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Susan Deveau saw Mark Papamechail’s online dating profile on PlentyofFish in late 2016. Scrolling through his pictures, she saw a 54-year-old man, balding and broad, dressed in a T-shirt. Papamechail lived near her home in a suburb of Boston and, like Deveau, was divorced. His dating app profile said he wanted “to find someone to marry.” Deveau had used dating websites for years, but she told her adult daughter the men she met were “dorky.” (Flynn, Cousins and Picciani, 12/2)

For 15 years, scientists have put various stem cells into seriously ill patients’ hearts in hopes of regenerating injured muscle and boosting heart function. A new mouse study may finally debunk the idea behind the controversial procedure, showing the beneficial effects of two types of cell therapy are caused not by the rejuvenating properties of stem cells, but by the body’s wound-healing response — which can also be triggered by injecting dead cells or a chemical into the heart. (Johnson, 11/27)

The flu season is off and running in the Deep South. The most recent weekly flu report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds high levels of flu-like illness in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina and Texas. The highest level in that report for the week ended Nov. 16 was in Mississippi. Doctors in the Magnolia State say they’re already seeing lots of patients. (11/29)

A lifelong swimmer leapt into deep water near his lakeside home, and was horrified to find himself completely unable to swim. Had his wife not rescued him, he might have drowned. He had recently received an electronic brain implant to control tremors and other symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, and somehow the signals from the device had knocked out his ability to coordinate his arms and legs for swimming. (Grady, 11/27)

Dr. Joshua Hauser approached the bedside of his patient, treatment in hand. But it wasn’t medicine he carried. It was a copy of a 19th-century poem titled “Invictus.” It isn’t often that doctors do rounds with poetry. But Dr. Hauser, section chief of palliative care at the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center, and colleagues are testing it as part of a pilot study. He entered Mr. Askew’s room. The patient had asked for “Invictus,” a dark poem by William Ernest Henley that he remembered from his past. (Reddy, 12/1)

Parents of young diabetes patients say they haven’t been getting crucial readings from blood-sugar monitors worn by their children since early Saturday. The technological breakdown, the origin of which isn’t certain, threatens the proper care of the young diabetes patients. (Loftus, 12/1)

CONCORD, N.H. — For several years now, it has been almost de rigueur for skiers and snowboarders to strap on a helmet amid rising concerns about safety on the slopes. But a new study caution that helmets cannot protect skiers from all head injuries. (11/28)

Kaiser Health News: For Artist Inspired By Illness, ‘Gratitude Outweighs Pain’

People often ask Dylan Mortimer how it feels to breathe through transplanted lungs. He gets that a lot because while most people go through life with one pair of lungs, Mortimer is on his third. The 40-year-old artist has endured two double lung transplants in the past two years. He often shares his journey onstage as a speaker. But when the curtain closes, he leaves the rest of the storytelling to art. “I’m alive because of what someone else did,” Mortimer said. “That is humbling in all the best ways.” (Anthony, 12/2)

Nothing Jenn and Jason learned in parenting class prepared them for the challenges they've faced raising a child prone to violent outbursts. The couple are parents to two siblings whom they first fostered as toddlers and later adopted. In some ways, the family today seems like many others. Jenn and Jason's 12-year-old daughter is into pop star Taylor Swift and loves playing outside with her older brother. (Herman, 11/29)

We didn't expect to need the card table for spillover seating at this year's Thanksgiving dinner. We would be fewer than usual, just nine altogether, and the littlest one's high chair needs no place setting. As we got things ready, I felt deep gratitude for the family members who would be here — my husband, our two daughters, their husbands, my sister-in-law's 90-year-old mother and our two delightful granddaughters. But I also knew I would deeply miss the ones who couldn't make it. (Henig, 11/28)

A Chinese man sought medical attention for seizures and a headache that lasted nearly a month. Doctors found that tapeworms from undercooked meat were causing his pain. Researchers at the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University published a paper last week that details the plight of 46-year-old construction worker Zhu (an alias for the patient) in the eastern Zhejiang province of China who bought pork and mutton about a month ago for a spicy hot pot broth. (Beachum, 11/27)