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At 55 years old, Griselda Castillo was a picture of health who rarely got sick. But in November of 2020, a persistent cough led her to finally see a doctor. After a short examination, the doctor ordered X-rays, which she was able to get that same day. Before she even arrived home from the appoint...
After an automobile accident, Alese was taken to Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center, where she was in a coma for two weeks due to a brain injury that resulted from the accident. Once she was medically stable, she was transferred to TIRR Memorial Hermann.
At Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center, two couples, each touched by kidney disease, made the decision to participate in a kidney swap. Jackie and Marvis Killingsworth of Cypress, Texas, and Lindsey and Jentry Camp of Magnolia, Texas, are examples of the power of kidney swaps, and the profound ...
Two families in Texas experienced a remarkable journey, one that brought them together for a lifesaving kidney swap and created an unbreakable bond. In a world where their paths might have never crossed, Leticia McQueen and Geraldina Beltran found hope in the midst of their struggles with chronic...
After years of uncontrolled seizure activity, Christopher Borck resigned himself to a life of isolation. Epilepsy prevented the otherwise healthy young man from doing everyday things like driving a car and living independently. Even though he was taking seizure-control medication, his seizures...
As soon as the paramedics arrived, they called Memorial Hermann Life Flight®. The next thing he recalls is waking up in a surgical ICU bed at the Red Duke Trauma Institute at Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center, one of the busiest Level I trauma centers in the nation.
“I started to go downhill in the ambulance, and Memorial Hermann Life Flight came and picked me up and took me to the Texas Medical Center,” Herdejurgen said. “I don’t remember the CPR, or the helicopter ride. I briefly remember being in the emergency room at Memorial Hermann when they shocked me...
Emilia “Mia” Tschen wants you to know her story. The 20-year-old Lake Jackson, Texas resident survived a traumatic car crash and lives to tell about it. Not so much about the crash itself, which took place 45 minutes from her home on the evening of September 28, 2019, but about her healing journe...
Affiliated burn surgeon Todd Huzar, MD, FACS, associate professor of acute care surgery at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston, was the first to treat Gary in the Burn Center. “We excised deep burns to his right hand and wrist and to his right lower extremity,” he says.
When Tina Oliver had a sudden, severe headache, she knew she needed to get help fast.
Most people go their whole lives without having the kind of catastrophic medical emergency that puts them in a Memorial Hermann Life Flight® helicopter. Brian Bremser has had two.
Late last year, Sam Mills was living the carefree life of a teenager. However, the day after Christmas in 2020, the 17-year old’s life changed instantly, when he lost control of his car while heading home from work in Katy, Texas.
In 2018, the Memorial Hermann Red Duke Trauma Institute implemented a new process which enables eligible patients to be taken straight from the Memorial Hermann Life Flight® helipad to the trauma OR, bypassing the hospital’s Emergency Center. This process, was instrumental in saving the life of a...
When EMS arrived, the 23-year-old Huntsville woman had an undetectable blood pressure, very little pulse and her body temperature was 81.7 degrees.
Marrissa was transported from Memorial Hermann Cypress Hospital via Life Flight® to Memorial Hermann-TMC, an approximate 12-minute flight, where Dr. Blackburn stood by to perform a minimally invasive procedure to remove the clot that caused Miller’s stroke.
In May 2019, Peggy Setliff had her first 3-D mammogram following a 4-year lapse in annual mammograms."My younger sister was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 54, and my father died of three different forms of cancer," says the 66-year-old, who works at Memorial Hermann-TMC. "I had become lackad...
When 78-year-old Joseph Park was diagnosed with stage IB non-small cell lung cancer in December 2019, members of Memorial Hermann’s multidisciplinary tumor board met to discuss his case and treatment options. Despite being in generally good health, Park has a history of smoking—he says he quit w...
In summer of 2017, Beck had what he thought was a canker sore that was not healing. His dentist examined it and advised him to see a specialist for a biopsy if it didn’t heal in a couple of weeks. After a biopsy that fall, he learned he had stage 2 carcinoma of the tongue and was referred t...
A few years ago, Edna Doberson began to feel tired and immediately knew something was wrong. Edna was referred to Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center where a thorough evaluation diagnosed her with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF)/interstitial lung disease, and she was shocked to learn she ne...
Forty-six-year-old Luis Perez was driving with a friend on a Saturday night when he felt a small pain and a sensation of pressure in his middle upper back. He pulled over, called 911, and was immediately rushed to nearby Memorial Hermann Northeast Hospital and immediately transferred to the Larry...
Six months after sustaining multiple traumatic injuries in a motor vehicle crash, 38-year-old Steven Fisher was walking again, thanks to the skill of the multidisciplinary team at the Red Duke Trauma Institute at Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center and the handiwork of his orthopedic traumatolo...
Maria Sonnen and her daughter, Laura Sonnen, were hit from behind repeatedly by a man driving a Nissan Frontier pickup truck. The result was a severe injury to Maria's left leg and near complete loss of the skin from behind her right knee to her ankle putting her at risk for an above-the-knee amp...
After a devastating automobile accident that nearly took his life, Anthony Vallone is back at work at Shell Trading with barely a limp, thanks to his strength of character, a supportive family and the orthopedic trauma team at the Memorial Hermann Red Duke Trauma Institute. “I have nothing ...
Dylan Pugh remembers working that day, coming home and going out again to meet friends. On the drive home later that night, he swerved to avoid an oncoming car and his one-ton Chevy Silverado Duramax left the road, hit a ditch, went airborne and slammed into a tree. The crash occurred on Sept. 29...
After working his usual night shift on a Tuesday, and then the day shift the following Thursday, Brian Southwell was lying in bed in the wee hours of the morning unable to sleep. It was 4:30 a.m. when the 45-year-old left his home in Onalaska, Texas, to make the 14-mile drive to Livingston. Along...
After a vehicle plowed into the back of his patrol car, rescuers used the Jaws of Life to pry apart the car and free Chad Blackburn, who was transported to a community hospital in south Houston, where surgeons removed his spleen, stabilized him and arranged for air ambulance transport to the Memo...
In 1996 at the age of 45, John Sigmon was diagnosed with acute hemorrhagic pancreatitis, a deadly disease with a 30% to 50% survival rate. Five months into his hospitalization, Sigmon lapsed into a coma and was put on life support. Three weeks later, he walked out of the hospital, the first of ma...
The Mischer Neuroscience Institute took the national stage when U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was transferred to Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center’s Neuroscience Intensive Care Unit on Friday, Jan. 21, 2011 after she was shot in the head. The Arizona congresswoman was shot at pointblank ...
In June 2013, Matthew Craig – then 15 – and his family were at their house on Lake Livingston enjoying some quality time when tragedy struck. While tubing behind a jet ski, Craig suddenly crashed into a boat dock. Right before impact, he attempted to protect his head as best he could ...
Five years ago Megan Collins’ life was marked by pain, social embarrassment and uncertainty about her medical future. Today, the 35-year-old considers herself lucky. Collins responded favorably to the treatment regimen for almost 18 months. Then her dystonia began to worsen and evolved aggressive...
Every other month, Carlos Velázquez and his wife, Mónica Costa, make the 12,500-mile round trip between their home in Asunción, Paraguay, and Houston, Texas, where Velázquez is undergoing an innovative treatment for glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). The Paraguayan couple and their Texas Medical Cent...
An upper gastrointestinal scope revealed bleeding in Manning's stomach, caused by a gastric neuroendocrine tumor of the stomach. Confirming the diagnosis, Dr. Rowe referred her to affiliated surgeon Curtis Wray, MD, for surgical removal of the tumor. Says Martha, "When Dr. Wray told me I would ne...
By the time Randy Whitesides made it to the office of internationally recognized glaucoma expert Robert M. Feldman, MD, the Floridian had lost the vision in his right eye. After contracting a bacterial infection in Mexico 30 years ago, he developed reactive arthritis, an autoimmune condition in w...
On New Year’s Eve 2012 Brendan Diffley’s father, Shane Diffley, and his stepmother, Jennifer Diffley, drove the 12-year-old to nearby Memorial Hermann Katy Hospital after he shot himself in the eye with a pencil while fashioning a makeshift paper crossbow using online directions. He w...
Jacob Smith was returning home with other students at his high school, after attending a leadership conference in Corpus Christi for members of Family, Career and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA). The last thing he remembers was buying snacks when the four-car caravan of students and teachers...
Tracy and James met at a 7-Eleven store in Bryan, Texas, and the two have been together ever since. Neither would have imagined that they would one day share a kidney. James and Tracy had been married for nearly 10 years when his physicians recommended kidney transplantation.
Diabetes and high blood pressure are the two most common causes of end-stage kidney disease. The progression of both conditions over more than 15 years of Gam’s life led to chronic kidney disease. By 2010, the 66-year-old mother of four boys was in borderline kidney failure, and her nephrol...
When Bernarda learned none of her three sons were a match for kidney donation, their search led them to the Kidney Transplant Program at the Memorial Hermann Transplant Center in Houston, where they learned that Bernarda had a high number of circulating donor-specific antibodies targeting human l...
Although the early years of kidney transplantation were marked by high rates of rejection and allograft failure, a clinical trial of the immunosuppressive drug cyclosporine dramatically changed the outlook for transplant recipients. The trial began in 1979, and three years later, David was among ...
Scott Carriker was in a bucket truck, changing out an electric utility circuit pole, when he grabbed the wrong wire and suffered an electrical injury that badly burned both his hands. He was admitted to the hospital’s John S. Dunn Burn Center and underwent eight surgeries in 10 days, the la...
Easter Sunday in April 2014, out of the blue, Mikayla Williams had a seizure – a dramatic occurrence for an otherwise healthy 12-year-old girl. A CT scan and blood tests done at Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital produced inconclusive results, and Mikayla was sent home with an anti-...
As a child, Jason Roy wanted to be a baseball player or a police officer. He initially gravitated towards sports, but then shifted gears and joined the Houston Police Department as an officer. Roy, by then a five-year veteran of the department, flipped his squad car several times during a high-sp...
Two semesters short of graduation from nursing school, Dara Lewis began having severe headaches. In a sudden shift from student nurse to patient, Lewis worked her way through the referral process from primary care physician to neurologist to neurosurgeon. In October 2011 she found herself in an e...
“Maybe it’s just stress,” thought Judith Harris when she suddenly experienced a severe pain in her neck while lying on the couch in her downtown Houston home. A professor of criminal justice at the University of Houston Downtown, Harris juggles a heavy workload and academic publication schedule. ...
Jafri sent the slides to a specialist, who confirmed small cell lung cancer, a form that shares common neuro-endocrine features with carcinoid cancer, but tends to be extremely aggressive.
For Mike Autrey, the treatment began with 12 weeks of chemotherapy given along with radiation to the ...
In May 2012, Cory Smith, a straight-A student and star basketball player at Clear Springs High School in Houston, suffered a severe intracranial empyema, an infection that arises most commonly as a complication of sinusitis or otitis, particularly in males in later childhood, adolescence or early...
Kelly and her husband, Chad, count themselves very lucky. The diagnosis of an open neural tube defect, or myelomeningocele, led them on a journey of education, referral, consultations and, ultimately, to open fetal surgery for spina bifida repair. Spina bifida – a major birth defect involving the...
In July 2011, three young siblings lost their parents in a tragic car accident on the way home from summer vacation in Colorado. The Berry family was traveling back to Houston when their vehicle was struck head-on by an SUV that had veered into their lane. The two brothers, Peter and Aaron, who w...
In July 2011, three young siblings lost their parents in a tragic car accident on the way home from summer vacation. The Berry family was traveling back to Houston when their vehicle was struck head-on by an SUV. The two brothers, Peter and Aaron, sustained serious spinal cord injuries that paral...
We're proud to announce the UTHealth Mobile Stroke Unit has successfully transported and helped save the life of its very first patient. The unit, the first and only one of its kind in the nation, is a specially equipped ambulance with a CT (computed tomography) scanner that allows a stroke unit ...
Jaclyn Barbosa’s polysomnogram showed she was waking up six to 10 times an hour, leading her doctor to diagnose her with mild obstructive sleep apnea. He fitted Barbosa, who felt claustrophobic using CPAP, with a mandibular advancement splint. The appliance protrudes the jaw in a forward pos...
32-year-old Jennifer Cooper Cheak was playing with her 3-week-old baby and son when she started to feel tightness and pressure in her chest. A few minutes later, she experienced a heart attack and was rushed to a local hospital. She was transferred to Larry D. Johnson Heart & Vascular Institu...
For those diagnosed with a potentially debilitating disease such as multiple sclerosis (MS), it would be understandable to surrender to feelings of despair and hopelessness. But that’s not the case for 39-year-old Leslie Martone, who refused to give up hope and instead has chosen to focus o...
After receiving a heart transplant in 1994 due to a Sudden Cardiac Death attack, Clarence Fontenot experienced another heart attack two decades later. Fontenot was ready to keep fighting, and so were his physicians. 13 weeks later, Dr. Gregoric made an incision in Fontenot's chest along the ...
Don Mathews' inspiring story begins on the night of his 21st birthday party in September 1998. A successful student at Sam Houston State University, Don was celebrating with some of his college friends at a lake house on Lake Livingston. Don and his date were on their way to their vehicle, comple...
When Steve began considering weight loss surgery at the age of 56, he was a Type II diabetic with high blood pressure, high cholesterol and unbearable pain in his knee joints. In addition to medications for these conditions, he was taking a diuretic to reduce the swelling in his legs. During his ...
Susan had struggled to maintain a healthy weight since childhood. "I was always teased about being overweight, which took its toll on my self-esteem," she said. "By the time I was in the eighth grade, I weighed 185." During her junior year in high school, Susan played basketball and ran cross-cou...
Rodney Janczak took his first helicopter ride on July 3, 1987, when he was nine years old. Following an automobile accident in a suburban area of northwest Houston, he was flown by Memorial Hermann Life Flight to the Red Duke Trauma Institute at Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center, formerly kno...
On September 15, 2007, McKenzy Winne was riding with two friends on the tailgate of a pickup truck. Suddenly and without warning, McKenzy was thrown from the tailgate. She tried to stand up, then collapsed in the street. After being flown to the Red Duke Trauma Institute at Memorial Hermann-Texas...
Thanks to a referral to Ron Karni, MD, who routinely does surgery for oropharyngeal cancers using transoral robotic surgery with a CO2 laser, Lentola avoided the toxic treatments, the effects of which are particularly pronounced in head and neck cancer patients.
"By combining the laser and...
Mackenzie Wysong’s positive attitude and cheery outlook make the difference in how she approaches life and its challenges.
Mackenzie had only been living in Houston a little more than a year when she received a breast cancer diagnosis in 2013.
Mackenzie made up her mind to hav...