Huge Bills For Hand Rehab; Vaccinations In Pregnancy; Extraordinary Patients

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How To Raise A Human We Want To Hear From You!  We've reported on kids and chores, Grandma's role in evolution and stay-at-home dads. What else do you want to know about parenting? What questions do you have for our correspondents? Submit your question here. We’ll pick a few to answer on NPR.org at the end of the series.   Angel Dean Lopez and his son Theo both sustained serious injuries to their hands that required surgery and months of occupational therapy. Heidi de Marco/Kaiser Health News   All In The Family: Father And Son Injure Their Hands And Incur Big Therapy Bills Angel Dean Lopez, a Hollywood TV writer and father of three, enjoys doing projects with his kids. He was helping make some wooden race cars for the neighborhood pinewood derby, when he ran into trouble while working on a car shaped like a San Pellegrino bottle. "I was in a hurry and I did a horrible thing," he said, remembering how his hand slipped as he was using a router to shape the small block of wood. He needed surgery, a two-day hospital stay and numerous sessions of occupational therapy to regain the use of his hand, he told reporter Stephanie O’Neill. By chance, Lopez’s son Theo sustained his own serious hand injuries carving a jack-o’-lantern about a week later. He also needed surgery and lots of therapy to recover. Only later did Lopez learn that his otherwise generous insurance policy would pay only a fraction of the charges for the prescribed occupational therapy. All told, the family owed $8,561. Read more in the latest article in our Bill of the Month series, a collaboration between NPR and Kaiser Health News.   Nicole Xu for NPR   Pregnant Women: Avoid Soft Cheeses, But Do Get These Shots The list of things you're supposed to avoid when you're pregnant is comically long. Hot baths. Alcohol. Soft cheeses. Tuna and lunchmeat. Sprouts. So what about getting vaccinations at the start of the third trimester? That’s a yes, with a few exceptions. A flu shot can be a big help for Mom, and Tdap (for tetanus, diphtheria and whooping cough) ahead of birth can help protect her newborn. Now there’s a one-page immunization guide for pregnant women that spells it all out, NPR's Selena Simmons-Duffin reports.   "If my life were to end next week ... I want to feel like I have made a contribution," said Carol Martin, seen here holding her 2018 Boston Marathon medal. Jesse Costa/WBUR   What Can Cancer Specialists Learn From Patients Who Beat All The Odds? Carol Martin, 67, has advanced, inoperable pancreatic cancer. And yet she just finished this year’s Boston Marathon, almost two years after her initial diagnosis. Why did she respond extraordinarily well to therapy? Even her doctors don’t know, but a project at Harvard Medical School aims to figure it out. The Network of Enigmatic Exceptional Responders is collecting all kinds of information about cancer patients who beat the odds, reports Carey Goldberg at WBUR’s CommonHealth. The ultimate goal is to make whatever helped these fortunate patients of use to other people. Your Shots editor, Scott Hensley   You received this message because you're subscribed to our Health emails. |  Unsubscribe  |  Privacy Policy | NPR 1111 N. CAPITOL ST. NE WASHINGTON DC 20002