Heartfelt
A Journey Through Transplantation
by
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At bottom, Heartfelt is a love story. Not in the conventional way that love stories are told, although there are strains of that, as you will see. Rather, it is a love story that transcends the Hollywood genre. Heartfelt demonstrates how love, expressed and then extended by strangers whose tragedy becomes another person’s deliverance because of that love for a family member, can lead to the salvation of another family. Ultimately, those families meet, bonds form that could never have been formed without the experience of death, a family’s greater humanity, the perseverance of siblings and their determination to make their brother’s legacy a lasting one, a mother’s dedication to her beloved son, and family love. This is a true story of life and death and what is possible when we choose to love unconditionally and how such love reaches across a terrible void and touches even those we have never met but whose lives we hold in our hands. How we are truly interdependent on one another. How, whether we realize it or not, we are all connected in some way only to find that out as our lives play out.
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About the Book
This book, Heartfelt, is an intimate look at love through the eyes of a man who is forced to ponder losing the love of his life. It is through the medical miracle of heart transplantation that he is spared that eternal pain and his beloved wife, Jean, is saved by the grace and heroic gesture of an unknown family.
Experience first-hand heart transplantation. This is the remarkable, moving true story of two families brought together through tragedy and triumph. One loses a family member; one regains a life. See how it happens, as it happens. Be there bedside, through the waiting, through the wondering as Joe brings you through the days, weeks and months leading up to and following Jean's transplant. Learn how circumstances beyond anyone's direct control come to intersect, changing forever all those who experience it from their own perspectives spoken in first person language.
See too how life connects us in ways never imagined. This book reminds us that we are never really alone. We always have others. We simply have to have faith, hope and love--with them, we can make it through anything.
About the Author
Dr. Joseph Panza is a tenured professor at Southern Connecticut State University where he teaches in the Recreation & Leisure Studies Department. His courses include: not-for-profit management, leadership development, disabilities in society, emerging legal issues in recreation, sports management and lifespan development. He has two earned degrees from Seton Hall University: a BA in psychology and an MA in counseling. He earned the doctorate in Educational Leadership from the University of Pennsylvania. During his career he has worked as a clinician, administrator, executive, and policy-maker in a variety of settings and in several states with broad experience in developmental disabilities. He now teaches full time utilizing his lifetime experiences from his earlier career to inform his teaching and research. Dr. Panza resides with his wife of over 40 years, Jean, in Old Lyme CT. The Panzas have four grown children: Joseph, Stacie, Christopher and Amy and four grandsons: Austin, Luke, Anthony and Holden. Although he is a published author in his field and is a regular presenter at professional seminars and conferences, this is his first effort at a book of this type.