Lizzy Brown, a 42-year-old mother of three from East Riding, Yorkshire, was diagnosed with cancer when she was 14 years old. Ms Brown received the diagnosis having woken up frightened on her 14th birthday. She was admitted to a hospital in Cambridge in 1989, where she was told that she shouldn’t expect to survive into adulthood.

While being monitored (监护) at the hospital, Ms Brown was looked after by a kind nurse called Debbie Bye. Ms Brown has never forgotten the good care that Ms Bye provided during her time of need. “My prognosis (预断) was very poor,”' Ms Brown said. “I wasn’t expected to live more than five years, but now I’m 42 with three children and there’s not a wheelchair in sight. She might have thought she was doing her job but it went above and beyond that. I remember watching Debbie work and being so inspired by the way that she did things. She showed me that children are children no matter what is wrong with them and she treated us all the same.”

The childhood cancer survivor always wondered what had happened to the nurse over the years,which is why she decided to put a call out on Twitter. Ms Brown tweeted an appeal to find Ms Bye, with her tweet being shared more than 1,000 times. Her action proved successful, as the two women were eventually able to make contact (取得联系) thanks to the power of social media.

“To be there when Lizzy was given her prognosis was something I will never forget,’’ said Ms Bye, who has since retired (退休) from hospital work and now works part-time in a school. “She was a teenager in denial and over the years I have often wondered what happened to her and came to the only conclusion I could and thought she had passed away. I am blown away.”

When I was 12 years old, I already knew that my teen years were going to be the worst years of my life. I was a total outsider, bullied (欺凌) at school. I felt completely alone in my small town.

But by starting to do volunteer work when I was 14, I turned my problem into a passion for helping others. The opportunity to practice kindness made me feel like my life had a greater purpose. The more positive energy I shared, the more kindness and appreciation I received. I realized that my purpose in life would be to reach out to people, specifically teenagers, and help them feel less alone.

Books were my true friends back then. I was so thankful that the authors wrote those books. The kindness they offered me with their books saved my life. One of my biggest dreams was to become an author so I could write books that would help other teenagers the way those books helped me.

After surviving terrible experiences at school and at home, I made a choice to take the optimistic, positive road in the next steps of my journey. My dream career, one I thought was only possible for the authors I loved, is what I am doing now. I have been a full-time author of teen novels since 2007 and am grateful for this amazing opportunity to reach out to readers every single day.

Kindness saved me when I needed help the most. Even small acts of kindness can change someone’s life. You never know what someone else is going through. But by practicing daily kindness, you become an architect of positive change.