The good guys thread

[kuhio98]

From People Magazine Heroes Among Us:


COLLEGE STUDENT MARIAN NEAL, 40
Broke and out of a job, she gives a child the gift of life

Troubled by back problems in 1996, Marian Neal gave up her job handling freight in Washington, D.C., for a shipping company. Broke and homeless, she moved in with a friend two years later in nearby Alexandria, Va. There she befriended Terrance Varner, a 7-year-old who lived with his grandmother Elaine Harris and whose kidneys were failing. To keep her little friend company, Neal, now 40, often accompanied him on his three weekly trips to dialysis at Washington's Children's National Medical Center. "I saw all the suffering the children went through there," she recalls, "and wondered what I could do to help." Then she had an idea.

Last December, Neal donated one of her kidneys to Terrance—an unusual offering in that only 4 percent of transplants come from people unrelated by blood or marriage. Thankfully medical tests showed that Neal and Terrance were a match.

"I didn't think it was a big step," says Neal. "I just wanted Terrance to be able to eat, drink and play like a normal boy." Grandmother Harris saw the December operation as a much bigger deal. "It's the best Christmas present I could ever have," she told The Washington Post.

Good deed aside, Neal again found herself homeless last August when her friend's brother moved back in. But her plight did not go unnoticed. Hearing about Neal, U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Andrew Cuomo secured a one-bedroom apartment for her in Southwest D.C. Says Cuomo: "In an age when many people think only about themselves, she was totally selfless."

In addition to the apartment, Neal also received a free car from a local auto dealer so she could drive to classes at Northern Virginia Community College, where she is studying to become a social worker. "I made a way for Terrance," says Neal gratefully, "and God made a way for me."

[kuhio98]

A Ticket to Life
He was about to undergo major surgery. Why was his dog acting so strangely?
By Allen Anderson, Minneapolis, Minnesota

A strip of glossy paper, torn from yet another magazine, dangled from our little black cocker spaniel’s clenched teeth. I knelt down to tug the soggy, rectangular scrap from his mouth. “Come on, boy.” He relaxed his jaw and looked up with innocent eyes. I glared at him, frustrated.

Now? Why are you doing this now? Nothing, it seemed, could stop Leaf’s new bad habit. And he’d always been such a good dog! I held the slimy slip he’d dropped into my hand up to the light, reading the disjointed words and numbers printed on it as if they held some clue to his odd new behavior.

Each time he pulled this stunt it was the same thing: a slip of paper, not chewed or shredded, which he brought to me. “Ready to go?” my wife, Linda, asked, interrupting my inspection.

“Leaf’s at it again,” I said, showing her.

Linda slipped an arm around me. “Don’t worry about it. You know how scared he gets. He probably just doesn’t want you to go.”

Neither do I, I thought.

The hospital. That’s where Linda and I were headed. A sterile monolithic building where a surgeon was going to operate on my brain. I’d complained of headaches and blurred vision. Doctors had found an aneurysm, fatal if it ruptured.

I’d undergone tests, taken an MRI, a CT scan, had met with my surgeon and scheduled the operation, all while putting on the same brave face I wore as an officer for the Atlanta Police Department. I’d been in life-threatening situations my entire career, but this time, my bravery was a front.

In truth, I was terrified. Lately, a recurring nightmare confirmed my darkest fears: I was going to die.

I remembered the first night the scene unfolded before me. I was watching an endless snaking line of people, waiting to get inside a vast, domed building. Everyone I knew was there: Linda, family and friends, coworkers, people I recognized from church.

Slowly, one by one, they went through an entrance of what people in line were calling the Building of Life.

Each person held a ticket, as if for a concert. I pushed my way into the line, hoping that no one would notice I had no ticket. Everyone glared at me. Some said, “You do not belong here.” The line moved past me, leaving me behind. No! Terror ripped through me. I want to be with Linda! I want to live!

I woke up, my body shaking, my pillow drenched with sweat. The message couldn’t have been clearer. My life was over. I must have woken Leaf because he jumped onto the bed next to me. I wrapped my arms around him. It felt strange, him comforting me.

Usually it was the other way around. Linda and I had adopted Leaf from a shelter six months earlier. We’d given him his name because he’d seemed as fragile as an autumn leaf trembling in the breeze. Leaf had been abandoned, and his skittishness made us wonder if he’d been abused by a former owner.

We kept a blanket on the floor by our bed for him to lie on, and he sometimes woke in the middle of the night with bad dreams, whimpering and crying pitifully. I’d roll out of bed and flick on a nightlight, then take him into my office and hold him in my arms until he calmed down.

“It’s okay, boy,” I’d say softly. “You’re safe now.”

But Leaf had never been destructive or acted out, not until just recently. The more anxious I got about the surgery, the more Leaf went on a shredding binge, tearing up newspapers, magazines, anything readable we left lying around.

He’d rip up a sheaf of paper and bring me some scrap covered with saliva, always one tiny scrap, looking at me with his deep, dark eyes. “No, Leaf, no,” I’d say, over and over. He didn’t seem to get it. Even as I headed out the door to the hospital, he just stood there, staring at me earnestly.

I shivered, sitting on the cold, starched sheet of the hospital bed, prepped for surgery: my head shaved, hospital gown wrapped loosely around me. Soon I’d be whisked off to the O.R. Linda leaned forward in her chair and we held hands, bowing our heads, praying. But my fear wouldn’t leave me.

What if this is it? Our last minutes together? Then it was time. Linda kissed me and I watched her go, just as a chaplain came in for a final prayer. She held my hand. “Trust in God,” she said. “Relax in his love.”

These words echoed in my mind on the way to the O.R. I closed my eyes. That’s when I saw Leaf’s face projected on the backs of my eyelids. He held a sliver of paper in his mouth. In my inner vision I reached out as Leaf dropped it into my hands.

I knew what it was. Those cropped letters and numbers that lined the deliberately torn scrap, they hadn’t made any sense before. But now they did.

A ticket. That was what Leaf was giving me. The nightmares that plagued him, and me—had Leaf seen what I’d seen? Impossible. Yet I was sure of it. Surer than I’d ever been of anything. I’m going to make it, I thought. I will awaken and enter the Building of Life.

Ten days later I came home, stitches running from the center of my skull to below one ear. Bruises covered the right side of my face. Surgery had been a complete success. And Leaf? His paper-shredding ended as quickly as it had begun. He never did it again.

[kuhio98]

Loyalty is Priceless

[kuhio98]

Firefighter's Actions Bring Cat Back to Life After House Fire


Talk about having nine lives!

After her home in Stratford, east London, caught fire, Gert, a 4-year-old pet cat, was found lying motionless by firefighters who responded to the blaze on Sept. 28. Her owner, Michael Morrison, begged responders to save his cat's life, and lucky for him, some quick thinking managed to do just that.

"It was horrible. I collapsed on the floor crying," Morrison said. "They were all huddled around her and even took my oxygen mask off for her."

The move restarted Gert's breathing, and she was taken to the Celia Hammond Animal Trust center to continue recuperating. When she arrived, the cat had to be placed in an oxygen tent for two days and fed through tubes in her stomach. Since then, she's relearned how to move her legs, pull herself back into her kennel and lick food.

"When she came in, we had no idea whether she would regain any normal functions," said Kylie Simons, a veterinary surgeon from Celia Hammond. "But she has come on in leaps and bounds ... Although she is still wobbly we hope that she will regain full normality in time."

[kuhio98]

Man with muscular dystrophy finishes marathon after nearly 17 hours

Maickel Melamed, a 38-year-old man with muscular dystrophy, finished the Chicago Marathon in 16 hours, 46 minutes, early Monday (10/14/13) morning.

Melamed, who traveled to Chicago from Caracas, Venezuela, to take part in the marathon, was the last person to finish the race, according to NBC Chicago. Surrounding him were 100 or so supporters who cheered him on as he crossed the finish line at 1:30 in the morning.

"If you dream it, make it happen," Melamed said after completing the race, according to WLS-TV Chicago. "Your life is the most beautiful thing that can happen to you. So make the best of it."

Melamed began running marathons two years ago, WLS reported. He previously competed in races in New York and Berlin. According to an Indiegogo page for Melamed, doctors believed he would live only seven days after being born.

[kuhio98]

Mysterious Ways: Woman's Best Friend
She had no interest in adopting a dog. But one pooch took an interest in her.
By Doris Richardson, High Springs, Florida

Admittedly, the house had been quiet since my husband died, but I didn’t want a dog. I had enough responsibilities as an elementary school principal. Besides, no dog could ever replace Kash, my childhood best friend.

I only went with my friend Dee to the animal shelter for pet adoption day because when she gets an idea she’s like, well, a dog with a bone. I figured she’d drop it once she saw I had no interest.

But one dog took an interest in me. He came right up and looked at me plaintively, imploringly. Some sort of cattle-dog mix, with reddish-brown fur and a white stripe that ran from the back of his head down to his salt-and-pepper muzzle. I gave him a pat and shooed him away.

He didn’t go. When I tried to walk away, he followed, as if he was herding me. “I guess your dog found you,” Dee laughed.

“Not hardly,” I said. “He’s not for me.”

No dog ever would be after Kash. He was a mixed breed, the kind we called a Heinz 57 variety back in Opp, Alabama. Those were lean times and my parents worked long hours.

I would have been lonely without Kash. He watched me jump rope, listened as I read from my schoolbooks and sat with me by the dirt road, waiting for my folks to come home. He was smart, affectionate and made me laugh. It devastated me when he died. I vowed never to get another dog.

This mutt, though...no amount of coaxing could pry him from my side. He even barked at other dogs, keeping them away. “Come on, Doris, you can’t say no,” Dee begged.

“Try him for the weekend,” the shelter worker said. “Bring him back Monday if things don’t work out.”

“Okay,” I said to the persistent dog. “You get a weekend. No more.”

The dog kept me company as I did my chores. I laughed, watching him surge through the piles of autumn leaves on a walk around the neighborhood. That first night he curled up by my side. And all at once I felt like we were a pair, like the house wasn’t so empty anymore.

On Monday, I returned to the shelter—to finalize the adoption.

“Have you named him yet?” the worker asked. I admitted I hadn’t.

Well, if you’re interested,” she said, “his last owner called him Kash.”

[Taz_Zoee]

Oh my gosh!! I was not expecting that ending to the story ^^. It brought tears to my eyes, big time!!!