The news hit Thomas Nelson pretty hard, as it would any child. Hearing your mom has breast cancer, especially the day before Thanksgiving, puts a completely different spin on a teenager’s life.Fortunately for the Loveland High School senior, he had somebody to turn to for advice, because unfortunately, the news had become somewhat commonplace among members of the Loveland High School baseball team and their families.

It was two years ago Kris Ratchkowsky found out his mother, Laurie, was diagnosed with breast cancer. Last year, Jimmy Schweitzer’s maternal grandmother, Mary Lou Sweet was given the same report, and this year, in addition to Nelson’s mother, Tana, Schweitzer’s paternal grandfather, James, was diagnosed.

“When you hear it, it really puts you back in your seat,” Thomas said. “It makes you have a different perspective.” (more…)

Last summer, Alan Emmanuel Villaseñor, 12, lost his partner, his friend, his role model.

His father, Agustin Villaseñor, died of a brain tumor. He was 42.

Alan, his younger brother, Adel Alberto, their mother, Patricia Moreno Villaseñor and their extended family grieved. They continue to mourn their loss.

In the months after his daddy’s death, Alan couldn’t find meaning. He couldn’t explain why the man who taught him to hit a baseball, throw a curveball and who made pancakes Saturday mornings, had died. (more…)

LOUISVILLE, KY (WAVE) – Perhaps you’ve seen those colored, rubber bracelets people wear to show support for different causes such as the Lance Armstrong Foundation and breast cancer awareness. Now one Louisville auto dealership is taking the idea to the local level.

Oxmoor Ford is trying to promote the Louisville economy by offering free “Love Louisville – Buy Local” bracelets to anyone that comes in and asks for one.

David Wray, General Sales Manager of Oxmoor Ford explains the reasoning behind the free bracelets. “Our hope is we see a greater consciousness of people understanding that they need to buy from local business.”

The bracelets come in either blue or red and have been available since mid-March. As of April 2, officials at Oxmoor Ford estimate they’ve handed out about 800 of the bracelets.

The dealership insists that this was not done as a sales ploy to sell more cars, but they do admit that they have sold a few to people who have come by to pick up the free bracelets.

A recent study by the Economics Department at the University of Louisville showed that for every one Ford Motor Company employee in Louisville, there are six other jobs created. Wray says that this is one reason they decided to get the word out about how important it is to buy locally in this tough economy.

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The odds were against Mark Peters’ sitting across the table from me and boasting of the impressive crimson scar under his shirt.

Most who suffer cardiac arrest do not make it to the hospital, let alone reemerge whole. But here he was, spike-haired and 23, enthusing about his good fortune, a rainbow of rubber “cause” bracelets wobbling around his animated wrists.

The one that matters in this story was red, for the Gregory W. Moyer Defibrillator Fund, which aims to put automated external defibrillators where they’re needed most desperately.

Moyer, Peters’ boyhood pal, died at halftime during a high school basketball game in 2000 because no device was on hand to reset the rhythm of his heart – not in the brand-new Monroe County school, not in the first ambulance, which took a half-hour to respond.

Moyer – seemingly invincible at 6-foot-3 and 220 pounds – died at age 15. (more…)