year.

Again, we saw many old friends that we hadn't seen since last year. There was a great deal of catching up to do for many people. Heck, personally, since last years meet, I have started going to college, had a major surgery, released my debut single on iTunes, and am making a return to the wrestling ring as a manager. Others had even more important events, like marriages, births, and such. Inevitably though, I noticed a thread of conversation that was seemingly in nearly every conversation. It was a comment that, in one variation or another, echoed the same sentiment- I miss Wally.

Walter Rich, or Wally as we called him, was the guy you went to high school with who was "in to" cars, has a smile that lit up a room, and a bit of a mischievous streak in him that was funny, not malicious. He had a heart of gold, and would do you any favor if he could possibly find the time. He was well known at this flea market, because he understood things about cars that few people did, and folks always sought out his advice, and help on their personal projects. In the seven years since he passed, I have not heard one unkind word uttered in the same breath as his name. Everyone who met him, liked him. He was "that guy".

February 21, 2003, Wally, and a couple hundred other people went to a night club in Rhode Island called "The Station".They featured local bands a lot, and a couple times a month would bring in an act from the last couple of decades that still had some recognition. This particular night, the band was Great White. For those of you not familiar with the story, a fire broke out in the club that night, injuring 98 people, and killing 100 people, including my friend Wally.

Facebook has a memorial page dedicated to the victims of the fire, both living and deceased. It can be seen here. Take a moment, look at the pages, the comments and the pictures. Whether you personally knew one of the victims or not, it is a sobering experience.

Stewart O'Nan wrote a book on the subject. this quote is from that book:
"To be lost and forgotten-to be abandoned-is a shared and terrible fear, just as our fondest hope,as we grow older,is that we might leave some part of us behind in the hearts of those we love and in that way live on. We may not be able to change what has been but we certainly change what is. Help us to give the only gift within our power, a gift we wish desperately for our loved ones, a gift we all want...
TO BE REMEMBERED."

I miss you buddy.

Keeping life in perspective

Like many of the readers of this blog, I am on Facebook. Many of my blogs are inspired by my friends Facebook links and statuses. I saw this one link to a YouTube video and thought I'd take a look. Lately, I've been feeling a little down, and sometimes these links lead me to places that cheer me up. This link was different. It made me feel ashamed of myself.

2010 has not been the of years for me. I started the year struggling with a medical issue that required surgery. Once that was cleared up, a different issue reared up to interfere with my life. My job hasn't been going as well as usual, and there are a couple of issues in my personal life that aren't exactly spectacular. So, feeling a bit of self-pity, I clicked on this link to this video. As I watched it, I felt the tears well up in my eyes. After listening to the message this brave man gave, I felt ashamed that I have ever complained about anything in my life. Please watch this video.



The man in the video is named Nick Vujicic. Born without arms and legs, his life has been nothing but hardships and troubles. At the age of eight, he contemplated suicide. Eight. Think about how hopeless, lonely, out of place an eight year old child would have to feel to even think about ending it all. And yet, this man rose from the depths of his despair to live a very meaningful life, providing inspiration for others.

A little while ago, I wrote a blog about the man I want to be. Well, I hope that someday I can have the positive attitude on life that Nick does.

If everyone on Earth shared his attitude, the world would be a much better place to be.

Take care my friends.

The man I want to be- Post surgery thoughts

My last blog was written before I went in for PCNL surgery ten days ago. I'm glad to report that all is well, and I'm feeling better each day. But I have a confession to make. I had seriously contemplated signing a Do Not Resuscitate order before surgery. I'm glad I didn't.

The procedure involved two separate surgeries.In the time between the first and second surgery, there was an apparent struggle to keep my Oxygen level high enough. The second surgery was delayed for three hours while the staff pumped Oxygen into me. Had I signed the order, who knows what could've happened.

A couple of women friends had voiced their objections to my signing the order. I listened to their arguments, but it wasn't until I heard this song on the radio that I decided not to sign it. The song is by country singer Chris Young, and it's called "The man I want to be". Please read these lyrics. They are spectacular, and fit my situation better than if I had written the song myself. To watch the video, click the title.


The man I want to be by Chris Young


"God, I'm down here on my knees
Cause it's the last place left to fall
Beggin' for another chance
If there's any chance at all
That you might still be listenin'
Lovin' and forgivin' guys like me
I've spent my whole life gettin' it all wrong
And I sure could use your help cause from now on

I wanna be a good man
A do like I should' man
I wanna be the kind of man the mirror likes to see
I wanna be a strong man
And admit that I was wrong, man
God I'm asking you to come change me
into the man I wanna be

If there's anyway for her and me to make another start
Could you see what you could do
To put some love back in her heart
Cuz' it going to take a miracle
After all I've done to really make her see

That I wanna be a stay man
I wanna be a brave man
I wanna be the kind of man that she sees in her dreams
God, I wanna be your man
And I wanna be her man
God, I only hope she still believes
In the man I wanna be

Well, I know this late at night that talk is cheap
But Lord, don't give up on me

I wanna be a givin' man
I wanna really start livin' man
God, I'm asking you to come change me
into the man I wanna be"

Thanks for reading. It's good to be back.

Taking a break...

PetePedia will be taking a break for a bit. Monday, March 8, I will be going in for surgery to remove a rather large Kidney Stone. It has been the source of much pain for the last 5 months, and I can't wait to have this demon exorcised from my body.

I looked on YouTube for a video showing the procedure, so I'd know what to expect. If you would like to see, watch this 3 minute video. It shows the highlights of the procedure. It is not explicit or gory, if you are concerned.

They say that without complications, I should be home in 2-3 days. Once my mind is clear from pain-killers, I will resume PetePedia.

Thanks for reading my blog. I enjoy researching these topics, and sharing what I find with you.

See you soon,
Pete