As Americans, we will spend approximately $15 billion on gifts for Valentine’s Day.  This statistic, coupled with the fact that a calendar mandates we declare our love for someone, makes it easy to hate this holiday.  It’s commercial, it’s fabricated and it’s contrived. The real Valentine’s Day commemorates several Christian martyrs from Ancient Rome.  The romance thing didn’t enter the...

  This was the name of the  closing  session at the Parent Heart Watch Conference.  All of the other sessions dealt with AEDs, ECGs, genetic testing, sudden cardiac arrest legislation, etc.  They were concrete, factual and steeped in medicine.  This session asked us to consider something a little “out there”...

It’s all good.  The Pennsylvania School Health Code required a health screening for our daughter, Sally.  During the school day, she participated in a battery of tests.  Her vision is good.  Her hearing is good.  Her height, weight and body mass index are all good.  She can see and hear,...

Yesterday sucked.  Simon’s sixth birthday.  After six years, you’d think . . . . Nothing.  It doesn’t get easier.  The days in between the birthday get easier, but not the birthday.  After losing a kid, every holiday and life cycle event can’t just happen.  Even if there is some joy...

I’m sure that you’ve made so many decisions for your child . . . . what to eat . .  . when to go to bed . . . whether to play soccer or take piano lessons or both.  Hopefully, you’ll never have to make the decision that a friend of...

This is sad.  Do we really need to litigate for change?  The following article shows that of the 108 deaths of NCAA athletes from 1982 – 2008 (documented by the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research), 65% of them were heart related.  This means that they could have been...

An old friend from college, Jerry Altman, reached out to me after Simon passed away.  He’s been very generous to the cause ever since.  He just sent me this photo of him on top of Camelback Mountain in Scottsdale wearing a Simon’s Fund shirt. The death of a child is...

Classic movie . . . Kevin Costner plays Elliot Ness . . . wait, that’s The Untouchables.  The intangibles are the things that happen but are hard to sense and even harder to quantify.  “Raising Awareness” is one of the big intangibles in our organization.  We want parents, school personnel, coaches, pediatricians...

I’ve got a feeling . . .   These four words lead most people to the same conclusion – Black Eyed Peas.  I know its a big hit – my kids love it.  I think it is one of the most annoying songs ever released. I only bring this up because I do have...

For five years, all of the celebrations in my life have been played against the backdrop of tragedy.   That doesn’t mean that all of the celebrations have been bad.  It just means that every celebration is somehow dampened by the loss of Simon. Today, was an exception.  Today, I saw the other side of life.  I left my...