Latest news with #Weinman
Chicago Tribune
08-04-2025
- Sport
- Chicago Tribune
Ladan Weinman is determined to be ‘uplifting' for Hobart. Keirys Click showed her the importance of that.
If Hobart senior outfielder Ladan Weinman disappoints herself during a game this season, she'll probably be the only one who knows it. Weinman refuses to be the player who drags a team down with her. 'Ever since I was a kid, it always bugged me whenever there was a kid who let their energy affect the team dynamic,' she said. 'I've made it one of my goals to not be that player. 'If I make a mistake or an error, I'm not bringing that to the team. I want to be someone who's uplifting in the dugout.' With that positive mindset and a seemingly endless reserve of energy, Weinman helped the Brickies win a sectional title last year for the first time since 2016. She also used her speed, finishing with seven steals and 16 runs scored. That's a key part of her game, according to first-year Hobart coach Josh Coons. 'She's excellent in the outfield,' Coons said. 'She tracks the ball really well and is a super fast kid who's going to chase down a lot of stuff in the gaps. 'And not only is she fast on the bases, but she has great instincts — always one base ahead, looking to be aggressive.' Weinman displayed a similar skill set on the basketball court this past season, when she averaged 4.8 points. She capped her basketball career with an appearance in the 14th annual Indiana Elite North vs. South Showcase in Lebanon last month. But Weinman said softball has always been her primary sport, and she has spent the months since the Brickies' postseason run doing her part to ensure they have a chance to repeat. 'Any time my coaches asked if someone wanted to catch more fly balls or take more hitting reps, I've always wanted to show up,' Weinman said. 'The feeling we had last year after winning all of those games was irreplaceable, and it'd be really cool to do it again with these girls.' Weinman is irreplaceable, too, according to sophomore infielder Addi Gaffin. 'It's just her personality,' Gaffin said. 'From warmups to practice, she's just very energetic and is such a fun, positive person to be around. She's passionate about every aspect of the game.' Weinman's enthusiasm extends to her ever-growing list of extracurricular activities. She's a tutor, is an assistant coach in youth basketball and is heavily involved in the Business Professionals of America. Weinman, who said she has a 4.68 GPA and is ranked No. 3 in her class, has been accepted into Purdue's Mitch Daniels School of Business, where she will study business management. Weinman said former teammate Keirys Click, a freshman at Illinois, is one of her greatest influences. 'I'm very hard on myself, and I used to not have this energy when I was younger,' Weinman said. 'Keirys brought so much excitement to the game. Even when she made a mistake, she still brought this unreal energy to every game and practice since I met her in sixth grade.' That's what Weinman hopes to replicate as a senior on a team full of underclassmen who will look to her to set the tone. 'I want to be that for the girls, someone who brings a positive mindset and picks someone else up, even when you're not doing your best,' she said. 'If we take it one step at a time, there are a lot of goals we can reach this season, and I'm really excited to see where we go.'
CBS News
25-02-2025
- Health
- CBS News
North Texas doctor helps parents facing infant loss deal with the unimaginable
After healthy pregnancies with her first two children, Yvette Ngo felt she knew what to expect when she found out she was expecting her third. She surprised her husband Thomas by tucking a positive pregnancy test into an Amazon box. The Arlington couple shared the news in their annual Christmas card. They celebrated their gender reveal with pink confetti. And they eagerly awaited the arrival of the baby girl they planned to name Zoey. A life-changing phone call But a 20-week anatomy scan revealed problems with Zoey's heart and kidney, leading to further testing. When Yvette Ngo received a call from the genetics counselor, she remembers being asked if her husband was available. "I said, 'Oh, he's at work right know, but you could tell me.' And she said 'I'd like for you to try to get your husband,'" Yvette said. "At that moment I knew there was some bad news coming." Zoey had Trisomy 13, a rare genetic condition that affects development of the heart, brain and other organs. In most cases, it results in a miscarriage. When babies do survive birth, it's often not for long. After pressing for more help, the family met with neonatologist Dr. Terri Weinman. Her specialty is helping families navigate the unthinkable, providing palliative care, or hospice, to the smallest of patients. "What I do is meet with families who are pregnant with a child who has been diagnosed with a condition that is scary," Weinman said. "And can help that family understand this might, in fact, be a life-limiting diagnosis for your baby." Palliative care for infants Weinman said providing palliative care to infants is a hard job, and one that did not exist 20 years ago. That is when Weinman said she first noticed she and her colleagues had different ways of caring for newborns who were unlikely to survive. She learned about palliative care as a specialty, but at the time it was mainly for adults with terminal illnesses, not for young children. For two years, she spent her evenings after work with a team of healthcare providers offering hospice care to adults while looking for ways to adapt the practice for her pediatric patients. "We're so focused on the medicine part of it, that we weren't focusing on the human part of it," Weinman said. She created a list of questions to review with parents — from what interventions they want to take to what memories they want to create. "When we met Dr. Weinman and her team the first time, she would say things like, 'So, what are we going to do when Zoey is here,' which changed my mindset completely," Yvette Ngo said. "Before then I hadn't even thought about that. I was expecting the worst." For the first time, the Ngos began to consider what Zoey's life, short as it might be, could look like. "It made us more comfortable with the situation, I mean as comfortable as you can be," Thomas Ngo said. "She just gave us hope." Zoey was born on April 18, 2024. She met her parents, her siblings and her grandparents. She was baptized. "They made us little crafts and mementos for us to take home, like footprints, really ways to help cherish Zoey's life," Yvette Ngo said. "They took her heartbeat and recorded it for us. Little things that we wouldn't necessarily think of. Zoey even had a chance to go home. But after 36 hours of life, Zoey passed away in her father's arms. The perinatal palliative care Zoey received remains rare. But for families like the Ngos, it provides a small sense of control when it's needed most. "Being able to plan so much in advance and think about all the different scenarios and how we wanted it," Yvette Ngo said. " I think, looking back on our time with Zoey..." "We wouldn't have done anything differently," Thomas Ngo said.
