In what is believed to be the first surgical program of its kind in Australia, a pair of profoundly deaf twins have received cochlear implants at the same time. The marathon 8-hour surgery involved 4 implants on 4 ears and 2 boys, all done in order to minimize the impact of pre and post surgical […] The post Unique Double Cochlear Implant Surgery Lets Twins Hear Mom’s Voice for the First Time appeared first on Good News Network.

Simon Howard, a man from Norfolk, England, loves researching family trees. It began with his own ancestry and morphed into a curiosity about people he has never met. The individuals are often chosen at random, making it that much more fascinating when he explores their lives. Everyone, of course, has a rich tapestry of history. It doesn’t matter if someone was world famous or never left their small town; each story is equally important. But as time marches on, it can sometimes be tough to remember the tiny details that make up a person’s life. Howard is setting out to remedy this, at least in part. View this post on Instagram George and Reginald Bailey In a clip recently posted to his Instagram account, Howard explains he’s going to pick a “random grave and research their life.” The camera follows him around a large graveyard, which he then describes: “The cemetery is huge. And after a while, we noticed an overgrown section over in the back.” He stands in front of a headstone and says, “I’ve chosen the grave of George and Reginald Bailey, who passed away in 1934. I’m now going to go home and research their lives.” And that he does. He shares George’s story in particular: “George Samuel Bailey was born in King’s Lynn, Norfolk, England, in 1904 and his brother, Reginald, in 1911. They also had a brother, James, and a sister, Cissy. His parents, George Bailey and Rosanna Medlock, married at St. Nicholas Chapel in 1902.” Howard stands outside of what looks like a parking lot in front of an apartment building. He explains, “Where I’m standing now was once Colby Court, where the family lived in 1911.” He shows the homes in their heyday and adds, “The houses have long been demolished but once looked like this.” View this post on Instagram Father had been a sailor He adds a little context about their family: “His father was a sailor and the Baileys came from a long line of fishermen. George joined the Royal Navy on the sixth of July in 1922. By now the family had moved to Hillington Square, which was just around the corner from their previous address. George’s naval records show that he was 5’6, dark hair, grey eyes, and a fresh complexion. It also showed his conduct was very good.” But, as sometimes happens in life, the family was struck by illness: “By 1934, the family was still living at Hillington Square. Over the next five years, tragedy would strike the family. George’s naval record showed that he was struck down with pulmonary tuberculosis and sent home on the 4th of October in 1933. Sadly, he died on May 12, 1934. His obituary said he was 29 years old of age and had been in the Navy for about 12 years. He had been stationed in Chinese waters, he had taken ill, and was sent home.” Family tragedy Howard then reveals a truly tragic addition to the story: “His obituary revealed even more devastating news. ‘Just as the Lynn family were about to leave their house on Wednesday to attend the funeral of one of their sons, they received a telegram stating that another son had died. This is the tragedy that has fallen upon Mr. and Mrs. G. Bailey of One Hillington Square, Lynn.'” Howard goes on to share that both sons had been recuperating from illnesses at Holt Hospital, and on the Wednesday of George’s funeral, his brother Reginald died of laryngitis. Howard relays that their sister Cissy died just three years later, leaving behind a husband and two children. And two years after that, their father died as well. Rosanna died ten years later, having lived a life of loss, but hopefully a bit of love too. A thoughtful gesture In an absolutely lovely gesture, Howard then begins to tidy up the headstone area. “We thought we would pay our respects by cleaning up the grave the best we could, as it was completely overgrown,” he says. He clears out some of the weeds and sticks and puts two small white flowers in little holders on the tombstone. “So rest in peace, Reginald and George. We will remember you,” he adds. The comments, just on this clip alone, were full of people who felt moved by Howard’s interest in preserving humanity. One writes, “That was lovely. You forget when you see a grave the life they had. George will be smiling down on you.” On Facebook, a person shares that they were about to swipe on by the video when they realized how important it was: “It hit me: that’s exactly who I’ll be in a century. Just some random guy with his own ego, desires and goals, completely forgotten. That realization brought me right back to watch the video.” View this post on Instagram Passion for family history Upworthy spoke with Howard, who runs a small business helping people find out more about their ancestral pasts. “I started researching with my own family tree and soon realized it was something I loved to do and also something I felt I was good at,” he said. “I wanted to do it for other people to earn a little extra money, and I started my page on Facebook. I started to write stories of my own family and got good feedback, and it started to grow, so I started researching and collecting old photos. It all started from a hobby, and my passion for family history.” As for why he began choosing random graves, he shared that it was important to him to keep the through-lines of personal stories going. “When my children were young, I wanted to encourage them to learn family history, so we chose a random grave and researched it together,” he said. The post A man picks random graves to research and uncovers remarkable forgotten lives appeared first on Upworthy.

The monocle has long been associated with cartoonish depictions of European aristocracy or American titans of industry in the Gilded Age. In pop culture, it was most famously worn by the Monopoly Man alongside his iconic top hat, tuxedo, and pillowy mustache. The monocle was a status symbol in the 19th and early 20th centuries because it was custom-fit to match the wearer’s ocular orbit and often incorporated ivory or precious metals. It gave the affluent a way to see things up close without having to wear wire spectacles, which were often associated with the clergy. A modern gilded brass monocle with gallery and prescription glass (about -6,00). Attached is a gold-plated chain. The monocle is 43 mm in diameter with a 10 mm gallery. Photographed in Tuntorp, Brastad, Lysekil Municipality, Sweden. The monocle fell out of favor after it became associated with high-ranking German military officials during World War I, and as technology made glasses more affordable, stylish, and comfortable. Towards the end of the monocle’s reign atop the social food chain, Fox Movietone News produced a remarkable short film, featuring an aristocrat, Count Sribor-Rylski, teaching movie-goers the etiquette of wearing a monocle. Restored and colorized by Did You See? for its popular YouTube Channel, the film was given a more lifelike quality to make the count more relatable. In the video, Sribor-Rylski seems like he’s being an over-the-top version of an aristocrat while explaining the proper social decorum for wearing a monocle. According to the count, if you decide to wear a monocle, you have to be consistent; otherwise, you’re committing a major faux pas.  “If you wish bad to wear a monocle, decide at first which eye you’re going to monitor, the left or the right. Nothing, you know, is quite such bad form as wearing a monocle on Mondays and Thursdays in the right eye and then the next week in the other eye. It’s perfectly ridiculous. What use of a monocle then? It looks a joke,” the count says. How do you wear a monocle? Even though it looks uncomfortable to wear the eyepiece, the count makes it look easy. “Now, to insert a monocle, you just raise the eyebrow and insert it. Now it’s inserted. We’re ready for a conversation,” he says before pretending to talk to a friend that he calls “old bean,” who’s having trouble with his wife.  Although Count Sribor-Rylski seems a bit pretentious, he was more than ready to help any Americans learn how to wear the ornate eyepiece. “If any lady or gentleman wants to learn how to wear a monocle, I’d be glad to give them a lesson in the art of handling this beautiful glass,” he concludes the film. Did You See? says this may be one of the earliest “how-to” films it has discovered during its restoration of old footage. In the early days of film, the medium was seen as low-brow and, in some circles, immoral. This led to an increase in the production of educational films that were shown to community groups and businesses. By the 1930s, amid the dark cloud of the Great Depression, newsreels began to show lighter, slice-of-life fare, hence the delightful monocle reel. Who was Sribor-Rylski? Count Sribor-Rylski and Comte Scibor-Rylski. Credit: via Did You See?/ YouTube and Genanet The short film caught the attention of Reddit. Some Internet sleuths got to work trying to learn more about this super charming gentleman who, in 1930, was living in British-controlled Singapore. A family tree posted on GeneaNet found a profile for a Comte (Count, in French) Etienne Louis Philippe Scibor-Rylski, who was born in 1886 in France and died in 1945 in Indochina (a French territory comprising modern-day Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia). The man in the video, released in 1930, appears to be around 44, and the photo of the man on GeneaNet bears a striking resemblance. Could it be that Fox Movietone News incorrectly listed Scibor-Rylski as Sribor-Rylski on the title card? It’s pretty easy to mistake a lower-case c for an r. If so, the man in the monocle may have met a rather horrifying demise. In 1945, the Japanese coup d’état in French Indochina resulted in the deaths of over 2600 French soldiers and dignitaries.  Ultimately, the monocle reel shows that people’s tastes in content haven’t really changed all that much. You may not find many influencers making monocle posts these days, but aspirational videos of successful people flaunting their latest fashion will always capture the public’s attention. The post Distinguished 1930s count explains how to wear a monocle in a charming restored video appeared first on Upworthy.

Online shopping has quietly turned into a system where you can summon almost anything to your doorstep without standing up, and most of us have stopped thinking about who actually carries it there. An Amazon driver named Jennifer Monique would like a gentle word about that. In a TikTok that’s racked up over a million views, Monique, who posts as @jennifermonique365, ran through the three items she dreads seeing on her route. Not because she minds the work, but because they’re punishingly heavy, she isn’t paid extra to haul them, and they tend to be the ones customers expect carried all the way inside. @jennifermonique036 #fyp #worklife #Amazon #amazonwharehouse #amazonpeakseason #overtime #viralvideo #funnyvideos ♬ original sound – jennifermonique036 Number one: cat litter. It’s heavy, people go through it fast so it’s constantly being reordered, and per Amazon’s own rules a single package can run up toward the 50-pound limit. Number two, and the one that clearly baffles her most: dog food. “Some of these dog foods, like 80 pounds,” she said. “What size dogs do y’all have in your house? Why is the dog food and the kitty litter so heavy?” And number three: bottled water, sold in flats of 24 and 40 that turn a routine drop-off into a back workout. A woman with an armful of large boxes. Photo credit: Liza Summer via Canva. Her actual summary was less a complaint than a tired fact: “They don’t pay us enough to be lifting cat litter, bottled water, and dog food.” It’s worth saying that plenty of people order exactly this stuff for good reasons. As commenters on her video pointed out, some are elderly or disabled, some don’t own a car, some are buying for parents who can’t make the trip themselves. Heavy-delivery convenience is a genuine lifeline for a lot of households, and Monique isn’t really telling those people to stop. The takeaway most viewers landed on is smaller and easier than quitting Amazon. Drivers move somewhere between 170 and 350 packages a shift, often with no time to stop, and the difference between a brutal stop and a bearable one is mostly about how they’re treated. If you do order the heavy stuff, a few things go a long way: leave a bottle of water or a snack on the porch, don’t expect them to haul forty pounds up three flights, tip when you can, and please don’t fire off a one-star review because a driver set the litter by the door instead of carrying it to your kitchen. The job is hard enough at the weight it already is. Follow @jennifermonique036 on TikTok and for entertaining and lifestyle content. The post An Amazon driver named the 3 things she dreads delivering. Two involve your pets. appeared first on Upworthy.

Ellie Valentine’s father-daughter dance with her dad Seth at her recent wedding was an emotional moment she never dreamed she would get to experience. When she was 7 years old, he was diagnosed with ALS. His life expectancy was just 2-5 years. But 16 years later, he is still alive—and got to walk his daughter down the aisle. “My mom walked me to the end of the aisle [on level ground] where my dad was carried to by the groomsmen,” Valentine tells Upworthy. “I then put my bouquet in his fragile hands, gave him a kiss on the forehead, and pushed him down the aisle. So sacred.” View this post on Instagram The father-daughter dance In Valentine’s tearjerking video, she shares her first dance with her dad, who is laying in a self-designed “wheel-bed” that allowed her to push him on the dance floor to the Jonas Brothers’ song “Little Bird”. Her mom Amy and husband Brenton also joined in on the special moment. “I’ll never forget my mom wheeling my dad into the middle of the dance floor, everyone dancing around him, my dad beaming with joy,” Valentine tells Upworthy. “I don’t think anyone in my house slept for days after that high.” The song was a meaningful choice made by Valentine via a friend’s suggestion. “I immediately knew it was the song for our daddy daughter dance. I sent it to my dad and he immediately started crying, sharing it with his caregivers around him,” she says. The lyrics were incredibly personal to her relationship with her dad. “When my mom was pregnant with my older brother, my dad told her if it was a girl then she would be an only child because he would spend the rest of his life protecting her,” she explains. “When I was born, he cried and cried every night by my crib. He would pray for me, and pray for my future husband. ‘Little Bird’ could be written from his perspective in that moment.” She points out this verse: “Walked down the aisle, breakin’ my heartLay down my pride, I know I gotta let you go‘Cause he’s gonna love you when I gotta leave youGotta believe it when the Lord takes me home…Please just keep me in your heartWhen you fly into somebody else’s arms, little bird.” View this post on Instagram The self-made “wheel-bed” Valentine’s dad Seth was an Ironman, a coach, and father of four young kids when he was first diagnosed with ALS. However, the family adapted to his new needs. “My family has lived life differently since that diagnosis, never saying no to an adventure and always reminding each other how much we love each other,” she tells Upworthy. “We moved to Hawaii, backpacked across Europe, started a non profit car show, remodeled 3 houses, and so much more.” She notes that compared to others with ALS, his disease progression has been slow. “Our family has been given the gift of time,” Valentine adds. “We have had so much more time together than we anticipated.” But over time, he has lost more and more of his mobility and independence. “Five years ago he became unable to sit without choking and became dependent on a CPAP machine. He now uses a eye gaze computer (a computer that sits above him while he is laying down, with a camera that tracks the back of his retina so he can select and have complete agency to speak, text, and have access to the internet),” she explains. View this post on Instagram It led him to collaborate with a close family friend, Fred Conlon of Sugarpost Metal, to design a “wheel bed” using his eyegaze computer that would help him get around more easily. “It could fit in our wheel chair van, and get him places like his children’s sports or schooling events or church,” Valentine explains. “The original wheel bed has been replicated and refined many times in different materials, sizes, or with more wheels. The wheel bed now is carbon fiber, folds in half for simple loading, and has removable wheels. All these adjustments are made for us to move more agile and to make his care more comfortable.” Valentine’s dad and their family started a nonprofit called ALSCrowd, dedicated to helping families affected by ALS. View this post on Instagram Viewers respond The emotional video of Valentine dancing with Seth and her mom and husband garnered lots of sweet comments from viewers: “I know your daddy was happy he made it to this gorgeous day!! My husband has been diagnosed 18 years this year and ALS stole our chances to be parents in the cruelest way! This makes my heart joyful to see such beautiful special moments!! Congratulations Valentines to a million more memories.” “I just love the way the mom moves. Not defeated and sad but triumphant and joyful! Like look at us all together! How awesome!!” “The most tender moment .” “He was THERE that’s all that really matters. As a daughter who lost her dad, her HERO, I can tell you, his only presence is the most beautiful gift you can have!” “This is the most beautiful father daughter dance I have ever witness!!! Crying because to be loved, and to love like this is what life is all about ” “This fills my heart my dad lost his ALS battle a year before I was married, making it so bittersweet. I’m so glad you got to experience this with your daddy .” “This is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.” The post Bride shares tearjerking first dance with dad battling ALS in his “wheel-bed”  appeared first on Upworthy.