A touching story. Very short but touching.
Ella Westervelt was always a planner. The little girl with a big smile had big plans to help kids. Before she died, she wrote a will, giving half of her life’s savings to the children’s cancer association. CCA helped Ella for 2 1/2 years as she battled lymphoma. In return Ella left CCA half her estate precisely $296.55.
Sweet Ella. Rest in peace.
This story is adorable.
It all started January 2014 when McIntyre overheard her mother and grandmother talking about a story they heard on the radio about a 25-year-old man her age in need of a kidney transplant.
They said this man had lost his father to brain cancer in 2012 and had had his house burned down on Christmas Day 2011, and McIntire’s mother commented that if it weren’t for her health problems, she would give him a kidney. She had type-O blood, which is the universal donor.
So, Ashley decided to do what she could. Here’s a little more on the man:
Dr. Malay Shah of the University of Kentucky Transplant Center told ABC News the surgery happened in April. He explained that Robinson had a kidney disease called IgA nephropathy, which put him into full kidney failure when he was 23 because his immune system attacked his kidneys, preventing them from properly filtering blood and removing toxins.
Alright, so Ashley helped out Danny Robinson. And they kept it going:
A 17-year-old high school student, Anya Pogharian, developed a high school science project which “could end up changing the way dialysis care is delivered,” according to a CBC report.
Pogharian, who spent 300 hours on her new invention, chose to work on the medical contraption after finding inspiration in volunteer work at a hospital’s dialysis unit. While the young inventor has been offered a summer internship by Héma-Québec to test out her new invention with real blood, she’s also earned what CBC referred to as a “slew” of awards and scholarships. Louis Thibault, director of applied research at Héma-Québec, said that the entire “population will benefit” from her invention due to the reduced cost of medical care to those requiring dialysis.
Good stuff. Let’s hope it works out.
Well, a man decided to donate his kidney. Nobody came up to him. He just wanted to do it.
It’s the ultimate act of kindness: to donate one of your kidneys to a complete stranger. But Grzegorz Maniecki from Bradley Stoke, decided to do just that because he believes everyone deserves a second chance. The 28-year-old is one of only 15 Bristolians to ever donate a kidney to a stranger. He joined the elite group of around 100 people who performed the kind act last year.
There’s always risks. The surgery was so hard on Grzegorz (I have yet to say his name out loud though I think it’s more simple than the letters would indicate) that he actually fainted and had to come back to the hospital.
He said: “My friends and family and all of the doctors told me there were risks and it could impact on my heath in the future. But anyway I’ve decided to do it, as I knew that someone’s life could depend on it. I wasn’t scared, I had lots of tests, I was surprised how quickly they were able to find a match. I had open surgery, it was pretty bad. It would be nice to know who has my kidney but that is up to them.”
Yes, he’ll never know who he donated the kidney to unless that person reaches out.
This is an update on a story I wrote about before. A man, Mark Henick, was about to jump off a bridge when a kind stranger stopped it from happening.
Read that because I’m picking up where it left off.
After a social media hunt, Mark has finally made contact with his hero.
Last week, after launching a social media campaign to find the man, Henick received an email from Mike Richey, the man he remembered from that night at the overpass — fixated on Henick’s fingers, watching for the moment he feared was coming, when the teen let go and “leaned forward into nothing.”
Here’s the story from Mike’s perspective:
Richey, 25 at the time, was on his way to an overnight shift at his job as a youth care worker when he noticed a figure on the ledge.
“I didn’t have a cellphone at the time, I ran into a convenience store and told the clerk to call the police.”
Then he drove back. The brand new youth worker didn’t have any experience in dealing with crisis or suicide intervention training.
He talked with Henick.
“I just wanted him to know that I was there,” he says. “I wasn’t there to try to fix things for him or anything like that, I wanted him to know that no matter what, I’m not going anywhere. I’m right behind you.”
It’s great. The rest of this story is quite a read. I’ll leave you with this:
Richey, now 37, lives in Halifax, and works at a non-profit residential facility for at-risk youth. Admittedly shy, he says kind messages from people who have heard the story have been overwhelming and unexpected.
“It was something that just needed to be done,” he says. “He’s come so far, he looks great, healthy and happy. It’s the complete polar opposite of the face I saw that night on the bridge . . . he’s doing great things.”
You may have noticed that I rarely talk about animals in all of my good news stories. That’s on purpose.
This story was too good to pass up.
What I read was about a dog who pretty much could sense an impending danger, but his owners were like “he’s barking for no reason; lock him up”. They were in their bedroom when Rocky, the name of the dog, started barking out of control. They put him out.
Then, a gang of thugs came in talking about “where’s the money”? and Kasha and her partner Aryan are all like “What are you talking about?” and I’m thinking “Somebody’s got a secret to tell!”
Anyway, one of the bad guys pulls a knife and holds it to Kasha’s neck. Now, Kasha’s 5 months pregnant. And she mentions this hoping there’s some humanity in these thugs. There was four of them. The other three were beating up Mr. Aryan.
Things were looking bleak until Rocky comes in and scares the thugs off. By the way, Rocky is a Rottweiler. So yeah, he can take you out. Anyway, the thugs ran off and Rocky was all like “Oh no you don’t!” and runs after them. Aryan licks his wounds and follows as well.
From the perspective of Kasha, she finally comes outside to see Aryan and Rocky standing in front of one of the thugs, with Rocky all like “Give me a reason, bro!”
Read what happened to that guy here. Great job, Rocky. I was gonna save this for Fearless Friday next week, but I had to push this out.
