Maria del Carmen Bousada made headlines in December of 2006 as being the oldest woman in history to give birth.
Sadly, two years later Bousada passed away leaving her twin boys.
Bousada dies due to stomach cancer. It is still uncertain who will take care of the boys.
Whether you’re at the doctor’s office or on your way home from the grocery store, here are some great ideas that will keep your little one entertained.
Tariq Griffin entered the world at 12:17 a.m. on New Year’s Day at Crittenton Hospital in Rochester, Mich. His twin brother beat him by 26 minutes.
This was enough time to have the clock start 12 and 2008 turn in to 2009. That means the boys have the unique distinction of having been born on different days, months and years.
Conjoined twins Kendra and Maliyah Herrin made medical history when they were separated.
Nicholas Holderman, 20 months, was playing at home with his two elder brothers when his parents heard his screams from the next room and knew that something was very wrong.
Somehow he managed to fall on to his parents’ car keys, one of which pierced his eyelid and penetrated deep into his brain. Today, the 20-month-old US tot has amazed doctors by making a full recovery.
The human body never ceases to amaze me:
A 2-year-old girl who was born with four arms and four legs left a hospital in southern India on Saturday little more than a month after surgeons there successfully removed her extra limbs.
(…)
Lakshmi was born joined at the pelvis to a “parasitic twin” that stopped developing in her mother’s womb. The surviving fetus absorbed the limbs, kidneys and other body parts of the undeveloped twin.
(…)
Lakshmi’s parents said they were taking her back to their rural village in eastern Bihar state where she had been revered by some as an incarnation of the four-armed Hindu goddess she was named after.
Wow, I guess neither does other culture’s beliefs. Read more.
July 1st 2007 just might very well go down as the worst day of my life. It was a long weekend, and the weekend had gotten off to a rather crappy start. That Friday, my wife Christine - who was pregnant for less than a month - told me that she had spotted some blood in her urine after going to the washroom.
Like most normal men, I got worried.
Like most normal husbands, I put on a brave face.
Like most guys who live and work on the Web, I searched a bunch of sites to see if this was normal or a cause to worry.
Online, you’ll find anything you want to find, and anything you want to avoid. So my wife went to the clinic that Friday afternoon, described the situation and the clinic told her some blood was nothing to be alarmed with.
Of course, that evening, all of that changed. The bleeding grew, and with it came a world wind of back pain. That, my friends, was what confirmed my worst nightmare: my wife had suffered a miscarriage. She had really not done anything out of the ordinary. I know, because my mother had a miscarriage after my elder brother and myself, after moving some furniture (no, she was not a mover, she was cleaning the apartment).
Overnight, the pain and it was the most painful thing to watch: my wife was losing her first child, was wringing in pain, and there was nothing I could do. By 4am we simply headed off to the hospital. Once there, it was clear that this was not “a bit of blood” but rather a loss of life.
“My condolences for your loss,” said the Doctor some time later. That’s when it hit me; but by the same token, by then, all that mattered was my wife’s health.
The stats are pretty eye-opening: roughly 1 out of 4 (some sources say 1 out 3, others 1 out of 5 - do the math) first time pregnancies end in miscarriage. For women above 40, that numbers shoot up. Ultimately, the human body is a tremendously flexible and adaptive thing and if a fetus does not want to become a baby, your body will tell you.
My wife and I came out of it much stronger. We had only told our parents, and their disappointment and sorrow was almost worst than the miscarriage itself. We were told that it would be best to wait a couple of months before trying to conceive again… so we did… but before we knew, my wife was late again…
This time around we wanted to avoid telling anyone until she was pregnant 3 months. But, in early October, my grandmother passed away. The next day when I was trying to console my mom, I thought it would be a good time to tell her the good news, so we did.
A few weeks later, we met with the doctor again, and even saw the little jelly bean flip and flop in Christine’s belly. It was the best day of my life.
I’m not quite sure why I’m writing all of this, but this past Friday Christine took a day off. She had been feeling a bit sick and tired. Then in the afternoon her mom called me to say she had spotted a teeny and tiny bit of blood. My heart sank.
This time around, it was a false alarm. Everything was a-ok. The baby’s heart beat was rocking to the rhythm and bopping to the beat of the radio, the next day we did a ultrasound saw the jelly bean once again. It was the best day of my life…
The little jelly bean is due May 31/June 1 2008. I can’t freaking wait.
NEW YORK, Oct. 9 /PRNewswire/ — Nyan and Lehka Pendyala, ages 8 and 6, will launch a kid-inspired and kid-driven campaign on World Sight Day, Oct. 11th, to increase awareness of unnecessary childhood blindness. Their ultimate goal is to raise $260,000 for a specialized pediatric eye care unit and training center in India, a project underway by ORBIS International, a nonprofit organization dedicated to saving sight worldwide. To make their target, the siblings are counting on other kids around the country to join their “Kids for Sight” campaign and come up with creative ways to help save the sight of children whose vision is threatened by treatable or preventable eye diseases.
“In Sanskirt, my name means ‘eyes’ and ‘vision.’ I want to help blind children see their family and friends,” said Nyan Pendyala. After he decided to forego gifts for his eighth birthday and request that donations go to ORBIS, his sister, Lehka, also stepped in to help. Her name means “line” and “writing” in Sanskrit. She noted, “If you can’t see, you’re going to have a hard time learning to read and write.”
Nyan and Lehka, both students at Hampton’s Central Elementary School in Allison Park, Penn., a suburb of Pittsburgh, will officially kick-off their “Kids for Sight” campaign in their respective classrooms on World Sight Day, which falls this year on Thursday, October 11th.
World Sight Day is a day set aside by the World Health Organization and member organizations of VISION 2020: The Right to Sight, a global initiative that calls attention to the plight of 28 million people around the world who are needlessly blind. Of particular concern are the 1.4 million blind children, three-quarters of whom live in the poorest regions of Africa and Asia. The majority of the blind could have their vision restored, or blindness prevented altogether, if only they had access to appropriate eye care and timely medical interventions.
Though the campaign has not officially launched, Nyan and Lehka have already raised over $10,000 by sharing information and collecting donations online at their “Kids for Sight” webpage: www.orbis.org/KidsForSight.
Inspired by the Pendyala siblings, Luke and Emma Dias, ages 9 and 5, from Madison, Wis. are making coasters in support of the “Kids for Sight” campaign and selling them from a make-shift driveway stand. Watching the Dias kids, neighbor Jacob Thomack, age 5, jumped in to help. To date, the Madison team has contributed $152 to the campaign with their sight set on donating more.
“The concept in the movie ‘Pay it Forward’ is happening before our very eyes,” said Nyan and Lehka’s father, Krishna Pendyala. “Once people got to know what they were doing, they started giving generously or began their own projects to help ORBIS save sight, even without Nyan and Lehka asking!”
The kids have selected an ORBIS pediatric eye care project in India as the beneficiary of their fundraising efforts. India, where the Pendyala family is from originally, is home to almost a fifth of the world’s blind children and suffers from a severe lack of eye care professionals trained to treat children.
ORBIS will use the $260,000 contribution to support the Pediatric Ophthalmology Learning and Training Center at Sankara Nethralaya Eye Hospital in Chennai, where work is underway to train medical professionals in the early identification and treatment of pediatric eye diseases and to organize outreach camps in rural areas to screen children for low vision and other visual disorders. The funds will also help further research studies in the field of eye care and rehabilitation, especially as it relates to children, as well as support public awareness initiatives on the prevention of childhood blindness.
“What Nyan and Lehka are doing for ORBIS is magnificent,” said Geoffrey Holland, executive director of ORBIS International. “At such a young age, their display of compassion is an inspiration to all of us. Their efforts will make it possible for so many children who are unnecessarily blind in India to see their parents perhaps for the first time.”
Beginning today, Nyan and Lehka will help their teachers with classroom activities focused on eye health and blindness prevention. The siblings hope to teach their classmates how to protect their own eyesight, as well as explain ways they can help children living in poor countries far away gain access to quality eye care. To download the free educational resources produced by ORBIS and its global sponsor Alcon, visit www.eyecareeducation.com.
GRANITE BAY, Calif., May 14 /PRNewswire/ — Two California women recently launched a revolutionary guided journal for parents faced with the unthinkable - a child suddenly placed in intensive care and extended hospital stay.
Now, What Do We Do? - How to manage your child’s critical medical needs fills the niche for parents and child advocates who cannot always depend on sustained, sage support from family and friends and must maneuver through the unknown themselves.
Now, What Do We Do?, a step-by-step guide to record vital information needed during a child’s hospital stay, was conceived by Jill V. Ruffman, Ph.D. and Marjorie B. Sladek, MBA, PMP. When Sladek’s son was unexpectedly whisked to intensive care upon his birth, she became his personal advocate. The medical staff in charge of her son’s critical care were so impressed by her ardent avocation on his behalf, they told her simply, “You should write a book.”
Sladek, along with co-author Ruffman, combined their unique expertise to write the first guidebook of its kind. “When a child is critically ill, it is imperative for parents to advocate for their child’s care,” said Sladek.
Some topics covered are:
- Learn which questions to ask
- Discover treatment assessment tips
- Create your own action plan
- Reduce stress
- Record instructions and advice
- Monitor progress
- Improve your child’s hospital experience
Sladek, 48, provided her knowledge of coordinating worldwide projects for 24 years to encourage readers to first get a handle on the situation and discover what to do about it. Parents are coached to ask many questions, and write everything down.
Sladek is a Purdue University graduate with an MBA from Xavier University, Project Management Professional (PMP) Certification and a Masters Certificate in Project Management from George Washington University.
Ruffman, a licensed clinical psychologist, took the structure of the book and complemented it with positive parent-friendly language. A Personal Life Coach, Ruffman, 48, has over 20 years of experience in clinical settings with Kaiser Permanente, and the United States Army and Air Force. She is presently employed by the State of California as a forensic psychologist.
Throughout their book, goal-oriented Sladek and friendly, optimist Ruffman actively promote increased medical advocacy and communication through their motto: “If you ask a better question, you’ll receive a better answer.” www.nowwhatdowedo.com
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