Several weeks ago I wrote about Kim Pace, a former Wyoming Area football standout and current punting and kicking specialist for the Warrior team. He was losing a battle of a lung disease and time was quickly running out if he didn’t receive a double lung transplant.
As he told me back then, his bag was packed and loaded in the car just waiting for the call from Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore that a set of lungs was waiting for him.
He was down to 19% lung capacity and going through more canisters of oxygen then he wanted to admit. For as confident as I was that he would get his new lungs, I was getting more and more apprehensive and anxious for him.
You know, we take it for granted that we can take a breath without struggling. Breathing, seeing, hearing, touching, walking … everyday functions that help us live and we take it all for granted.
It’s not until you come in contact with a blind person and think that we are fortunate to have sight, or someone deaf and wonder if we could get along without hearing or that person on oxygen that has to be on oxygen 24/7 to survive knowing how limited life could be without good lungs.
Kim’s been an upbeat guy during all of this even as his conditioned worsened. Maybe he was scared, but he never showed it. He never talked about the end. He never admitted the possibility he’d not get his transplant.
As a cancer survivor myself, I can tell you when my back was against the wall and during the period of time when I was diagnosed until the time the pathology came back after my cancer surgery, I had blinders on. I was fully committed on getting past the surgery so I could move on with my life.
I think Kim hit that zone and was determined through a positive attitude that he will get the call from Hopkins, get through the surgery and eventually find himself back on the sidelines of a Warrior football game. He’s had his blinders on.
My only advice to Kim was to get to the other side of the surgery so he could focus on getting well and being back with the team.
I realize there’s a lot to go through between the surgery and him standing on a field, but yet, you have to maintain a positive attitude and you have to reach for a goal and purpose. Purpose in life is like a miracle pill. You take a dose of purpose and it changes everything.
Purpose gives you the desire to work hard, to live, to dream, and to get up in the morning. In the latter time of your life, purpose is what will sustain you and motivate you.
Kim has all that and more.
He has a great wife and daughter and son-in-law who will see to it that Kim will do what it takes to get him over the hump to a full recovery.
Over the next several weeks and months, his wife Carol will have to endure a lot of travel time back and forth to Hopkins by herself or with Kim for follow up. He’s not worried about the financial setback from the surgery due to a successful Gofundme account in his name that raised over $28,000 online and not to mention what his daughter and son-in-law Lindsay and Lenny Jankowski have one done in giving the family a hand in all of this.
I have not talked to Kim personally, but did send a congratulations text to him only to get a return message from his wife stating that he’s doing well.
The doctors will be working to getting Kim off oxygen so he can breathe on his own.
Kim has a lot of people in his corner and no doubt we will see him on the sidelines this fall cheering on the Warriors of Wyoming Area.
The City of Pittston’s Second Friday Art Walk got off to a flying start with perfect weather, well, it threatened rain for about 10-minutes but it passed quickly.
It was great to see people out in a large number with vendor tents spread out all over Main St. I hope those merchants had a good evening selling their items.
The music in the pocket park, lower lot of the Tomato Festival and even inside Art e Fekts was great.
For those that attended, I hope you had a great time out and about after a long winter and to have something to look forward to this summer.
For me, summertime is life, it is breathing fresh air, it’s getting out in the sunshine, it’s taking a walk, going on vacation, barbeques, family picnics, carnivals, bazaars, and yes, Second Friday Art Walks.
There’s nothing like being out in the open air, mingling with others, forgetting about viruses, politics, and the abyss of winter.
There is nothing more uplifting then chatting with an old friend or even a new one.
It’s great to shed those winter jackets and trading them for t-shirts, shorts, and sandals.
Get off the couch, it is time to get out and play.
Quote of the week
“Summer has a flavor like no other. Always fresh and simmered in sunshine.”
– Oprah Winfrey
Thought of the week
“And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow
fast in movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with summer.”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
Bumper sticker
“It’s a smile, it’s a kiss, it’s a sip of wine … it’s summertime.”
– Kenny Chesney
