Eighteen-year-old Kaitlyn Dobrow was living the typical teen life when unthinkable tragedy struck. The beautiful teen got off work at a Days Inn, went to the gym, and then headed home to bed. A few hours later, she woke up feeling sick with nausea and a headache. Her mom, Kathi, gave her some Advil. But by the next day, she was in excruciating pain and could hardly move. She was rushed to the hospital. But by then, it was almost too late. A bacterial infection called meningococcemia, which is similar to meningitis, had ripped through Kaitlyn's blood stream. And her life, and that of her family, would never be the same.

We've all heard about mothers suddenly developing superhuman strength to save a child. This story provides a surprising twist to that phenomenon. Two teen girls were able to lift a 3,000-pound tractor off their father, who had been pinned in a freak accident. It's absolutely miraculous how they did it.

Oh my god, I feel like such a dope right now. While I can barely master English, and have a few Spanish phrases (mostly having to do with alcohol) under my belt, and took six years of French that I've mostly forgotten, genius 17-year-old Timothy Doner has learned 23 languages and is learning more! He knows everything from French and German to Farsi and Arabic and some languages that only remote African tribes speak. This is CRAZY. And he apparently taught most of it to himself. Holy crikey.

Every once in awhile there's a celebrity story that brings tears to your eyes ... in a good way. Take the way basketball great Magic Johnson has handled his son Earvin EJ Johnson III coming out as a gay man. Magic has been a class act.

Heck, after listening to him talk about how he first found out EJ was gay -- way back when he was a young teen -- I kind of wish the Lakers legend was my dad. Magic's eyes quite literally light up with love when he's talking about his son, and his explanation of how he and wife Cookie have helped their boy through the whole process is like a road map for parents of gay teens.

A lot of teenage girls stress about prom -- who they’ll go with, what they’ll wear, etc. Katelyn Norman’s only concern was getting to experience it at all. The 14-year-old Tennessee girl has been battling bone cancer for two years, and recently found out that treatments are no longer working. So she made a bucket list and added prom to it.

Thanks to some awesome people, Katelyn got her prom. Her family contacted the school district and they planned a dance the very same week. Unfortunately, she was rushed to the hospital for breathing difficulties. This sweet girl told her teachers “the prom must go on.”

I'm frankly impressed by any human being who makes the decision to climb a mountain -- any mountain. Down here on comparatively level ground, we have couches and showers and stuff, so to voluntarily hike up and away from such creature comforts is quite the undertaking, at least in my book. So to me, 15-year-old Eli Reimer's recent climb to the Base Camp of Mount Everest in Nepal is an incredible accomplishment, for several reasons: Not only is Eli a teen, but the Mount Everest Base Camp's elevation is just under 17,600 feet (yup, that's the "base"). Oh, and Eli has Down Syndrome.

Whenever I hear about a quick-thinking kid who manages to survive some horrible situation on sheer intuition, my reaction is always to say a little silent prayer for my kids to have those same life-saving instincts (should they, God forbid, ever find themselves in a similar spot). Even as adults, we never know how we'll react under pressure -- especially the kind of pressure a New Jersey teen found herself under when a 45-year-old woman put a gun to her head, forced her into a car, and told her to drive to Philadelphia, or else.

The teen (whose identity remains anonymous) did as she was told -- sort of. She drove the car, anyway.

My oldest is still in middle school, so I haven't yet asked either of my kids to take on a chore as challenging as cleaning the bathroom. But if the amount of nagging required to convince them to clean their rooms is any indication ... yeah, I'm not getting my hopes up insofar as a sparkling clean shower goes. Anyway, the point is, I can only imagine how desperate the situation can get. So I had to laugh at the online pic of a note one mom taped to the bathroom door for her (presumably lazy-ish) teen:

"Please clean this bathroom tonight. Clean it like the Queen of England is visiting. Clean tonight. Baseboards/mop/tub. Please. Please."

But what REALLY made me laugh were the pictures of how that mom found her bathroom the next day ...