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Joy

A husband took these photos of his wife and captured love and loss beautifully.

I feel as if I were right there with them as I looked through the photos.

Snuggles.

When I saw these incredible photos Angelo Merendino took of his wife, Jennifer, as she battled breast cancer, I felt that I shouldn't be seeing this snapshot of their intimate, private lives.

The photos humanize the face of cancer and capture the difficulty, fear, and pain that they experienced during the difficult time.

But as Angelo commented: "These photographs do not define us, but they are us."

Having a cold one.

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Bed hugs.

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A challenging journey.

The doctor’s office.

Cozy sheets.

Hair falling out.

Shaving the hair off.

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Sitting in the window.

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Sunny day on the sidewalk

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A moment.

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Compassion touches in the car.

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Pets for comfort.

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Floating in the ocean.

Birthday celebration.

A time to rest.

Getting more treatment

Family present.

Thoughts in a hospital room.

A loving hand.

An ambulance trip.

A little smirk.

Home again.

Last rights.

An empty bed.

A lonely road.

“I loved it all."

This article originally appeared on 11.5.13

From Your Site Articles

Science

She tattooed half her face and you'd never know it. Her skills are just that good.

This incredible medical tattoo technology is giving renewed hope to burn victims.

All images via the CBS/YouTube

Basma Hameed runs a tattoo shop, of sorts...

Meet Samira Omar.

The 17-year-old was the victim of a horrific bullying incident.

A group of girls threw boiling water on her, leaving her badly burned and covered in scars and discoloration.

17-year-old Samira Omar

All images by CBC News/YouTube

She thought the physical scars would be with her forever — until she met Basma Hameed. Basma Hameed runs a tattoo shop, of sorts — but her tattoo artistry doesn't look like you'd expect. Basma is a paramedical tattoo specialist. Instead of tattooing vibrant, colorful designs, she uses special pigments that match the skin in order to conceal scars.

It looks like this:

Basma looking at Samira’s facial scarring.

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disabilities, health, reproductive rights,

Basma talking over the procedure.

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Visible scars and discoloration of the skin.

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Tattooing the visible scarring on her hand

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With Basma's help, patients like Samira can see a dramatic decrease in their scar visibility and discoloration after a few treatments. She even offers free procedures for patients who are unable to afford treatment. That's because Basma knows firsthand just how life-changing her work can be for those coping with painful scars left behind.

Check out the video below to find out more about Basma's practice, including how she became her very first patient.

This article originally appeared on 01.12.15

From Your Site Articles

Family

41 seconds is all you need to learn how to keep a choking baby from dying

These talking toys might save a life.

via St. John Ambulance/YouTube

A public service announcement from St. John Ambulance

Have you listened to the miscellaneous voices of your miscellaneous items on the floor lately?

Oh yours don't speak? Well these do.

And they have something to admit.

THEY ARE MURDERERS!

Conveniently enough, they offer four easy steps to make them not murderers.

ONE:

TWO:

THREE:

FOUR:

*phew*

And now for some follow-ups...

YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO...

Less murderous miscellaneous items, safer babies, better world.

This article originally appeared on 1.14.15

From Your Site Articles

babies

1796. That's when we invented vaccines.

An English doctor named Edward Jenner took incredible risks to try to rid his world of smallpox. Because of his efforts and the efforts of scientists like him, the only thing between deadly diseases like the ones below and extinction are people who refuse to vaccinate their kids. Don't be that parent.

Unfortunately, because of the misinformation from the anti-vaccination movement, some of these diseases have trended up in a really bad way over the past several years.

Wellness involves a lot of personal choices and the tradeoff between personal liberty and shared public good.

Measles is the starkest example. There were about 61 cases of measles in all of 2012, but in just the first seven months of 2014, there have been nearly 600.

As this chart shows, vaccinations are not like taxes rates or even freedom of speech. The impact of one's personal health choices can have a significant impact on the population around them, in their communities and even on a national level. It makes that trade-off all the more complicated and one not easily distilled into one convenient political or religious ideology.

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Obviously, the topic of vaccinations has become immensely more complicated since the onset of COVID-19 in 2020. But history teaches us valuable lessons and information is power. No matter how you feel about vaccines today, this chart is a reminder that medical science can be used for incredible good. Without breakthrough vaccinations in the past, many of us would likely not be here to have the debate about our personal choices now and into the future.

This article originally appeared on 11.21.14 and this infographic is based on data from 2012.

From Your Site Articles

Health

Her mother doesn't get why she's depressed. So she explains the best way she knows how.

Sabrina Benaim eloquently describes what it's like to be depressed.

via Button Poetry/YouTube

Sabrina Benaim's “Explaining My Depression to My Mother."

Sabrina Benaim's “Explaining My Depression to My Mother" is pretty powerful on its own.

But, in it, her mother exhibits some of the most common misconceptions about depression, and I'd like to point out three of them here.

Misconception #1: Depression is triggered by a single event or series of traumatic events.

Depression isn’t just over sleeping.

Most people think depression is triggered by a traumatic event: a loved one dying, a job loss, a national tragedy, some THING. The truth is that depression sometimes just appears out of nowhere. So when you think that a friend or loved one is just in an extended bad mood, reconsider. They could be suffering from depression.

Misconception #2: People with depression are only sad.

The obligation of anxiety.

Most people who have never experienced depression think depression is just an overwhelming sadness. In reality, depression is a complex set of feelings and physical changes in the body. People who suffer from depression are sad, yes, but they can also be anxious, worried, apathetic, and tense, among other things.

Misconception #3: You can snap out of it.

button poetry, medical condition, biological factors

Making fun plans not wanting to have fun.

The thing with depression is that it's a medical condition that affects your brain chemistry. It has to do with environmental or biological factors first and foremost. Sabrina's mother seems to think that if her daughter would only go through the motions of being happy that then she would become happy. But that's not the case. Depression is a biological illness that leaks into your state of being.

Think of it this way: If you had a cold, could you just “snap out of it"?

No? Exactly.

empathy, misconceptions of depression, mental health

Mom doesn’t understand.

via Button Poetry/YouTube

These are only three of the misconceptions about depression. If you know somebody suffering from depression, you should take a look at this video here below to learn the best way to talk to them:

This article originally appeared on 11.24.15

From Your Site Articles

depression

Politics

Back in 2015 Trevor Noah blew Jon Stewart's mind with these side-by-side trivia photos

Wondering how Trevor Noah become the Daily Show host? Watch this.

via Comedy Central/YouTube

Trevor Noah plays a revealing trivia game with Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show."

This article originally appeared on 01.22.15

Trevor Noah, one of the newest correspondents on "The Daily Show," hails from South Africa.

As a South African now living in the U.S., he wants to set the record straight about Africa.

via Comedy Central/YouTube

Noah invited his new boss and their viewers to see a different side of Africa by playing a game. You can play along too.

The instructions are simple: Guess which photo was taken in Africa and which one was in the U.S.

Round 1

via Comedy Central/YouTube

Stewart gave a reasoned response:

"The beautiful highway there on the right is probably Silicon Valley. ... The one on the left, clearly been shelled by rebels. I'm going to go with ... Somalia, maybe?"

Answer:

via Comedy Central/YouTube

Round 2

via Comedy Central/YouTube

This time, Stewart was pretty confident:

"OK, this one's easy. On the left there, that's the Success Academy in Harlem. On the right there, we got ... homeless kids. I'm going to go with, uhh, in Somalia again."

Answer:

via Comedy Central/YouTube

Last Round

via Comedy Central/YouTube

Stewart thought he was starting to catch on:

"I get how this works now. The one on the right, that's Detroit."

Answer:

via Comedy Central/YouTube

OK, so Africa isn't just the giant mass of despair it's often made out to be. But what exactly is Noah getting at?

via Comedy Central/YouTube

via Comedy Central/YouTube

via Comedy Central/YouTube

So let's stop paternalizing all of Africa. Our country has its own problems to deal with.

There's more. And it's really funny. Watch the video below:

From Your Site Articles

Congenital heart defects are the most common birth defect, affecting 1 in 110 babies. Many of them don't show up on an ultrasound. Pulse ox screening could help doctors discover and repair heart defects before they turn deadly. Sounds like a good idea to me. Warning: This is the tragic story of a baby who died. It includes an image of her shortly before her death.

This article originally appeared on 02.07.15

Taryn looked perfectly healthy when her parents brought her home. She was growing — thriving, even.

Then one day, the baby made a strange sound. Her breathing became difficult. Her mom called 911 and started CPR.

Taryn died that night in the hospital. She had a heart defect, but no one had thought to check her heart before it stopped working.

Less than 50% of congenital heart defects are diagnosed before birth.

A baby who appears healthy might have a heart that is moments away from stopping.

Luckily, there is a simple, inexpensive, and non-invasive screening called pulse oximetry.

A pulse oximeter shines a red light through the baby's toe, and reports the oxygen levels in the blood. Low levels are cause for further investigation. Practically all hospitals have pulse oximeters on hand.

In 2011, New Jersey became the first state to require pulse ox screening as part of the standard tests a newborn receives. As a result of this screening, over the following three years, 13 babies were diagnosed with a heart defect that could have been fatal if left undetected.

Since 2011, many states have added pulse ox to their newborn screening protocol. Here's a handy map to see if yours is one of them. If you live in one of the seven states that doesn't have a law requiring it, pulse ox should still be available to you in most hospitals. Ask your doctor.

If a law like this could save families from preventable heartbreak at minimal cost, it seems like common sense to me.

Feb. 7-14, 2015, is Congenital Heart Disease Awareness Week.

I don't want you to freak anyone out, but could you maybe spread the awareness by sharing this? You never know whose life you could be saving.

Warning: The auto-generated captions on this video are awful and in some cases upsetting. Upworthy neither makes them nor has the ability to control them. However, if you scroll down below the video and click "Show Transcript," you'll see an Upworthy-created version that is much better.