I think I’ve shared (classily? psh) on enough social media mediums that, due to my Crohn’s disease, which has hit severe levels, I had to leave my internship at Newsweek and I’ll be returning to Arizona in a few days. Don’t expect any graceful writing today, because this is all just a plain bummer. I just turned 21 in March. I had started feeling better at the end of last summer. But this flare up (some Crohn’s terminology for ya’) is remarkably worse and it’s time to go home.

There’s a lot I want to write about. My parents, who are flipping out. The fact that I feel like a 90 year old. That I can’t date. That I’m terrified I’m ruining my career. Then again, this might be my last update in a year. Right now, still in New York, I’m struggling to process most of my situation. I joke, but this has been one of the worst weeks of my life. I’m focusing on what I need to eat, if I’ll be able to and what said meal’s after-effects will be. Also, the mountain of Laundry that appears to be Kilimanjaro and the one duffel bag I’ve allotted myself. I [...] continue the story

A young man sets out on a quest to capture the perfect photograph. In the summer of 2005, I was involved in a severe car accident that left me paralyzed from the waist down. Upon waking up in the ICU, one face was staring back at me; my father’s. For the next month, my father had the nurses on duty wheel a chair into my room every single night, and that’s where he’d be until I opened my eyes in the morning.

Seven years since that fateful day in June, my father remains my biggest supporter. After more than two years in a wheelchair, I finally defied the odds and became vertical once more. I know deep within myself that this improbable recovery has a great deal to do with my father. And ‘The Photographer’ is my way of expressing  my gratitude. My father, the most reliable human being I’ve ever known.

Ara Sagherian

Writer and Director of the short film ‘The Photographer’ (2012)

This patient produced video is swiftly becoming viral and is on track to hit 1 million views in its first week. The hemoncology floor of Seattle Children’s Hospital performs Kelly Clarkson’s song “Stronger”.

By Sean McDermott

It was three years ago and some that I was taken to Brampton Hospital at breakneck speed with sirens and horns blasting and just myself and a paramedic in the back attempting to survive what seemed like the last lap of the Indy 500.

It was December, and although I was almost completely bed-ridden with the violent symptoms of End Stage Liver Disease and had retained enough water to fill a small decorative pond, I said goodbye to my daughter and my extended family as they planned to trek up to Caledon and fetch a tree for the coming Christmas season.  “I’ll be fine, “ I said reassuringly, for I had eaten well, I was in good spirits and the remote and the phone were on the bed beside me.  “Have fun.”

I had been suffering from some electrolyte management failures lately and had become accustomed to a heart arrhythmia that sounded like a beginner drummer.  He couldn’t come in on the one after a speedy drum solo. It had something to do with high potassium levels and the inability of my scrunched up liver to act normally. The family were gone about an hour when I started to feel [...] continue the story