positive news

Good News Friday: Boy raises $750k for sick friend

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This story is adorable.

So, a boy, Dylan Siegel, wanted to help his friend, Jonah Pournazarian. Here’s Jonah’s story:

If she doesn’t, Jonah could die because he has a rare form of glycogen storage disease, a hereditary disorder that means his liver can store sugar but can’t release it, causing him to have dangerously low blood sugar levels that can result in seizures or even death.

“She” is Jonah’s mom, who has to wake up in the middle of the night to check up and feed Jonah.

Now, Jonah’s doctor was basically out of funding money to treat this rare disease. And so, Dylan decided to step in.

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Good Friday 6: One death saves lives

We’ve got one long story for you today. Are you ready?

A story. A girl is dying:

At age 2, Lyndsey was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis, a genetic disease which causes mucus to build up in the lungs. Dr. Joshua Sonett, the chief of thoracic surgery at New York Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center, treated Lyndsey. In 2011, when he looked at her x-rays, Dr. Sonett said he could see that Lyndsey’s right lung was hugely inflated and that over time, she had lost function in part of her left lung, which contained scar tissue.

“Just imagine is I took 80 percent of your lung away, how you would function,” Dr. Sonett said. “Lyndsey is going to die is she doesn’t get her lung soon.”

And a young man:

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Good Friday 5: It’s back!

If you were here when DALANEL first launched, you may remember Good Friday. Good Friday was a weekly post where I shared good news from around the web. Well, it makes sense to bring it back, considering what this blog’s mission is.

So, that leaves us with Monday Motivation, Wednesday Word, and Good Friday as the flagship posts for this blog. We also have Follower Friday.

Okay, so first news is a little something called “Prank It Forward”. In this case, one waitress received four tips while at work. This included $1,000, tickets to Hawaii, a new “dream job” and a new freaking car.

So, who was this young lady? Well, her name is Chelsea Roff and she’s spent a great deal of her time overcoming an eating disorder and then helping others by being a volunteer yoga instructor. She took yoga classes herself to help with her disorder.

Next is something interesting. Have you heard of the “Street Store“?

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Dad has accident with machete, four year old daughter saves his life

Here’s a story of a brave little girl who saw that her daddy had an accident with a machete. Ya, there was blood. Pops was dying.

Last week — when she was still three — her dad was out back cutting up a tree that had fallen in the ice storm. He was using his machete on some branches. He accidentally cut his right arm near the wrist — his artery, nerves, tendons.

The mom, Andrea Powers, was at work. The neighbors were not at home.

The little girl’s name is Elisha. And Elisha had a little sister.

Shawn ended up sitting on the front porch with Elisha and her younger sister, Elaina. He was trying to stop the bleeding with his left hand, and unable to pick up the phone with either hand to call 911.

But he and his wife had taught Elisha how to do it.

“I knew she was my only option,” Shawn said, “my last option, basically.”

She called 911. Teaching her how to unlock the cell phone and dial the number was a good idea, I guess. They had just taught her too. She was describing what she did. She also said this:

“I put [the phone] in Daddy’s ear and then he talked to the police and then I was crying. And then I was really brave.”

Her dad also said this:

“She did great,” Shawn said. “I mean, she was very calm the whole time. I could see her, she was tearing up and everything, but she wasn’t crazy crying, screaming and everything. It’s like she knew there was something important that she had to do and she was going to do it.”

“I remember her saying, ‘I don’t want to lose my daddy, I don’t want to lose my family,’ it’s like she knew this was a way that she could help me. So I was really, really proud of her.”

It’s a good thing she kept her cool. The morale of the story is: It’s never too early to teach your kids how to function in an emergency. Sure, they’re young. You can only pray that, in the right moment, they’ll be able to pull through with their “training”.

The whole story can be read here.

-DALANEL

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Good News 58: Man bikes around world five times while fighting cancer, a medical breakthrough, and more!

C’mon now, you know what time it is. First, a reunion between two men. One saved the other from committing suicide. It had been six years since that day, but they finally met again.

Laybourn, walking across Waterloo Bridge on his way to work on January 14, 2008, had stopped Benjamin from committing suicide. On Tuesday Benjamin was able finally to thank him.

So, six years later, how did these two strangers manage to meet?

And then, two weeks ago, Benjamin – with the help of the Rethink Mental Illness charity – launched a campaign to “Find Mike”, his nickname for the stranger. Doing so, he decided, would not only allow him to “close the door on that chapter of my life”, but also help to generate more interest in mental health issues.

The campaign spread quickly thanks to social media. Within two days, Laybourn’s fiancée saw the story on Facebook and immediately knew her partner was “Mike”.

One more:

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Good News 57: Officer saves baby, Help for Atlanta, and more.

Since I’m doing this once a week thing, you can actually expect more than just 2-3 articles. I’m aiming for 4-5 now.

Our first one is how an officer saves a baby’s life:

He immediately opened the baby’s shirt and began rubbing his sternum, but the baby still wasn’t breathing. He quickly rolled the infant over and began administering back blows, pausing after a moment to see the baby was still unconscious and still not breathing. He rolled the baby over a second time and applied more back blows, which caused the baby to vomit and dislodged the obstruction in his airway. The baby began breathing again and opened his eyes.

He’s set to receive a medal for his actions. As for the baby, apparently, it was the result of a milk allergy.

Next, Atlanta and its surrounding areas are struggling with a snow storm. And so, this happened:

Good Samaritans across metro Atlanta took food to thousands of stranded motorists spending the night on ice-locked freeways, helped push cars up hills, offered rides and places to recharge cellphones, and even invited strangers into their homes for the night.

The link goes on to tell a few stories of helping others.

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