MULTIMEDIA-ENGLISH
Urgent! help! Only 3 weeks to live! (outdated story)
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6:58
Video page URL
https://multimedia-english.com/videos/esl/urgent-help-only-3-weeks-to-live-outdated-story-2969
Description

I made sure this was not a fake call for help as so many others on the Internet. The video was posted on YouTube yesterday (Nov 5, 2010). This is an extract from the famous TV channel ABC News (read the complete article here):


Seven years ago, Kristie Tunick had a promising future. She was single, beautiful, healthy and active in sports and dance. Then her life got even better when she met her present boyfriend Brian Mendenhall.

In 2006, when Tunick was only 29, her health started to deteriorate inexplicably. What began as stomach issues, led to the removal of her gallbladder and slowly snowballed into even more severe symptoms: The muscles in her body began to lock up, virtually paralyzing her for hours and causing excruciating pain. Sometimes, she would even stop breathing.

Today, this once active girl is now a prisoner in her own bed, and it is Mendenhall who takes care of her.  "I've never loved anyone like I've loved her. ... I'm not the type of person to just close my eyes, turn my back, and walk out. ... So I'm here by her side ... no matter what," he told ABC News correspondent Bob Brown.


As the couple searches for a solid diagnosis and waits anxiously for a specialty clinic to admit Tunick, Mendenhall has had to watch his fiancee be robbed of the life they once knew.

Transcript

Hi, everybody, it's Kandee and this is a very different video than what you guys are normally used to watching from me, it's not a make-up tutorial or anything like that. This is... I just really need your help and... my friend Kristie really needs your help.

If we could make this a viral video, and I would just ask that you guys would just post this everywhere, post this everywhere on your Facebook, on your Twitter, send it out to everybody in your e-mail contact list. Uhm... if we can even use YouTube to help, if you "like", click on "like" or click on "favourite this video", it might make it on the YouTube home page and we can get this message out because time is really crucial.

Kristie contacted me and she has become a friend to me and she only has a couple weeks left to live and she... it is beyond needing money to help right now, we need a newspaper or a news station to pick up our story and get the doctor involved that would help her, or a hospital involved that would help her. She doesn't have any money for insurance anymore, uhm, all the hospitals and people have given up on her. She's been featured on 20/20 as... uhm... having this incredible disease that nobody can diagnose and she really needs your help.

20/20 didn't do a follow-up story, which didn't help her. All the doctors have failed her, the insurance companies are just treating her awful and she... a little bit of background story is... I'll put some pictures on here... she is such a beautiful girl, and she still is so beautiful... uhm... a lot of the things started happening about five years ago and her body goes into total paralysis where she can't move and she's in excruciating pain. Every part of her body feels like it's being crushed or smashed 24 hours a day. She's on the strongest pain medication she can be in and she still... just cries or screams 'cause the pain is so awful.

She gets paralysed where her eyes are glued-shut, her tongue is paralysed, she can't speak, she can't move, uhm... she blacks out and her boyfriend has to try to shake her or pour water on her or do whatever he can to wake up and he doesn't know if she's alive or she's in a coma, uhm... and she's been living as a prisoner in her house for the last three years. She hasn't gone outside, hasn't seen the world, hasn't breathed any fresh air. The only time she's left her house in those three years it's been by ambulance, uhm... to go to the hospital. So she really is isolated in this world of pain, and not knowing how long she's going to live.

She was in fashion design school, she wants to have her own clothing line, she wants to have a family, she wants to have her dream wedding and she doesn't wanna die right now, she doesn't want to give up but she has no help left, so we are relying on you to help, so if you can, please, just take a few minutes and send this video to everybody you know or with the links to get a hold of her, I'll put them, if you go below, I'm gonna put a link to my blog with links how to e-mail, uhm...Brian, her amazing man in her life, that is, he stopped going to school to take care of her full-time and works as a waiter and he's devoted his life to her as well. Their love story is amazing. They met and they both knew that they were the one for each other and... uhm... and he's a very handsome guy and she's a beautiful girl and he's just devoted his life to taking care of her.

So, if you can please help, just take a few minutes to spread this message on your MySpace, on your Twitter, on your Facebook, send it out to all your contacts. If these big companies can make a change, maybe we can, maybe each person that can send something out to your local newspaper or your local news station to get this message out... she just needs somebody to help her. She needs the doctor or a hospital or... uhm... neurological specialist or somebody that can help her, otherwise... uhm... her boyfriend Brian just sent me the most heart-breaking e-mail just saying to save his... save his dream girl because he doesn't want to live life without her and I just ask that you would please, please help them. They... only have a matter of time so I couldn't wait to do this video, I couldn't wait to post this and I hope that you guys can't either.

Please, help Kristine, you can go to the link below, you can watch her story on TwentyTwenty, you can go to her care pages and read the... uhm... stories and see more pictures... uhm... just, please, she... just thanked me so much for being an angel to help saving her life last night and I could hear Brian in the background thanking me so much too, and I just ask that you guys are... please, just take a few minutes and see what we can do with the power of Facebook and YouTube and MySpace and Twitter, all these things. If we can just post this everywhere to get her message out, maybe these big people can let us down, but each one of you, that can be a total stranger, can be an angel to help save her... life, and would be part of God making a miracle happen for her. So please, go below, follow the links, post this video everywhere so we can get the word out, so somebody...

If we can get enough ++++ local newspapers to say something about her story, maybe something bigger will happen and just help save her life. So please, please, please... uhm... you don't know how excited she is that this could help save her so go to the links below, post this as many places as you can, if anybody has any connections with the media, newspaper or... uhm... anything. Please, please, call them, share the story, give the direction to get a hold of Brian, her boyfriend, or to e-mail her and see how you can help.

And I just wanna thank you guys so much for having huge hearts and for taking the time to watch this and taking the time to... uhm... maybe change somebody's life just with a few minutes from your day, so... thank you so much, you guys, and hopefully we can all be a part of making a big miracle to save Kristie Tunick's life. Uh... have a wonderful day and we'll see you in the next video. Bye.

































































































































































































































































LINKS

please click here: http://kandeethemakeupartist.blogspot...
































































































































contact Kristie with any media help via her "dream man" Brian's email: bsixstring@yahoo.com
































































































































Kristie's email: kristietunick@yahoo.com
Contact her on CAREPAGES at: http://www.carepages.com/users/442045...
PLEASE PLEASE HELP KRISTIE!!

WATCH HER ABC NEWS clip on 20/20: http://abcnews.go.com/2020/sickness-h...

Explanations

This is a serious matter, not simply a video to practise English, but we'll make the best of it and also use it to learn some new things about spoken English and understand her message better.

IT'S KANDEE= To introduce ourselves we usually say "I'm X" when we can see each other and "It's X" when we can't (for example on the phone or when talking through a closed door). Here we can see Kandee, but she can't see us, so she uses the same formula she would use when talking on the phone, "it's Kandee" and not "I'm Kandee", though she could. Actually, the usual formula on TV would be to say "I'm X", and also on videos, but for home videos, it depends on the psychological state of the person recording (if they feel more like broadcasting a TV show or more like making a private phone call).

DIFFERENT= The usual preposition for this word is "different to" or "different from", but she uses "different than". Oh well, you'll find in spoken language lots of things that would be considered incorrect in written English. That doesn't mean that when you are speaking you can make mistakes, it only means that when a native is speaking, what is allowed and what is not allowed is not the same as for written language. In other words, the grammar of spoken English is different from the grammar of written English, and also more flexible, but still it has rules you must obey. This monologue is a very good example of spoken language, including lots of hesitations and broken sentences.

THIS IS, I JUST REALLY NEED YOUR HELP= This is a good example of what we just mentioned, a broken sentence. Broken sentences are sentences which are not finished or which suddenly change into a different sentence, so the structure is not consistent from beginning to end, it's like breaking two sentences and joining the beginning of one sentence to the end of a different sentence. That happens a lot when we are talking and, in the middle of our sentence, we change our mind and want to say something different. In this example, she started a sentence, se was going to say something about her video: "this is...", and then suddenly she feels that's not important and she goes on to say what she really wants to say: "I just really need your help". So we may consider this a broken sentence or an unfinished sentence ("this is...") followed by another sentence ("I just really need your help")

VIRAL VIDEO= A video that is reproduced more and more till it gets incredibly popular all through the Internet and thousands or millions of people watch it because people share it with others, so the process grows exponentially (the same as a "virus" reproduces exponentially and the more you have, the faster they reproduce).

IF WE COULD MAKE THIS VIRAL VIDEO, AND I WOULD JUST ASK THAT...= Another broken sentence. In this case it is really not an unfinished sentences, but a broken one. She starts with a conditional sentence: "If we could make this viral video, " and now we are expecting the main sentence, for example: "then it would be fantastic". But instead of that, she includes a clarification or addition ", and I would ask that you guys would just post this everywhere,". But at the end of the addition she decides to extend that idea even more and says: "post this everywhere on your Facebook, on your Twitter, send it out to everybody in your e-mail contact list...". Ok, now she made all her additions to the idea of "making this viral video", but after so long, she completely forgot the beginning of the conditional sentence, so instead of finishing it, she simply ends all that and starts a new sentence (after some hesitation, as if she suddenly lost her train of thought): "UHM... IF WE CAN EVEN USE YOUTUBE TO HELP". This time she's going to do the same, she's going to add a clarification before continuing the conditional sentence: ", if you like, click on like or click on favourite this video,". But this time she doesn't forget she has started a conditional sentence, so after the clarification, she's going to finish it: "it might make it on the YouTube home page". So the real sentence, with no clarifications, would then be: "If we can even use YouTube to help, it might make it on the YouTube home page". These broken sentences, hesitations, additions and clarifications inserted everywhere, and neverending sentences that just join one to the next with an endless chain of connectors and commas... all that would be horrible composition in written language, but it's completely normal, usual and acceptable in spoken language, because we have no time for planning or rectification, we just talk and talk and talk and let our ideas go out.

CRUCIAL= Extremely important.

IT IS BEYOND NEEDING MONEY= We don't need money anymore.
After prepositions and conjunctions we use –ING ("beyond needing"). The preposition BEYOND means "farther away than, on the other side of", so if something is beyond a situation it means that the situation changed and now it is in a new phase.

RIGHT NOW= At this very moment, exactly now.

A NEWS STATION= A radio station dedicated mainly to broadcasting news.

INVOLVED= A person involved is a person who is connected with the situation in some way. Here, when she talks about a doctor or hospital involved, she means a doctor or hospital that has the capability to deal with the situation, to cure Kristie.

THAT WOULD HELP HER= The verb WILL (and WOULD as its past and conditional form) often means more or less the same as "want", so the doctor that "would" help her is the doctor that "would like to" help her.

INSURANCE= She refers to a health insurance company. That is a private company that is going to pay for your medical expenses when you are ill, and you pay money to them every month so they can pay for you if you need it. In European countries (and some others too) that is a free public service, the "National Health Service", but in the USA if you go to hospital, visit a doctor or buy medicines, you pay for it with your own money, and hospitals can be really expensive, more than a 5 star hotel, so many people get a private insurance company and pay them money to make sure they'll have their medical needs covered. But insurance companies don't cover all your needs, or not all the time. Kristie's company has stopped paying for her medical needs for some reason (maybe in her contract there was a limit of expenses or limit of time or any other thing).

GIVEN UP ON HER= To give up is to surrender, to stop trying. If you give up on someone, you stop trying to help that person or to make them do something.

FEATURED ON 20/20= This is an American television programme on ABC channel. If you are featured on a television programme, you appear there, probably as the person they're going to talk about.

DISEASE= Illness, health problem.

DIAGNOSE= To diagnose a disease is to identify it, to say what kind of disease it is.

A FOLLOW-UP STORY= If you do an activity, a "follow-up" is something that you do later to make the activity more useful or to check if you got the desirable results. I suppose what she means here is that she was on television (or rather, the TV cameras when to her house, cause she was interviewed in bed) but then they didn't make a special programme talking about her situation, so everything was just a piece of news lost among lots of other news, with no real impact.

HAVE FAILED HER= If someone fails you, they don't give you what you need or what you expected.

AWFUL= Terribly, very badly.
The adverb should be "awfully", but in conversation we often use an adjective when we should use an adverb, especially in American English.

EXCRUCIATING PAIN= A horrible pain, as worse as you can imagine.

CRUSHED OR SMASHED= These words mean more or less the same. If something is crushed, it is completely destroyed by something heavy that falls on it or bumps into it at great speed. For example, if you put an egg on the floor and then you drop a television on top of the egg, the egg will be crushed.

SHE'S ON THE STRONGEST PAIN MEDICATION= She's having the strongest medicines against pain. When you have a medical treatment and you have to take certain medicines, we say that you are "ON medication".

WHERE HER EYES...= The use of the connector "where" in this case could be controversial, since we are not talking about a place but a situation. Some people could also use "when" for a situation, but in this case the meaning would change. It is safest for a situation to use "and" ("she gets paralysed AND her eyes are...").

GLUED-SHUT= Closed firmly, as if they were fixed with glue.

BLACKS OUT= Loses consciousness.

WHATEVER= Anything.

TO WAKE UP= This should be "to wake her up".

IN A COMA= In a long condition where a person is alive but her brain is unconscious, like a dead person with a living body who can't move or feel anything. Some people can recover consciousness after days, months or years, and some never do.

ISOLATED= Trapped, with no contact with the outside word.

FASHION DESIGN SCHOOL= A school were you learn to design clothes and create fashion.

CLOTHING LINE= If you are a fashion designer, you can work for famous designers helping them or making the designs they create. If you have your own clothing line, you are the person creating the designs, not a helper.

HER DREAM WEDDING= The wedding of your dreams, the wedding that you have always dreamed of, with a fantastic ceremony and an incredible day.

GIVE UP= Surrender, stop trying.

TO GET A HOLD OF HER= To contact her.

AMAZING= Fantastic.

FULL-TIME= All the time, not just a few hours.

DEVOTED= If you devote your time to someone, you spend your time with them or doing things for them.

SPREAD= To make public and known for more people.

TO GET THIS MESSAGE OUT= To make it public, known.

A NEUROLOGICAL SPECIALIST= A doctor specialised in the nervous system (the brain and its connections through the spine with all the body).

OTHERWISE= If not,

HEART-BREAKING= Something heart-breaking is something that produces on you a deep negative emotional reaction, it makes you feel very very sad (it breaks your heart).

THEY ONLY HAVE A MATTER OF TIME= What she really means is that "it's only a matter of time for them", that is, their problem now is time, they don't have much more time.

I COULDN'T WAIT TO DO THIS VIDEO= If you "can't wait" to do something, you are very impatient about it, you want to do it right now.
We also use this expression when you are very nervous and excited waiting for something to happen (in this case she didn't have to wait because it was something she could do herself, but if you say "I can't wait for Christmas to arrive", that simply means you are very excited about it and impatient, but of course you have to wait).

FOR BEING AN ANGEL= If somebody tells you that "you are an angel" that means that you are very nice and good. You can also say "be an angel and bring me a beer" (but a man would never say that to another man, it sounds too "sweety").
After prepositions and conjunctions we use –ING ("for being").

YOU GUYS= The plural form of YOU.

LET US DOWN= Disappoint us, not do what we expect from them.

EACH OF YOU, THAT CAN BE A TOTAL STRANGER, CAN BE AN ANGEL TO HELP SAVE HER LIFE= Every one of you, who are total strangers, can be a very good person and help to save her life.

POST THIS AS MANY PLACES AS YOU CAN= It should be: post this IN/ON as many... To post something on the internet is to upload it, to put it on the internet.

HUGE= Immense, very big. If you have a huge heart, you are a very good person.