The good guys thread

[kuhio98]

Woman Preps for Double Mastectomy with Beyoncé Dance Party



When preparing to undergo a double mastectomy, most women wouldn't immediately think to initiate a full-on dance party in the operating room. But Deborah Cohan enlisted her surgical and anesthesia teams to join her in making a viral video to inspire others to show courage in the face of cancer.

The mom of two, clad in a hospital gown, boogies down to Beyonce's "Get Bodied" for about six minutes before her surgery at Mt. Zion hospital in San Francisco, as captured in the YouTube clip.

On her CaringBridge page, Cohan invited others to participate in a virtual flash mob by sending footage of themselves dancing to the track, from Beyonce's 2006 album B'Day.

"I have visions of a healing video montage," Cohan wrote on Nov. 1. "Nothing brings me greater joy than catalyzing others to dance, move, be in their bodies. Are you with me people?"

Don't just watch – get up and dance – along to the uplifting video below.

[kuhio98]

Gretchen Holt-Witt Baked 96,000 Cookies to Raise Millions for Cancer Research After Losing Son



In the fall of 2007, doting mother Gretchen Holt-Witt of Califon, N.J., was in good spirits. Her 2-year-old son Liam, who had spent months in and out of the hospital battling neuroblastoma, a form of nerve cancer, was in remission and appeared healthy once again.

"We were so grateful his cancer was gone, we felt it was important to give back," says Holt-Witt.

So Gretchen and Liam, a joyful risk-taker of a kid who loved to cook – "he'd download tons of cooking apps," Holt-Witt says – decided to pay it forward. They came up with the idea to bake cookies to raise money for pediatric cancer research. But a few dozen wouldn't do. They opted for 8,000 dozen.

"We wanted to push our boundaries the way Liam's had been pushed," says Holt-Witt, who along with her husband Larry, daughter Ella, and 250 friends and volunteers churned out 96,000 cookies, raising more than $400,000.

Holt-Witt founded the non-profit organization Cookies For Kids' Cancer. People all around the country hold bake sales in the name of the organization to take up donations for pediatric cancer research.



Now celebrating its fifth year, CFKC has raised more than $5 million for research and development of new cancer treatments for kids and this year published a new cookies cookbook, with proceeds going back to the charity.


"There aren't that many treatment options for kids because pediatric cancers get the short end of the funding stick," says Holt-Witt. "Helping others is what allows me to cope."

Shortly after their bake sale, Liam's cancer returned.

"He went through tons of relapses," says Holt-Witt, "It was kind of like building a house in the sand, the foundation could give away any second."

But despite constant trips to the doctors office, and countless rounds of chemo and radiation, Holt-Witt says "Liam didn't know he was sick. I'd say, 'Oh we're just going to spend a few more days at the hospital, no problem.' Seeing me worry was not going to make life easier for him."

First diagnosed as a toddler, Liam never showed any telltale signs of the illness. For four years Liam underwent countless clinical trials. Despite the treatment and doctors' best efforts, he never reached his seventh birthday.

"Missing her brother and losing her only sibling will never go away," says Holt-Witt of her daughter Ella, 7, who often comments on things Liam would have liked to do and see. "But Cookies is an outlet for her, because she feels like her bothers life had meaning and wasn't in vain."

The organization has now helped fund their seventh clinical trial project, meaning new hope for young cancer patients around the world.

"Cookies gives anybody, anywhere something tangible to do to help with such a daunting issue. It makes you feel like a hero," says Holt-Witt. "I know this sounds strange, but I feel like one of the luckiest people out there because I get to see the good in people. To have the opportunity to receive access to a new treatment is the equivalent of having a chance at bat."

That's a chance Morgan Pierce has now. The 10-year-old from Plant City, Fla. is currently receiving lifesaving cancer treatment through a new clinical trial that Cookies help fund.

"That's what keeps you going," says Holt-Witt. "I don't have my son here to hug and hold and love, but I'd still do anything for him. I know the first thing he'll say when I see him in heaven is, 'Mommy, did you make it better for others?' And my husband and I will have to look at him and say 'We did everything we could.' "

[kuhio98]

USS Harry S. Truman sailors free trapped sea turtle



Sailors assigned to the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman rescued a sea turtle that was tangled in a makeshift fishing net on Nov. 7.

“They called away, ‘man the port davit,’ because a lookout saw some containers attached to a net in the water, and there was a sea turtle trapped in it,” said Lt. j.g. Lillian Bean, who served as the boat officer for the rigid-hull inflatable boat (RHIB) used in the rescue.

In addition to Bean, the RHIB crew included Chief Damage Controlman Mark Rayner, search and rescue swimmer; Engineman 3rd Class Anthony Torro, boat engineer; Boatswain’s Mate 3rd Class Dalton Thompson, coxswain; and Seaman Madison Allen, bow hook.

“When we launched the RHIB, the turtle was about 700 or 800 yards away from us,” said Thompson.

Allen said the turtle was tangled in a makeshift fishing net built out of jugs, metal wire, hooks and netting.

“The netting and wire were wrapped around the turtle’s fin,” said Allen. “People put these types of traps together to catch fish, and the turtle ended up getting caught.”

Bean said when the jugs start bobbing up and down in the water it signals something has been caught. That is how the lookout noticed that there was something struggling in the water.

“He looked tired and stressed,” said Bean. “I really wanted to save this turtle and not leave him out there. When we got to the turtle, we tried to grab a hold of the jugs first, but it kept swimming away.”

Reaching the turtle was the first step in what turned out to be the difficult process of freeing it.

Bean said they couldn’t put anyone in the water because of the size of the turtle, how tangled it was and the potential hazard to a rescue swimmer, so they used a boat hook to pull the entangled turtle closer to the side of the RHIB so they could work on freeing it.

Allen said additional measures were taken to keep the turtle and the entangled floating jugs from getting too far from the RHIB.

“We attached the search and rescue tending line from the RHIB to the jugs to keep the turtle close,” said Allen.

Bean said the turtle’s right front fin had wire and line wrapped around it with hooks also penetrating the turtle’s flesh.

“I was thinking that we had to absolutely save this turtle when we got hold of it,” said Bean. “We weren’t leaving until this turtle was free.”

Allen said the turtle didn’t make it easy for its rescuers.

“While we were untangling him, he was flapping his fin in the air and always trying to swim away from the RHIB,” said Allen.

Capt. Bob Roth, Truman’s commanding officer, praised the team for the successful rescue.

“It was a great event all around,” he said. “The sea state was perfect and the RHIB team did a great job freeing the turtle and certainly saving its life,” he said. “In the Navy, we always strive to be good stewards of the environment. As professional mariners, we are obligated and take great pride in helping those fellow mariners in need. In this case, we applied our mariner culture of assistance to this wonderful creature. The smiles and excitement of the boat crew after they returned to the carrier were infectious, it was an uplifting experience.”

[kuhio98]

Hmmmm, I wonder what it would be like to be so financially secure that I could simply forget I had $98,000 in a plastic bag in a desk drawer? Well, I can dream, can't I?

Rabbi returns $98,000 he found in desk he bought on Craigslist

(CNN) -- A Connecticut rabbi returned $98,000 in cash he found in a plastic bag hidden behind drawers of an ordinary office desk he bought on Craigslist in September.

Rabbi Noah Muroff, a high school teacher at a private Jewish school in New Haven, discovered the money while dismantling the $150 desk to move it through a narrow doorway.

"The desk did not fit ... by just a fraction of an inch," Muroff said.

He said he unhooked file cabinet drawers and removed the top of the desk. Then came the unexpected surprise.

"Without detaching the desk, Muroff said, "this money, which was behind the drawers, was totally inaccessible."

The rabbi and his wife, Esther, were in total shock.

"We were looking at each other and laughing," he said. "This kind of thing only happens in the movies."

On the evening of September 2, just days before Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, Muroff and a friend picked up the desk from a woman, Patty, who lives just outside of New Haven. Muroff declined to identify the owner further.

"I knew this was her money," he said. "She told me she bought the desk from Staples and put it together herself."

Within 20 minutes of finding the money, around 11:30 p.m. that same evening, Muroff called Patty.

"She was speechless, without words," he said.

Muroff said the former owner told him she put her inheritance in the desk and after a while forgot it was there.

"I do not think there are too many people in this world that would have done what you did by calling me," Patty wrote in a thank you note to Muroff that CNN obtained.

The couple took their four children with them to return the money the next day, hoping their good deed will send "the message of honesty and integrity," he said.

[kuhio98]

La Pine-area dog, shot in head, recovering at home
Stranger in parking lot offers to pay hefty medical bill

LA PINE, Ore. - A La Pine-area dog that was shot in the face and faced possible euthanasia -- but was saved thanks to a chance encounter with a helpful stranger -- went home Saturday, his grateful owner said.

Santia Reed said in a Facebook posting that the vet told her Zeus "was shot at point-blank range," so they were unable to remove the fragments. He has a side of his jaw wired and a drain tube in his neck, to be removed next week.

For now, Reed said, Zeus "is on a diet of soft food, cannot be outside alone for 10-12 days, is on antibiotics and pain medicine" -- but "is so happy to be home."

She also said, "The man that helped save him even came by the vet's office today to see him" before the trip home.

The La Pine-area family was awakened by gunshots early Friday morning, only to find their yellow lab Zeus had been shot in the face.

"We heard gunshots about one or two in the morning. My boyfriend got up out of bed came outside and Zeus was covered in blood," Reed said Friday evening.

Zeus, in shock, ran away from the Santia and her boyfriend.

"We looked for him until 8 a.m., when we found him curled up on the porch," Reed said.

With the dog resting, she called animal control to see if they could have Zeus put down, because they couldn't afford his medical bills.

We don't have the money to do anything," Reed said. "They were offering to put him down, to pay the expenses, if we could get him to the vet."

The dog was loaded into a car and they made the eight-mile drive to the La Pine Animal Hospital, when fate stepped in.

"There was this man," Reed said. "He asked if we could save him, and I said, 'No we don't have any money.' And he told the vet whatever he had to do, he would pay for it."

Dr. Lani Voyles of the La Pine Animal Hospital said, "It's kind of refreshing to see someone who is willing to help for a complete strange. It makes me feel better. We see a lot of the other side of it, so it's nice to see it."

Voyles says Zeus had fragments of bullet removed from his mouth, and part of his jaw wired.

"As we got further in, I called (the donor) back again and said, 'It's going to be this much more.' And he said, 'That's great, whatever they needed,'" said Voyles.

Resting comfortably, Zeus is expected to make a full recovery. And Reed is ever thankful for the man in the right place at the right time.

"I want to say, 'Thank you for saving the dog, making the kids happy and not having to go through that,'" Reed said through her tears.

[kuhio98]

From People Magazine:

Bao Tran Reunites with Baby He Saved in Vietnam



Bao Tran still remembers an old man shuffling onto the bridge to hand him a tiny bundle tucked into a straw hat.

It was May 1972 and Tran was in the South Vietnamese Army fighting alongside the Americans. His company was about to blow up the bridge outside Quang Tri.

"The man said the baby was trying to nurse on its dead mother," Tran, now 65, recalls.

He carried the baby in that hat for 60 miles – "I was in full combat gear, with explosions all around," he says – to an orphanage, where he left her with the name he'd planned for his own daughter someday: Ngoc Bich.

"That is what I named this baby," he tells PEOPLE. "Precious Pearl."

That would have been the last time Tran saw the girl he thought of as "my con gai, my daughter" but for an astonishing coincidence that led to their reunion this year.

Finding Each Other

After seven years as a prisoner of war for the conquering North Vietnamese, Tran returned to the orphanage, but it had moved. Even as he and his wife had their own kids, he thought of his Pearl.

"I hoped she was okay," he says. She was.

Adopted by a Wisconsin couple who renamed her Kimberly Mitchell, she grew up on a farm, graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy, rose to Lt. Commander and now runs the Washington, D.C., non-profit Dixon Center for veterans.

"I'd always wondered," says Mitchell, "was it out of love I was put in the orphanage?"

After stumbling upon information on the orphanage's new location, Mitchell visited while on a 40th-birthday trip to Vietnam in 2011.

A U.S.-based Vietnamese-language newspaper wrote about her trip, mentioning the name on Mitchell's first passport as a baby: Precious Pearl.

Tran had since emigrated to the U.S. A worker of odd jobs in Albuquerque, he happened to read that paper.

"I knew it had to be the girl!" he says. He searched Mitchell out to reassure her that "she wasn't abandoned; she was rescued."

The pair met in New Mexico on March 29 and embraced like lost relatives.

"I was hugging this man, thinking, 'Why would he want to save me? '" she says. "He must have compassion and love in him that is beyond any comprehension."

Like Family Now

Today, as Tran and his wife Bau, with their children and grandchildren, ply Mitchell, 41, with flowers and Vietnamese food whenever they and their newfound "daughter" get together, there is not only joy all around – but also peace.

Mitchell knows that she was loved from the start; that her biological mother died with her baby in her arms.

"I was obviously important to her," Mitchell says.

And Tran's story of the war now has meaning.

"I was meant to find Precious Pearl that day," he says. "Finding her again has brought peace to my life."

[Taz_Zoee]

San Francisco turns into Gotham City for Batkid

Miles is a 5-year-old with leukemia who has always wanted to be Batkid. Thousands of volunteers crowded into San Francisco’s streets to help the Make-A-Wish foundation make the child’s dream come true.


Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nati...#ixzz2kl0dRYyD