Editor's note: In the Human Factor, we profile survivors who have overcome the odds. Confronting a life obstacle – injury, illness or other hardship – they tapped their inner strength and found resilience they didn't know they possessed.

This week we meet a young man who will graduate from Temple University at age 19.  Fabien Navidi-Kasmai is a survivor of both childhood cancer and cancer treatment. The chemotherapy and radiation led to nausea and changes in his palate, making the foods he loved inedible - if he felt like eating at all.  His mother's challenge was to find healthy foods he would like to eat, so he could stay in the fight.  The recipes mother and son developed together can now be found in their cookbook, "Happily Hungry."  They hope it will help other children and their families survive the treatments designed to kill cancer.

From Fabien Navidi-Kasmai:

In Farsi, they call yogurt "mast."  It isn't spelled like that though, because well, people who speak Farsi write in Farsi, but it's pronounced like "must."

From a young age I've loved mast. My grandma would dice cucumbers and put them in mast, we would put mast on rice, and add honey to mast as a sweet, healthy dessert.  I've even been told stories about how when I was two years old I would demand "more mast!" and my American grandfather would keel over laughing. FULL POST