Family Support

Rudy, Rigger and Camper arrived at Fort Bragg last week with yellow ribbons around their necks and their tails wagging for their owner, 1st Lieutenant Kelly Kyburz, whom they had not seen since last August.The three cute and friendly mix-breeds were well, happy and had been given loving attention here in Baltimore during their owners' tour of duty in the Persian gulf.Kyburz was sent home because she is pregnant. With the 327th Signal battalion, 18th airborne corps, she was a multi-channel platoon leader in Saudi Arabia and ''responsible for radio vans all over the area some within 50 miles of Kuwait,'' she says.

Stacey Hirth talked of being "angry and sad" about her uncle's deployment to Saudi Arabia."We're afraid that if the war is going to go on," the elementary school student said, "we won't see him for a very long time."She was speaking at a support group at Red House Run Elementary in Rosedale for students with family members deployed to Saudi Arabia.Stephanie Hoehn, whose brother Bill is a Marine in Saudi Arabia, talked about someone from the military who calls her home sometimes attempting to recruit her other brother to become a Marine.

Every day, she felt exhausted, sick to her stomach -- and thrilled. After six years of trying to have another child and finally giving up hope, Andra Bowles discovered she was pregnant.But as the weeks passed last winter, she struggled to catch her breath. Soon, she couldn't even walk on her own.Doctors finally found the problem: Bowles, 39, had a malignant tumor larger than an apple in her chest. The diagnosis was Hodgkin's disease. Her unborn baby was, medically, a complication.As her physicians broke the news that Good Friday, Bowles' husband, Darrell, grabbed her hand and held it tight.

Twenty years ago, Dorothy Askew-Sawyer was on welfare in Buffalo, N.Y., juggling work, school and the needs of her young son. Today, she is the executive director of INNterim House, helping women in the same situation. "I help them realize that you can do anything if you stay focused," Askew-Sawyer said. "It's great when they come to me and they say, `Ms. Dorothy I got that job.' Or, `Ms. Dorothy, I got that computer certificate.' I'm proud of them." At INNterim House, a private, nonprofit organization with facilities in Owings Mills and Pikesville, mothers and their children find not only shelter, but the support, services and training they need to get their lives on track.

NAGANO, Japan -- Twenty-three players, 23 tales of sacrifice, 23 families.Twenty-three spirited young girls who grew up to become the first Olympic women's ice hockey champions.They fought off taunts and insults. They dressed in bathrooms while the boys used locker rooms. They postponed their lives to pursue their Olympic dreams.Here are a few you might want to know.Lisa Brown married John Miller on Aug. 19, 1995.Finally, their honeymoon can begin.Two days after the wedding, Brown-Miller left to attend a Team USA training camp.

My two teenage granddaughters are high school seniors. They both plan to take next year off before entering college while they try to figure out how to connect to adult roles. How will they fit in the wider community? What are the careers where they will earn their livelihoods? While they struggle, they are not without resources: a good and successful public high school education, parents and family members who are professionals and connected to networks, extracurricular experiences in theater or school government, and part-time jobs.

Forget bundle of joy - a new baby can turn new moms and dads into a bundle of nerves. By helping first-time parents handle the stresses coupled with successful reproduction, Healthy Families Howard County hopes to keep their offspring safer. Administered by Howard County General Hospital, the voluntary program screens new parents and, depending on their needs, offers them in-home visits or access to support groups. In addition, a newsletter provides information about available community services and a "warm line" provides answers to nonemergency questions 24 hours a day. Ultimately, the goal is to support new moms and dads by promoting "positive parenting" and to reduce the risk of child abuse or neglect from the beginning of an infant's life.

By age 2, Dylan James Norwood was having 45 to 50 seizures a day, shaking violently and screaming. There was little for his parents to do besides feed him eight kinds of medicine -- until doctors recommended having half his brain removed."

Johns Hopkins University student Nathan Krasnopoler was riding his bike home from the Waverly Farmer's Market on a sunny Saturday morning last February when his life was cut short by an elderly driver. The 20-year-old computer science major from Ellicott City was riding in a marked bike lane on University Parkway when an 83-year-old woman turned right and hit him, trapping him under her car for 15 to 20 minutes. He never regained consciousness, was in a coma for more than five months and died Aug. 10 of brain injuries sustained in the accident.

And now here we are on our regular night with Los Angeles auditions. It always makes me so happy to see Cat interacting with the dancers waiting in line -- she is sunshine in high heels. Judges tonight: Mary Murphy, Nigel Lythgoe, and professional goof Jesse Tyler Ferguson. Love him, too. Mary Murphy warns them, "No lip syncing, no 'self-worship,' and no booty-shaking, unless you're really good at it. " Jesse gets on the mike and says he wants to see everything Mary just forbade.