When asking for money, teens usually spend money in eating and having fun. But Garland Benson, a 14-year-old boy in Austin, Texas, asks for money to help his sister, Christiane.

Garland is trying to raise ＄l million to help cover the cost of starting a clinical trial (临床试验) to develop a treatment for Batten disease that can cause blindness. Christiane was found having Batten disease at age 5,and she was 15 in 2018.

“It’s $1 million that I’m going to raise by myself,” Garland told KXAN.   “My first goal was to get 100,000 people to give $10 each, and I can do that by spreading it on social media, getting people to donate (捐赠) ＄10 until 10 people and then keep going like that and finally I’ll get there．”

Garland’s $1 million plan, called “Be a Hero!”, started in February, 2017. He has nearly reached his goal and he has raised $869,525. He has used school projects and even at school-based group of brothers called “Brothers for Batten“ who do things like garage sales to raise the money.

Christiane hasn’t allowed Batten disease to keep her from experiencing life. She still goes skiing with her family, rides horses and is a part of her school’s cheerleading squad (啦啦队).

Garland and Christiane’s parents, Charlotte and Craig, started the Beyond Batten Disease Foundation in 2008 in the hope of funding a clinical trial for treatments that may slow the progress of Batten disease. Mom Charlotte is proud of both her kids for doing what they can to help each other and others with Batten disease.

Daniel Devlin lives in the same house as his children and sees them every day — yet he is unable to recognise them at all.

Mr. Devlin, 46, from London, is living with a strange condition called prosopagnosia (脸盲症), also known as face-blindness, meaning he struggles to recognise faces — even those of his own family. He has to memorise his family’s voices and body language in order to know who they are. But reading voices and body language doesn’t always work. He has even mistaken another boy for his son when picking his children up from school before.

Mr. Devlin said, “Humans have a special ability to recognise people by seeing their faces. I really don’t have this ability.”

Maybe a good way to imagine what it’s like to have prosopagnosia is to try and recognise people by what their hands look like. Every person has different hands, but if someone showed you a photo of someone’s hands, you might struggle to recognise who the person is, even if that person turns out to be someone you know very well.

“I just thought that everyone was the same, or maybe I just wasn’t putting in as much effort as others to remember people. If I saw my wife somewhere unexpected and she pretended not to know me, then I’m not sure whether I would know it was her.”

Though Mr. Devlin now knows he has had the condition all his life, his disease was only found a few years ago by chance. He said, “I heard a programme about face-blindness on the radio and realised that was what I had.”

It is thought that the condition affects up to one in 50 people. Some people with prosopagnosia may only struggle to recognise a familiar face, but in more severe cases sufferers cannot distinguish a face as being different from an object.

As part of his role in the Air Force Volunteer Reserve, John Lewis often visited military schools. But it was at a London school in 2014 that an accident happened. He had 11 operations in total and it was two years before he could walk again.

Although John improved physically, he couldn’t recover from what had happened. John was diagnosed with post -traumatic (创伤后) stress disorder (PTSD), but none of the treatment seemed to help. Then last year, at a hospital, a doctor told him a puppy   (小狗) could manage stress and might help with his anxiety.

In May 2019, they adopted a black puppy called Gibson. He says, “I'd never thought of it as a comfort. After just a few weeks, I could feel myself improving. If I was feeling anxious, he would jump up on the sofa and sit on my chest and I found that really relaxing and comforting. Wherever I go, he will follow me and it’s really helpful to my anxiety. We go out and play Frisbee (飞盘) and I now look forward to going out for walks while I would always make excuses to stay in the house before.”

His wife Anna has also noticed a difference. She says, “Gibson is an incredible dog that adores John. He is a fantastic companion. It has given him a focus and a lease on life.”

John is now. taking part in Generation Pup, a groundbreaking study that tracks puppies through adulthood to learn how their early experiences and environment affect their development. John says, “I really enjoy tracking this through the study, watching his personality begin to grow and support me on my road back to mental health, which he is playing a big part in.” “Gibson has done so much for me in a short space of time. I want to do something for him.”