Jerry had just returned to work as a nurse in the Emergency Center after recovering from kidney surgery. Later that afternoon, he suffered a massive heart attack caused by an aneurysm rupture on his kidney that would have been fatal if he’d been at home. Lucky for Jerry he was at work that ...
Dana was by her father’s side throughout his entire journey, from doctors’ visits to treatments. Her unwavering support made a huge impact on his life. Now, four years later, he’s a survivor. In honor of her father and their journey, Dana has dedicated her life to supporting oth...
At 6 months of age and now home from the hospital, the twins were progressing at different rates. Zayn wasn’t sitting up or crawling like his brother Omar, who was steadily meeting his milestones. That’s when doctors diagnosed Zayn with spastic diplegia, a form of cerebral palsy that ...
As a Labor and Delivery nurse at Memorial Hermann Katy Hospital, Bianca Allen has guided countless women through some of their most vulnerable, life-changing moments. But when she suddenly became the patient, everything changed.
If you ever meet Angelia Gray, she’ll tell you right away that she’s a country girl at heart. At 62, she’s known for her warm, giving nature and her love of being around people. “I can’t walk past someone without saying, ‘How are you doing?’” she sa...
In November 2020, on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, 69-year-old Thomas Paben found himself in the Emergency Center at Memorial Hermann Katy Hospital after experiencing severe nausea and lower abdominal pain. He was quickly admitted and connected to IV fluids. The emergency medicine doctor on ca...
A key component of April’s treatment plan was psychotherapy, also known as talk therapy or traditional counseling. Together, April and Dr. Harik were able to move April on a more positive life trajectory.
At 13 weeks, Anh chose to undergo a Non-Invasive Prenatal Test (NIPT) to screen for genetic conditions. The results showed she was a carrier of Alpha Thalassemia Major, a serious hemoglobin disorder that could affect their baby’s health.
When Austin, Texas-based manufacturing team manager Ta-Gheng Wang, 65, experienced chest pain at work, he assumed it was nothing to worry about and that it would pass. No one expected his pain to set off a series of events that took him to two different countries and multiple cities before being ...
This brave heart warrior already has undergone six heart procedures to address her complex condition: hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS) with severely depressed heart function.
Diagnosed with Hurler-Scheie syndrome at just 10 years old, Rylee hasn’t had an easy journey, but her strength and positive attitude have never wavered through it all.
Elia Contreras wasn’t supposed to live past five years old, according to the news her parents received after what started as a routine checkup when she was just a few months old. Now, almost 50 years later, Elia has defied the odds and continues to thrive year after year.
As Wayne was healing after amputation, he could use traditional prostheses to walk short distances with forearm crutches, but osseointegration proved to be life-changing for him.
For Joe Pompa, family is everything; it’s his driving force in all that he does. He knows that to be his best, he needs to be healthy. His commitment to health is why Joe schedules routine doctor’s visits and screenings.
As Jenny's pregnancy progressed, she was looking for a new labor and delivery experience that differed from her first two babies, who were both delivered in a larger, less personalized environment.
“There isn’t a thing out there that stops me. When I got the scoliosis diagnosis, I had to rethink how I was going to live life. But you can’t give up,” said Collin.
When Sienna Grace Wilson was born, a little fighter came into the world. Her parents, Sarah and David Wilson, were in awe of their new baby. They were also very emotional because of Sienna’s pre-birth diagnosis of Tetralogy of Fallot.
Amy and her team navigated through complex medical and emotional challenges with a level of courage, confidence and precision that saved her life and revitalized her future.
Michael, fresh from a game of youth football, was enjoying a casual dirt bike ride around the neighborhood with his dad. This normalcy was shattered in an instant when an accident left Michael with a severe compound fracture in his leg. The shock and fear were immediate.
However, in 2022, Tucker faced a major setback when he sustained a knee injury unrelated to football during his sophomore year of high school. The incident took place while he was wrestling. He got stuck in a twisted position and didn’t realize he tore his meniscus at that moment. The next ...
For Demetric Fisher, her daughter Kaydan's health was such a test. Born on June 20, 2012, in Jackson, Miss., little Kaydan’s life led her family on an emotional rollercoaster that would shape their lives for years to come.
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 ...
“With nurse navigators, patients have someone they can reach out to, who can answer their questions and make sense of this whole treatment process, which can be confusing,” says Sherrill. “And if there are scheduling problems or other barriers to treatment, we can help with that...
This was the case for Jessica Harris-Wiltz, 38, when she became pregnant in 2019. Little did she know that her pregnancy would take place during the global COVID-19 pandemic and lead to a life-threatening situation for her and her baby during an already high-risk pregnancy.
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...
As a firefighter in New York City during 9/11, Victor Rosario battled the ravages of terrorism to protect the lives of his fellow citizens. Now, as a seven-year FDNY retiree, he’s fighting a new battle—against prostate cancer.
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...
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.
In the spring of 2021, Francesca and Carlos Recao, who live near Katy, Texas, were finally feeling settled as first-time parents. Their little girl, Rebecca Rose, had just turned 9 months old, and the couple was soaking up every moment as a family of three. But during Rebecca’s 9-month well...
For their anniversary in March 2023, Stephanie and Jared Poole traveled to the Great Smoky Mountains to hike and celebrate 18 years of marriage. Stephanie was able to have an active, outdoor vacation with the use of her prosthetic leg.
Isaac was born with imperforate anus, a rare birth defect where there is no anus (opening) at the end of his digestive tract. Isaac also had a neurogenic bladder, a term that describes what happens when neurological conditions affect the way the bladder functions. He had surgery to reconstruct hi...
Harris County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Raymond Hubbard has faced many situations that have left him breathless over his 25-year career in law enforcement. But last February, walking up his stairs at his home in Richmond to play with his then 2-year-old daughter, he couldn’t breathe and...
For patients who face amputations, the road to recovery is a long one, filled with physical, emotional and social challenges. For those who undergo bilateral transfemoral amputations, the impact of limb loss is amplified. Alex Weatherford was an early OI patient and the first bilateral amputee fo...
Jill Schwertner doesn’t fit the profile of the average colon cancer patient. The 42-year-old resident of The Woodlands is healthy, doesn’t smoke, eats healthfully and doesn’t have a family history of colon cancer.
Theodore was diagnosed with hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS), a complex congenital heart defect in which the left side of the heart is underdeveloped and cannot pump oxygen-rich blood to the body. Babies with this condition need a minimum of three open-heart surgeries. ...
Dana Cherry always knew there was a good chance she would get breast cancer. When she was 25, she discovered that she had a gene mutation associated with a 50% chance of developing breast cancer by age 70.
A few weeks later, Sarah returned to her OB-GYN for another anatomy ultrasound. As the ultrasound technician glided the probe on Sarah’s growing belly, she noticed something unusual on the monitor. “The ultrasound showed Wyatt had fluid in his brain,” said Sarah.
Their baby had spina bifida. A portion of her lower spinal cord was exposed. The long-term effects could be seizures, bowel and bladder control issues, and difficulty walking. She might also need a special shunt to regulate her brain’s fluid levels.
Breast cancer was never far from Billy Mayo’s mind. In 2018, his wife, Teresa, underwent treatment for breast cancer; the same disease killed her mother two decades earlier. But while he worried about the disease regularly, he never worried about getting it himself.
“I began rehabilitation thinking I would not be able to do anything again, but that wasn’t true,” said Justin. “It’s about learning how to work through your limitations and find other ways to accomplish your goals.”
Carlos’ intraventricular hemorrhage (neonatal brain bleed) led to scarring in his brain from being born prematurely. The severe scarring and lack of blood flow to his brain tissue contributed to periventricular leukomalacia (PVL), a softening of the white brain tissue near the fluid-f...
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.
At the age of 5 months, Flora Sandt was already sitting and starting to roll, and she could push herself up on her belly and look around. She is the third child of Rebekkah and Justin Sandt, and based on their experience, she appeared to be meeting her developmental milestones. Then she caught a ...
After sustaining an unlikely injury from a fall, Michelle learned that she had osteoporosis at 47. At Memorial Hermann Rehabilitation Hospital - Katy, she received the rehabilitation she needed to get back to teaching.
On May 1, 2022, the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation will be holding its Take Steps Walk and 17-year-old Mateo Skeete, a patient at Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital, will be this year’s patient honoree.
Almost 4 years after her daughter, Sutton, was born, Joymesha Jones recalls her pregnancy, along with its challenges, like it was yesterday. As a 35-year-old expectant mother, her first and second trimesters flew by right on track. She knew about the potential risks due to her weight, but o...
During Black Maternal Health Week, we want to spotlight Ronnie Fisher, who despite several challenges throughout her pregnancy, had a safe delivery and recently welcomed a beautiful baby girl into this world.
Sweet Isabella was held by her mother Jessica for just a few moments before being whisked away for her first heart surgery at just 14 hours old. Born with pulmonary atresia with intact ventricular septum, half of Isabella’s heart was severely underdeveloped causing major issues with blood f...
After suffering a stroke in August 2017, Hector Alvarez started physical therapy at TIRR Memorial Hermann-The Woodlands Outpatient Rehabilitation.
Jack Rieger suffered a severe fall causing numerous injuries. After 9 months in UCLA intensive care, Jack was transferred to TIRR Memorial Hermann. From the therapy and education provided by the Disorders of Consciousness program, he was able to return safely home.
Nolan had just graduated high school in 2016 when he was involved in a rollover auto accident. He was ejected from the vehicle and suffered a severe traumatic brain injury. Nolan had an all-star, rock-star-level health care team at TIRR Memorial Hermann. Dr. Sunil Kothari, TIRR Memorial Hermann D...
Over the years, Linda, her husband, Frank H. Marsters, III, and their growing family would be the beneficiaries of many skilled and compassionate nurses at Fort Bend Hospital, which later became Memorial Hermann Sugar Land Hospital.
While in the hospital in Washington, Eric’s neurologist suggested that the family look into the Disorders of Consciousness (DoC) Program at TIRR Memorial Hermann in Houston. Two weeks post discharge in May of 2018, Eric and Cheryl boarded a plane and traveled to Houston.
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.
Pamela Alvarez exudes gratitude. Like most parents, she and her husband, Mike, are grateful to have healthy children, but the couple are also eternally grateful for the generous kidney donor who gave their younger son, Matthew, a second chance.
When the final bell of the day rang, 18-year-old Anthony Velasquez walked out of his high school just as he had on every other day. It was October 2019, and he was one of a group of teens crossing the street adjacent to his school when a car unexpectedly drove around a school bus and hit Anthony....
Emily Claire Jackson Sanders has been skiing since she was old enough to walk. Her father enjoys taking his wife and three daughters to Steamboat Springs, CO to ski during the winter months. So it was unusual when 20-year-old Emily did not come down the mountain one evening while skiing with her ...
Thom Knapp's career was put on hold as his leg became severely infected and he had to be hospitalized at Memorial Hermann facilities. Thom was first hospitalized for approximately 5 days at Memorial Hermann Katy Hospital, where his diabetes was treated and it was determined that he had a severe i...
Karen Echols doesn’t mince words: “I think a lot of people don’t like to talk about their poop.” The 52-year-old Houston hairdresser and mother of three, now a rectal cancer survivor, says she knows a lot about poop. But because she kept ignoring the warning signs, she came by that knowledge the ...
The scenery was stunning—waterfalls and streams created an ideal site for hiking. Ruben Menchaca had always loved camping and being out in nature, but this time something was wrong. His lower back was hurting, and not letting up. He thought it was from the long drive he and his wife took in...
When a stroke threatened to take away Edgar’s ability to ride his horse or strum his guitar, he turned to Memorial Hermann Rehabilitation Hospital – Katy. In February 2018, Edgar was at home in Sealy, Texas, getting into bed for the night when he began feeling a tingling sensation in ...
In March 2020, high school principal Phil Eaton was admitted to Memorial Hermann The Woodlands Medical Center with pneumonia. A short time later, he was diagnosed with COVID-19. His condition became serious, and he spent 21 days on a ventilator. After being discharged from acute care, Phil was ex...
Christine and Blake Dugger learned they were pregnant with twins in December, 2017. “The entire pregnancy was a surprise,” Christine Dugger says. “We have two older daughters, who were six and three at the time, and we were very much not planning on having more children, but whe...
Knowing that patients and their families prefer to receive medical care in their hometown, Brant Lipscomb, M.D., a Memorial Hermann-affiliated orthopedic surgeon and team physician for The Woodlands High School (TWHS), rode home with TWHS football player Kevin Butts and his family after Kevin was...
After knee replacement surgery, Karl was surprised how much his knee pain had diminished. He attributes this to the pre-surgery protocol that Dr. Mathis follows — taking pain medications, etc. Once he got through the eight weeks of physical therapy, Karl’s mobility increased considerably and he s...
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...
Gage Hulse is having the time of his life. The 19-year-old basketball star from Huffman, Texas, recently graduated from high school and is college bound on a full-ride athletic scholarship. During his senior year, he led his team, the Huffman Falcons, to a record-breaking season and a district ch...
After visiting Mr. Lee's Pearland convenience store one morning, as he had every day for 16 years, Officer Castillo noticed Mr. Lee didn't greet him as normal. As Officer Castillo turned the corner, he saw Mr. Lee laying on the ground bleeding from his head. "I told him to hang in there as the m...
After a heartbreaking loss of her first baby at 19 weeks’ gestation in 2017, Tonjanic Hill, 31, was excited but apprehensive when she became pregnant again two years later…with not one baby, but two! She understood that it wouldn’t be an easy road, and in her second trimester, ...
Sonya Lira has a strong family history of multiple cancers, but when she was tested for genetic mutations that might be linked to her breast cancer, there were none. “We did comprehensive genetic testing involving a complete gene sequencing of her DNA, testing for all known mutations,&rdquo...
When Natalie’s unborn baby daughter, Mila Grace, was diagnosed with spina bifida in utero, Natalie and her husband, Kevin, were stunned. After a routine ultrasound done just a week earlier, her obstetrician suspected that one of Mila Grace’s feet was clubbed and referred Natalie to a ...
Angel Marie Fields was out with friends when she noticed that her chest felt tight and heavy. She felt a lump but did not give it much attention. After all, she was only 26. When she checked it again later, it felt like one big lump. She made an appointment with her ob-gyn, Hany Ahmed, MD, w...
Courtney and Robert both remember the feeling of pure joy in January 2016 when finding out they were pregnant with their second child – a baby girl – after three years of trying. Their happiness soon gave way to worry, though, when Courtney’s obstetrician said her ultrasound sca...
It was November 2014, and Mya Aguilar was three months into her eighth-grade year. She had been called down to the school nurse for an annual checkup. When the school nurse asked Mya to bend over and touch her toes, she noticed something wrong with the eighth-grader’s back. Mya’s mother, Geneva A...
Amy Sager was 20 weeks pregnant with her second child when, during a routine ultrasound, she found out she was carrying a boy. But for Sager and her husband, Kevin, what should have been a joyous moment soon gave way to concern. The baby’s heart, the obstetrician informed them, was pushed to the ...
Meghann had planned a natural home birth for her first child, Elizabeth Caroline (“Lizzy”). When she started having abdominal pains at 23 weeks, her midwife ordered lab tests that came back normal. A week before Lizzy was born on January 18, 2013, severe abdominal pain sent Meghann to...
Michael Cassidy was cruising home on his motorcycle after proudly passing a welding exam. That is when his life changed forever. Without warning, the back wheel of the motorcycle spun out, and Michael, 25, lost control. Incredibly, among the handful of people who had witnessed the accident were t...
Harper Lowery was born prematurely at 29 weeks 6 days, the larger of fraternal twins. A cranial ultrasound performed at 10 days of life revealed a bilateral intraventricular hemorrhage. With blood clots blocking the flow of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), Harper’s head began to enlarge to accomm...
George Grabowski, PhD, a physically active 64-year-old, is among those who benefited from the minimally invasive option. Last August, his internist Clifford Yut, MD, heard a heart murmur and referred Dr. Grabowski to Memorial Hermann The Woodlands Hospital for an echocardiogram. A diagnosis of se...
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 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...
Leigh Rozelle found the lump purely by accident, just three days before Christmas. As she crossed her arms, she felt a golf ball-size knot on the outer side of her left breast. My family practitioner was able to squeeze me into her schedule the very next day,” says Rozelle, who is 38. “When she e...
Martha Mazzola recalls very little of the evening she suffered an acute ischemic stroke. “It started out as a day just like any other, and along toward evening I found myself sitting on a chair at our kitchen table with my husband on his knees beside me saying he was going to call 911&rdquo...
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 ...
When 63-year-old West Texas rancher Gary McGehee began experiencing episodes of tingling in his left shoulder and arm in 2010, he was treated for heart disease in San Angelo, the town located nearest the ranch he and his wife Carolyn own in Irion County. His cardiologist diagnosed stress-related ...
Van Buren, Arkansas, resident Lenord Lewis was working in Houston when his recurrent headaches became so bad that a co-worker drove him to Bayshore Medical Center in Pasadena, Texas. After reviewing the results of an MRI and CT scan, the emergency physician called an ambulance to transport the 55...
Equestrian Lindsay Holstead was leading her warmblood to the pasture on an unseasonably cold day in April 2013, when he became rambunctious and began to buck. After he bumped her, she lost my balance and fell, and his hoof struck her in the right side of the forehead where it curves toward the te...
As a Master’s Swimmer for the past 23 years, Rebecca expects top performance from her body. “Swimming is a very important part of my life — I used to compete and I wanted to still be able to do the breaststroke since that’s my preferred stroke,” says Rebecca. When the pain in her right knee becam...
Alan Benson had suffered from very painful sciatica for six long weeks by the time he arrived in the office of interventional pain management specialist Divya Chirumamilla, MD. Two physicians work together at Mischer Neuroscience Associates-The Woodlands to ensure their patients access to fast, c...
During a routine well-baby checkup shortly after Thea was born, her pediatrician noted a small red spot on Thea’s temple, adjacent her right eye. Colleen , Thea’s mother, recalls, “Our pediatrician knew immediately that the red spot was a hemangioma, and he told us it would grow...
Dominic was only 18-months-old when he followed the family dog out the back door and fell into the family’s hot tub. He was transported to the emergency room at Children's Memorial Hermann Hospital. During his stay, he was put on ECMO, which is an advanced life support treatment for critically il...
Three-year-old Leila went to her first ballet class in September 2016, an experience that might have been beyond her reach without the medical skills of Amy Schefler, M.D., FACS, an affiliated ocular oncologist and retinoblastoma specialist at Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital’s Te...
A caring and informed mother, a knowledgeable physical therapist and an expert in the surgical management of spasticity have transformed the life of eight-year-old Darius Sonia. Born seven weeks early, Darius suffered an intraventricular hemorrhage in the first few days of life – a common occurre...
For those diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), one of the most common and deadly types of malignant brain tumors, the outlook for long-term survival can be devastatingly grim. The average life expectancy after diagnosis hovers near 15 months, and the five-year survival rate is less than ...
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...
Erinn Brown was 34 weeks pregnant when she realized something was wrong with her baby. An ultrasound showed that the left ventricle of the baby’s heart was very small and nearly nonexistent. Brown’s doctor referred her to The Fetal Center at Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital....
When sixteen-year-old Hannah Hendricks faced the biggest setback of her life, she showed her grit to be the kind that comes from deep inside, the kind that keeps you going against the odds. And Hannah knows all about beating the odds. On the morning of July 25, 2013, Hannah, an incoming high scho...
A couple of months shy of her fourth birthday, Natalie Fraker’s voice grew a little hoarse. An endoscopic examination by an otolaryngologist revealed a partially paralyzed vocal cord. On biopsy, it was identified as a grade II astrocytoma, a tumor that arises from the star-shaped cells that...
Twenty-five-year-old Christine Smid was in good health until 2007, when she began to notice a burning, shocking pain in her face that began just below the eyelid and extended down to her upper teeth and lip. While visiting family in Lake Jackson, Texas, she saw her hometown dentist, who recognize...
Eighteen-year-old Daquan Minor, who suffered a fractured skull and a T-6 incomplete spinal cord injury in an auto accident in February 2013. Two years later, he was a key contributor to the 2015 TIRR Memorial Hermann junior Hotwheels win of the National Wheelchair Basketball Association’s Nationa...
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...
Wes Brown was hauling a load of saltwater from an oilfield in East Texas to a nearby disposal site when the tires on the rear axle of his 18-wheeler hit a pothole and bounced onto the shoulder of the road. As he tried to center his trailer, the steer tire on the passenger side hit another pothole...
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...
For 33-year-old physicist William Hartman, undergoing any type of brain surgery to treat his epilepsy – even the minimally invasive kind - commanded a giant leap of faith. As part of the team responsible for analyzing how the International Space Station and its experiments interact with the...
In the middle of sending a text, Chance Bothe drove off of a cliff and sustained serious injuries. After spending time in an ICU, he was sent to TIRR Memorial Hermann for rehabilitation where he recovered tremendously. "They would get him outside, and he would play basketball. We would go out and...
Leaving work one day, Oscar noticed his vision was strained in one eye. Over the next few days, Oscar lost vision in one eye and the ability to swallow and stand. He was admitted to a hospital and diagnosed with Guillain-Barré, a rare nervous system disorder that results from nerve damage ...
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 ...
When Malone was stabilized, she was transferred to the hospital’s 23-bed inpatient neurorehabilitation unit for comprehensive care and an aggressive program of physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech/language pathology. Mischer Neurorehabilitation's multidisciplinary team – ...
Karen and Vincent adopted Isabella from a Chinese orphanage in 2008. They took her to an international adoption doctor to complete the adoption process. The doctor informed Isabella's parents she had developmental and speech delays.
It was likely that Isabella did not receive the stimulatio...
Laura and James were unloading hay from a lowboy trailer near their barn when the horses trotted up and began to nibble at the bales. Standing on the trailer, their five-year-old daughter Tristen, a rodeo rider, began waving her arms to shoo them away. Spooked by the motion, the horses turned to ...
Faith’s story begins before she was born. But unlike others, her history was complicated by a prenatal diagnosis of myelomeningocele – spina bifida – at the age of 20 weeks. A complex and permanently disabling birth defect, spina bifida involves incomplete development of a porti...
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...
When medication and rest failed to bring pain relief to pitcher Henry “Quinn” Stroube’s throwing elbow, his parents decided to seek a second medical opinion. With MRI in hand, they met with Peter Sabonghy, M.D., a Memorial Hermann-affiliated orthopedic surgeon who serves as medical director of th...