Heart

From: Jerry GietkaEllicott CityI am alive today thanks to the efforts of American Heart Association volunteers (and a very good doctor)!Several years ago, I camehome from a meeting and just "wasn't feeling well." I lay down on mybed and began to sweat profusely. It felt like someone had put a hose in each arm and as someone turned the water on, my arms began to fill up.Luckily, someone had sense enough to take me to the hospital almost immediately -- despite my vigorous objections. It seemed like they stuck things in me, gave me medication, and then asked me "chest pains?"

FOR SUCH A PROLONGED, complicated legal squabble, the disagreement between the PGA Tour and disabled golfer Casey Martin actually was pretty simple to understand. The Tour chose to view the case philosophically, as a matter of cold, hard-hearted theory. Martin viewed it realistically, emotionally - how could he not? Both sides had some valid arguments to make, which was why each felt strongly enough to dig in and take the case all the way to the Supreme Court, where Martin won yesterday when the court ruled 7-2 in his favor, upholding a 1998 lower-court decision granting him the right to use a cart in PGA Tour events.

Traveling the country over the years I came to think that the great American malady was a social disease that had nothing to do with blood pressure, doctors or such. The disease was ''aloneness,'' the flip side of all the things that make American life unique: freedom, individualism, mobility.The ties that bind are not very tight in the United States -- and most of us like it that way most of the time. We raise our children to leave the nest. We expect our old people to take care of themselves, and when they grow older than either they or we ever imagined, we ship them off to one of the less inviting of American innovations, nursing homes.

Bobby Beale has been lined up at almost every football position imaginable since be began playing the game in the midget leagues.He has been an offensive guard, a tight end, a linebacker, a free safety and a running back.It just seems that most football coaches don't know where to play Beale, whose body is always one of the smallest on the team but whose heart is big enough for the whole team.That heart has helped propel the 5-foot-7, 160-pound Glen Burnie senior running back to some big numbers this fall.

David Harper, Admiral Fell Inn; Robert Selig, Linwoods; Ron Andrews, Sheraton Inner Harbor; and Josef Gohring, Peerce's Plantation, were among the chefs who donated their time and expertise to raise money for the Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Heart Disease.Chicken Caesar salad, sour-mash-crusted chicken, island-spiced pork tenderloin and turkey wild-mushroom meatloaf were among the heart-healthful dishes they prepared at last weekend's Heartfest.Special guest chef was Dr. William P. Castelli, medical director of the famous Framingham Heart Study, who showed the 700 or so guests at the Sheraton Inner Harbor that good food need not be bad for you.The Ciccarone Center at Johns Hopkins Hospital is named for Henry A. Ciccarone, the Johns Hopkins University lacrosse coach, who died of a heart attack in 1988 at the age of 50. His widow, Sue, and their children Henry Jr., Steven, Brent and John, and their grandfather, Henry E. Sr., were among the guests at the third annual Heartfest.

THE GATHERING AT THE HYATT REGENCY Baltimore was full of heart. Literally. After all, this was the American Heart Association's 2008 Heart of Baltimore Gala. Some 600 guests -- including Neil and Ellen Meltzer, Hank Yurow, Don and Michaeline Fedder, Julie Mercer and Raphael Langford, Nelson Sabatini, Chuck and Maria Tildon, Stanton and Renee Ades, Greg and Lisa Barnhill, and Ted and Jennifer Winslow -- strolled around the hotel mezzanine during the gala's cocktail hour. That number made event chair Aris Melissaratos' heart soar.

For Valentine's day:* Create a family love tree. Find a bare tree branch, about 12 to 18 inches in length. Spray paint it white or leave it natural, if you wish. Set the branch upright in a jar filled with marbles or stones. Place the arrangement on your kitchen table.Cut out two or three dozen pink, red and white paper hearts about 2 inches wide. Punch a hole at the top of each heartand set the hearts in a basket with some string and pens next to the tree. Encourage family members to write on a heart what they appreciate and love about another family member, then hang it on the tree.

The best physicians are the ones who learn not only to cheat the rules of death, but also how to do it preventively. Theodore Abraham, an associate professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University, as well as one of the nation's leading cardiologists, has seen more than a few young men and women die from hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, enough to wonder what he could do to help more of them get the better of death, or at least forestall it for a while....

Chesapeake Biological Laboratories Inc. said yesterday that it has won a contract to formulate, fill and package two experimental fluids being developed for protecting hearts during transplant and bypass surgery.The contract was struck with LXR Biotechnology Inc. of Richmond, Calif.The companies declined to disclose financial terms of the deal.Joseph A. Twist, a CBL spokesman, said the deal calls for the Baltimore-based biotechnology contractor to provide batches of HK-Cardiosol and CP-Cardiosol for clinical trials.

Like the Tin Man in "The Wizard of Oz," Westminster is a city without a heart.As I drove down a deserted Main Street one evening last week, I thought to myself: "Where is the heart of Westminster?" The more I thought about this, the more I realized that the Carroll County seat has all the ingredients needed to make the town an exciting place to live, work and play, but they aren't in the right places.Main Street splits Westminster in two, but this pleasant tree-lined street doesn't serve its intended purpose of defining the town's center.