DermCare Experts

03/15/2026

Amazing

Oksana Masters is renowned for her versatility -- excelling in four different sports over eight Paralympics, both summer and winter. As the most decorated American Winter Paralympian in history, she has won 23 medals across 14 years, including four golds at this week's Milano Cortina Games. But what's less known is that her astounding resilience was forged during seven brutal years in Ukrainian orphanages, where she endured starvation, abuse, and unimaginable cruelty as a young child.

Oksana was born in 1989 in Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine, three years after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, with severe radiation-induced birth defects: her fingers were webbed and she had no thumbs, she had a partial stomach and only one kidney, her legs were drastically different lengths, and neither leg had the bones needed to bear weight.

Her birth parents abandoned her. She spent the next seven years in orphanages where she was frequently beaten and sexually abused. The upstairs of one orphanage was run as a brothel. She was five when she started being taken up there and r***d by men, sometimes more than once a day.

The children were always hungry. Some nights there was no food at all, other nights just a cup of soup or a piece of bread. Her best friend, a girl named Lainey, was her protector -- "she was my family, she taught me what love is and what safety feels like."

One night, the two girls snuck out to find food. Oksana slipped and hit a chair. Men heard the noise and found Lainey. Oksana managed to hide but heard her friend get hit over and over -- Lainey died from the beating she received that night.

"All I wanted was to die," Oksana has said of that time of her life, "but I also wanted a mom. That ounce of hope was there and that's just what I held on to."

Thousands of miles away, a single American speech pathologist named Gay Masters was shown a grainy black-and-white photograph of a little girl standing in front of a table with an Easter bunny on it. "Something in her eyes just connected," Gay said later. "When I saw her picture, I just knew she was my daughter."

Friends warned her not to adopt an older child with so many physical challenges. She spent two years fighting through corruption and bureaucracy to bring Oksana home.

The whole time, at the orphanage, Oksana kept Gay's passport photo by her bedside table. "I looked at her picture every single day for the two years that she was fighting to get me," she has said. "I memorized that picture. I memorized those eyes."

When Gay finally arrived to bring her home, 7-year-old Oksana pulled the photograph from her bedside table. "I know who you are," she said. "You are my mother."

Years later, at the Laureus World Sports Awards, Oksana thanked Gay publicly: "Mom, thank you for saving me, for giving me a second opportunity at life." The camera showed Gay shaking her head. "I didn't save her," she told the Courier Journal. "She would have saved herself. That kid is a survivor."

In America, Oksana had both legs amputated above the knee -- her left at age nine, her right at age 14 -- as they became too painful to support her weight. Surgeons reconstructed her hands, reshaping her fingers to give her functional thumbs.

Oksana didn't know the word "happy" when she arrived in the United States. "My mom had to teach me what the word happy meant when I told her what these weird feelings were," she has said. "I just didn't know how to put a word to it."

At 13, she discovered adaptive rowing, and it changed everything. "It was my safe place to process my anger," she has said. "When you pull, you feel the force of the water on the oars; that was my way to scream and let everything out. But then when the oar comes out of the water, I feel that instant release."

She threw herself into competition with an intensity forged by everything she had survived. "I was such an angry racer," she has admitted. "That came from the childhood experience that I had."

That angry racer became one of the most versatile and dominant Paralympians the United States has ever produced. She won a bronze medal in rowing at the 2012 London Games -- the first ever U.S. medal in that event. A back injury forced her out of rowing and into cross-country skiing and para-cycling, and she excelled at both.

She won five medals at the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang, seven at the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing, and back-to-back gold medals in para-cycling at the 2020 Tokyo and 2024 Paris Summer Games.

Four different sports. Eight Paralympics. Summer and winter. Twenty-three medals across 14 years. Her final race of the Games -- the 20km cross-country -- will take place on the Paralympics' closing day on Sunday.

"My mom is my number one reason why I'm here and why I keep pushing myself, and trying to prove to myself what's truly possible, and prove to society what's truly possible," she says. Now 36, Oksana is engaged to fellow Paralympian Aaron Pike and hopes to become a mother herself one day.

She has also spoken openly about why she chose to share the darkest parts of her childhood publicly: "I hope it shines a light, that people acknowledge and change it because this isn't something that's unique to Ukraine; this happens in foster care all over the world, this happens in homes."

When asked whether she considers herself a role model, Oksana reflects: "I just see myself as being a physical example and being seen and hopefully empowering young girls. I am a role model in the sense of just never giving up and as a female fighting for your place and knowing you deserve to be here and you have worth. We all do."

Above all, though, Oksana wants her legacy to be measured in something other than medals: "I'm very honored if people consider that as a role model. It's more that I just want to continue to break down the walls for the young girls and women behind me."

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Oksana Masters has told her incredible life story in a powerful memoir: "The Hard Parts: A Memoir of Courage and Triumph" at https://bookshop.org/a/8011/9781982185510 (Bookshop) and https://amzn.to/416BXUY (Amazon)

For children's books starring Mighty Girls with disabilities of all varieties, visit our blog post "Many Ways To Be Mighty: 35 Books Starring Mighty Girls with Disabilities" at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=12992

For several inspiring books about Mighty Girls who pursue their dreams after amputations, we recommend "Rescue and Jessica" for ages 5 to 9 (https://www.amightygirl.com/rescue-and-jessica), “The Running Dream” for ages 12 and up (https://www.amightygirl.com/the-running-dream), and “A Time To Dance” for ages 13 and up (https://www.amightygirl.com/a-time-to-dance)

For three excellent books about girls and women breaking athletic records throughout history, check out "Girls With Guts!" for ages 6 to 9 (https://www.amightygirl.com/girls-with-guts), "We Got Game! 35 Female Athletes Who Changed The World" for ages 8 and up (https://www.amightygirl.com/we-got-game), and "Women in Sports: 50 Fearless Athletes Who Played to Win" for ages 9 and up (https://www.amightygirl.com/women-in-sports)

For books that celebrate adoptive families, visit our blog post "Born in My Heart: 20 Mighty Girl Books for National Adoption Day" at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=5116

02/14/2026

Hard work!

After finishing a shift in the ER, Regina Martínez trained for a dream most people would have put on hold.

A 33-year-old ER doctor in Miami, she first discovered cross-country skiing during her medical internship in Minnesota. When her residency took her 2,800 miles away from snow, it could have ended there.

Instead, she trained on roller skis over pavement and worked as a dog walker for $10 an hour to fund trips back to the mountains.

Now, Regina has made history as the first woman to represent Mexico in cross-country skiing at . After completing the women’s 10km free race, despite coming in last place, she was embraced and cheered at the finish line by fellow athletes, marking a historic moment for Mexico and showing exactly what women’s sports are about.

02/01/2026

Unbelievably amazing! Gives hope to people suffering from pancreatic cancer

In Spain, more than 10,300 cases of pancreatic cancer are diagnosed each year, making it one of the most aggressive forms of cancer. Its detection in the late stages of the disease and the lack of effective therapies mean that the five-year survival rate after diagnosis is less than 10%. But researc...

01/29/2026

Creativity in STEM!

01/28/2026

Creative genius!

01/15/2026

Worse than we thought

Tanning bed use is tied to almost a threefold increase in melanoma risk and is shown to cause melanoma-linked DNA damage.

01/06/2026

Accomplishments!

First-year med student Fox Ryker (DO ’27) shares the challenges faced by those with autism while highlighting the strengths their unique perspective provides.

01/05/2026

Endurance!

My transformation was most apparent the day I realised that a digital re**al examination can be life-saving

12/26/2025

Congratulations!

Conching says her path to medicine began in high school when she considered how health disparities affect Native Hawaiian communities.

12/09/2025

We’ve posted about him before but always worth a reread!

"If somebody were to watch most of my life over the past few years, it would be me sitting in a quiet room by myself studying and laboring over mounds of information."

Dr. Carl Allamby grew up in a neighborhood in Cleveland, Ohio where money was tight and life was hard. As a kid, he washed dishes and was a cook in a restaurant so he could afford his own clothes and school supplies. Dr. Allamby later got a job at an auto repair shop and became so skilled that he opened his own shop. He was proud of the work he did, but he always dreamed of becoming a doctor.

When Dr. Allamby was older, he finally decided to chase that dream. He went back to community college and studied every chance he got, even late at night after long days of work. He first took biology and other science classes to prepare for medical training. Dr. Allamby later went to the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, and he worked very hard to learn how to help patients. He never stopped learning.

All of his hard work paid off. Dr. Allamby finished medical school in 2019, and he became a practicing emergency doctor at 51 years old. He said that his years fixing cars taught him how to listen, solve problems, and treat people with kindness. In an interview with NPR, Dr. Allamby said, "If somebody were to watch most of my life over the past few years, it would be me sitting in a quiet room by myself studying and laboring over mounds of information." His story reminds all of us that it's never too late to go after your dreams.

(Photo: Courtesy of Dr. Carl Allamby / Cleveland Clinic Photography)

12/06/2025

Helping the world with her scientific and medical determination!

A 9-year-old saw her friends getting sick in class… so she fixed the air for the entire state.

At Commodore MacDonough STEM Academy in Middletown, Connecticut, 5th-grader Eniola Shokunbi noticed something adults had overlooked:

When the classroom windows stayed shut…
the air got heavy.
Kids coughed.
Absences climbed.

Most children would shrug it off.
Eniola didn’t.

“I think it’s really important for students to learn in a clean and healthy environment,” she said.

Then her teacher assigned a project: invent a way to protect students if another pandemic hit.

While other kids sketched drawings…
Eniola started researching.

She learned how viruses linger in the air — and how ventilation keeps people healthy. Then she found an article saying the White House was using a DIY air filter called a Corsi-Rosenthal Box — built with nothing more than:

• HVAC filters
• A box fan
• Cardboard + duct tape

Cost? About $60.
Effectiveness? Shockingly high.

So this 9-year-old did something bold:

She wrote a letter.
Not to Santa, not to the principal…
But to Marina Creed, director of UConn’s Indoor Air Quality Initiative.

She asked for the blueprints.

📬 And the scientist wrote back.

More than that — she showed up with a team of engineers and researchers.

They didn’t treat the kids like spectators.
They taught them how viruses travel, how filtration works, how to think like scientists.

Then the class built their first purifier together — decorated like their school mascot:

🦉 “Owl Force One.”

No fancy lab. No big budget.
Just cardboard and determination.

They installed it in the classroom… and waited for results.

But UConn wanted proof.
So researchers loaded Owl Force One into a car and drove it from Connecticut to the EPA’s bioaerosol testing lab in North Carolina — the same facility used to evaluate medical-grade purifiers.

The results?

⭐ 99.4% of infectious aerosols removed within 60 minutes
A $60 device outperforming machines that cost thousands.

Eniola didn’t stop there.

She spoke to school boards.
She met state leaders.
She stood beside the Lieutenant Governor and State Senator Matt Lesser at press conferences.

And she convinced lawmakers that clean air isn’t a luxury — it’s a right.

🗳️ October 2024
The Connecticut State Bond Commission voted unanimously to approve:
$11.5 million
for these student-built air cleaners in schools statewide.

One handwritten letter.
One science project.
Thousands of children protected.

Now 12 years old, Eniola wants to scale the project across America — and eventually?

She says she wants to be the first Black woman President.

If you ask her why she won’t slow down, she’ll tell you:

“If we’re not investing in science, we’re not investing in kids’ futures.”

Her story proves something the world forgets too easily:

✨ Innovation doesn’t wait for adulthood.
It begins with curiosity…
and one kid brave enough to ask why things can’t be better.

So the next time a child points out something wrong, listen closely.

You might be hearing the first spark
of the next public health revolution.

🦉💛 Here’s to Eniola — the girl who changed the air we breathe.

12/06/2025

Thank you to our patients! We appreciate you thinking of us this holiday season! And we are glad we can make a positive difference in your lives after all these years!