Sleeping Beauty who slept for 64 days



It took almost two years for Nicole Delien’s family to find someone who could explain the mysterious illness that was making their little girl “sleep” for as long as 64 days. During those excruciating 21 months doctors diagnosed everything from West Nile to epilepsy.

Some even suggested that Nicole’s parents might be drugging her or somehow manipulating her sleep – an accusation that led to a report to Child Protective Services.

Finally, when the family was at their wits end, they found Dr. Michael Rancurello at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh, who diagnosed Nicole, 17, with an exceedingly rare disorder called Kleine-Levin Syndrome. Rancurello wasn’t an expert in the syndrome, but by chance he’d already treated several patients with the disorder that periodically sends patients into a strange state in which they alternate between long stretches of actual sleep and periods of semi conscious delirium.

“In the beginning we thought she had the flu because she had flu-like symptoms and a high fever,” Vicki Delien, Nicole’s mom, told TODAY’s Savannah Guthrie. “But then she just became, as the days progressed, more confused and lethargic. We didn’t know what was going on. “

No one knows exactly what is going wrong in the brains of KLS patients. What experts do know is that it strikes more than twice as many boys (70 percent) as girls and that patients can abruptly drop into a state in which they will sleep for as many as 20 hours a day - Nicole sometimes sleeps for 19 hours in a row - and then for a few hours pop into a sort of twilight state that is similar to what sleep walkers experience.

Rancurello describes this state as more of a delirium than a true period of wakefulness.

“It’s not really sleeping,” he told Guthrie. “If anybody’s come out of anesthesia or had an elderly family member who has had surgery and gets confused and talks out of their mind, that’s basically what this is. It is a delirium.”

Affected teens and their families are advised by the National Institutes of Health to wait out the syndrome, since it has been shown to resolve on its own in most cases. “Episodes eventually decrease in frequency and intensity over the course of eight to 12 years,” the NIH webpage on the disorder notes.

NYPD officer giving boots to homeless barefoot man

On a cold November night in Times Square, Officer Lawrence DePrimo was working a his post when he encountered an older, barefooted homeless man. The officer disappeared for a moment, then returned with a new pair of boots, and knelt to help the man put them on.
The act of kindness would have gone unnoticed and mostly forgotten, had it not been for a tourist from Arizona.

Officer DePrimo, 25,  was shocked at the attention. He was not warned before the photo went online; the department had not learned which officer was in the picture until hours later.

The officer, normally assigned to the Sixth Precinct in the West Village, readily recalled the encounter. “It was freezing out and you could see the blisters on the man’s feet,” he said in an interview. “I had two pairs of socks and I was still cold.” They started talking; he found out the man’s shoe size: 12.

As the man walked slowly down Seventh Avenue on his heels, Officer DePrimo went into a Skechers shoe store at about 9:30 p.m. “We were just kind of shocked,” said Jose Cano, 28, a manager working at the store that night. “Most of us are New Yorkers and we just kind of pass by that kind of thing. Especially in this neighborhood.”

Mr. Cano volunteered to give the officer his employee discount to bring down the regular $100 price of the all-weather boots to a little more than $75. The officer has kept the receipt in his vest since then, he said, “to remind me that sometimes people have it worse.”


Officer DePrimo never got his name that Wednesday. “He was the most polite gentleman I had met,” the officer said, adding that the man’s face lit up at the sight of the boots. Officer DePrimo offered him a cup of coffee, but “as soon as the boots were on him, he went on his way, and I just went back to my post.”

Young girl allergic to water

Ashleigh Morris, from Melbourne, Australia, can’t come into contact with water or she’ll break out in a painful rash. Her own sweat can cause severe itchiness and pain. Taking a shower leaves her unable to leave the house for two hours afterwards.

The condition arose when Ashleigh was 14, shortly after suffering from an acute case of tonsillitis. The penicillin she took to cure the tonsillitis but raised the histamine levels in her blood, which was believed to be the cause. However, no antihistamine treatments have

Although histamine levels are a part of it, there are other processes causing the condition, known as Aquagenic Urticaria. Ashleigh is one of only a few known cases and has to take cautious measures to make sure she doesn’t break out in a rash too often.

She carries an umbrella with her at all times, tries to stay in air-conditioned places, stopped taking part in physically challenging sports and sleeps with a sheet between her and her boyfriend.

Chef cooked his own genitalia at banquet

Mao Sugiyama, a self-described "asexual" from Tokyo, cooked up, seasoned and served his own genitalia to five dinner at a banquet in Japan last month, Calorie Lab reported.

Sugiyama tweeted:
"I am offering my male genitals (full penis, testes, scrotum) as a meal for 100,000 yen …Will prepare and cook as the buyer requests, at his chosen location."

On Sugiyama's 22nd birthday, underwent elective genital-removal surgery, severed penis shaft, testicles, and scrotal skin between five people, and garnished it with button mushrooms and Italian parsley.

He later served six diners who signed up for the $250-a-plate dinner, sat down to eat. The sixth person was a no-show.
The next day, an organizer posted a blog -- subsequently deleted -- containing pictures of the event. Images showed dozens of people who attended the event just to catch a glimpse of the rare treat.

Woman marries Herself

Schweigert said that when she first proposed the idea several of her friends thought it was weird. What is distinctly weird is the solo date nights she enjoys where she refers to "her wife" as if another person was actually involved in her relationship with herself.

A 36-year-old single mother who was tired of waiting for the Mr. Right to come along, married herself in a marriage ceremony, and even exchanged rings with herself.

Nadine Schweigert from Fargo, North Dakota, read her vows in front of 40 of her closest friends. According to Channels TV Schweigert vowed “I, Nadine, promise to enjoy inhabiting my own life and to relish a lifelong love affair with my beautiful self.”

Nadine realized that she is not going to wait for a guy to cherish and love her. She states, "No-one else can give it to me." She emphasized that the ceremony meant that "to be married to myself means I have to invest in this relationship."

Nadine go on date nights with herself and enjoys where she refers to "her wife" as if another person was actually involved in her relationship with herself.

She is no longer waiting for Mr. Right to complete her.