When Sawleha Khanzada was diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer at 52 years old, her life changed overnight. With a strong family history, including her own mother’s breast cancer diagnosis, Sawleha was diligent about self-exams. In December 2022, she noticed something unusual, and she foll...
On the first and third Tuesday of every month, a small group of cancer survivors come together to write, to reflect and to create a space for healing. Leading each session with a new writing prompt is Elisa A. Garza, a poet, educator and survivor living with stage IV breast cancer.
Designed for individuals at any stage of the cancer journey, the class is open to all experience levels. Some participants are in treatment, while others are adjusting to life after surgery or managing long-term side effects. Caregivers often attend as well, taking a much-needed moment for themse...
“As the pregnancy went on, I was hospitalized for a few days when my blood pressure got too high.” In total, she was admitted four times.
Doctors at another facility couldn't determine the underlying cause of the wounds and diagnosed Morrison with Pyoderma Gangrenosum. This autoimmune disorder is characterized by ulcers of the skin that seem to appear for no particular cause, according to findings published by the National Library...
Whether he's zipping around the soccer field as a left-handed player, shooting hoops, swimming or riding his bike at the park, he loves the outdoors. He also enjoys building Lego® creations and gardening with his mom. However, his mom, Anita, noticed he had trouble breathing during physical a...
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...
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 ...
A pediatric checkup revealed what Alyssa couldn’t feel. She had adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS), a curvature of the spine that was already at 36 degrees.
At the time, they were living in Louisiana and chose to simply monitor the condition. As Kiely grew, the curvature on her back became more noticeable.
In May 2016, Mark Neagli fell down the stairs at his home, resulting in a C2 spinal cord injury. Today, Mark is the executive director of a foundation he helped to form, participates in clinical research projects and is enjoying life with his five children and 11 (soon to be 12) grandchildren....
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 ...
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...
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.
In October 2023, Phil Russom woke up in the hospital and was told he had been found unconscious in his home—and that he had just undergone neurosurgery to remove a brain tumor he didn’t know he had. The experience left him feeling incredibly fortunate to be alive. As he began the diff...
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...
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...
John’s story is one of partnership, persistence and recovery made possible by a team that never gave up and a family that never stopped showing up.
Seeing Dawson now, it’s hard to believe that just a year ago, she could move nothing but her eyes. A two-time stroke survivor, Dawson credits her remarkable recovery to the life-changing care she received at TIRR Memorial Hermann in Houston, Texas.
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.
When Zion Walker came to the selective dorsal rhizotomy (SDR) program at TIRR Memorial Hermann in Houston at 6 years of age, he needed a walker to get around and a caregiver to shadow him at school to provide support when needed. Eighteen months later, 8-year-old Zion, who has cerebral palsy, now...
In April 2021, Davis was transported to TIRR Memorial Hermann in Houston to enroll in the Disorders of Consciousness Program. The Coker family chose this rehabilitation center because of its reputation for exceptional care and their positive experience with Davis’s grandfather who had been treate...
Shruti, who had previously given birth to their first child at the same location in 2018, was admitted for monitoring overnight and told that her baby would likely be born the next day.
When he was just 13 years old, John Gallegos had no idea he was living with a life-threatening congenital heart defect.
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 ...
Due to the severity of the impact, Ivan’s seat flew out of the car, and he became trapped in his seat belt. It took two hours for an emergency response team with special equipment to remove the family from their vehicle
As Crystal searched for answers to her ongoing stomach pain, she also began gaining weight, a development that was both surprising and frustrating. Despite eating nutritious, small-portioned meals, she couldn’t understand why her weight continued to increase. To make matters worse, Crystal ...
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.
On Dec. 31, 2022, Dustin Wood was celebrating the impending New Year by riding his dirt bike near his home town of Fort Worth, Texas. However, when a deer ran into his path, he collided with the animal and was thrown from his bike.
Kaylah received a diagnosis of scoliosis during a routine doctor’s exam while in elementary school. The timing of her diagnosis is very common between the ages of 10 and 18.
At 16 years old, Jace was diagnosed with Ewing’s sarcoma, a rare and aggressive form of cancer. His world, once filled with the thrill of the race, suddenly revolved around hospital visits, chemotherapy and radiation sessions, and surgeries.
It wasn’t until Melanie was 12, during a visit with one of her physicians, that postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) was mentioned to the family. POTS is a condition that affects blood flow and can cause dizziness, fainting and rapid heart rate, especially upon standing. Two years lat...
Gabrielle Edwards, a 17-year-old multisport athlete specializing in track and field, faced a significant challenge that threatened her athletic dreams. Diagnosed with hip dysplasia, she underwent hip preservation surgery
When the pain wouldn’t go away, Melissa took Izzy to see her pediatrician, who examined her left leg and noticed it was swollen, red and firm to the touch. Suspecting a blood clot, the pediatrician immediately referred Izzy to the pediatric emergency room at Memorial Hermann Katy Hospital.
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.
Sam’s knee pain progressed to the point where rest and conservative measures could not relieve his symptoms, and he even began waking during the night with pain. After consulting with David Doherty, Jr., MD, Memorial Hermann-affiliated orthopedic surgeon, Sam knew it was time for total-knee...
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.
As Finley approached his teen years, he faced multiple procedures that profoundly impacted his life under the skilled care of Manish Shah, MD, a pediatric neurosurgeon affiliated with Children's Memorial Hermann Hospital and its Children’s Neuroscience Center. His journey through years of physica...
“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.
Around the age of 3, Zion was officially diagnosed with cerebral palsy (CP). After several temporary therapies and treatments, Zion’s parents continued to advocate for their son.
Aiyana “Yani” Jones came to the Disorders of Consciousness (DoC) Program at TIRR Memorial Hermann after autoimmune encephalitis left her in a near-comatose state. Yani had just been diagnosed with lupus; it was the summer of her junior year of college, and the disease had caused severe complicati...
But in December of that year, during a routine screening in their hometown of Lufkin, Texas, Blain’s doctor found signs suggesting their baby might have spina bifida. The news was shocking, and the couple travelled to visit with specialists for extensive testing. The tests revealed that their son...
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.
Deanna Owens has believed in the importance of regular medical care for her entire life. The 83-year-old says she probably hasn’t missed an annual mammogram since she began yearly screening many decades ago.
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.
Lair saw a neurologist in College Station and was diagnosed with essential tremor, a neurological condition believed to be caused by disruption of signals that control movement in the brain.
When Elizabeth came in for a second scan a week later, things felt off. The ultrasound technician kept going back to the same spot, muttering about the baby's diaphragm. Finally, she broke the silence with, "I can't see his diaphragm. It's there... and then it stops. I need to contact your OBGYN....
Navigating this amazing journey, Dottie’s parents, Brad and Caitlin, were by her side, backed by the medical team at Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital where she was transferred after birth. From fetal heart diagnostics to the heart-wrenching uncertainties that followed, their daugh...
Dallas Matamoros was a college student at LSU when he was hit by a car, resulting in a traumatic brain injury. It was May 27, 2020, and the physicians at the acute care hospital he was taken to gave him little chance of survival. His family, unwilling to accept this fate, sought out the help of T...
The majority of Teemer’s pregnancy was uneventful, and she felt healthy, happy and excited. But as she neared the 34-week mark, she began experiencing an unrelenting migraine for three consecutive days. Concerned, she sought medical attention at the hospital where she worked, just to ensure...
For over 15 years, Alecia and Jason Patranella tried everything to lose weight, including fad diet after fad diet, without success. It was an embarrassing moment at a Major League Baseball game that ultimately motivated the Huntsville, Texas, couple to take definitive action.
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.
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 ...
Maricela Cedillo began experiencing minor back flare-ups in her mid-twenties and early thirties, which she attributed to physical activities like running and working out. “My back would hurt,” she says, “but the pain would go away within a day or two.”
At 227 pounds, Katie felt her energy depleted at the end of the day. Then, a turning point came when several of Katie's coworkers shared their success stories after undergoing weight loss surgery. Inspired by their transformations, Katie made a firm decision. "That's it," she resolved. "If they c...
Their journey, however, took an unexpected and dramatic turn when, at just 22 weeks’ gestation, Jameka’s water broke prematurely. Fearing the worst, they rushed to a local Houston hospital where Jameka was admitted to the Labor & Delivery unit.
According to a 2023 report published by the American Cancer Society (ACS), nearly double the number of adults under the age of 55 are being diagnosed with colorectal cancer now than a decade ago—despite a drop in the incidence of CRC in the general population.
Rewind to the year 2020. Evan and his wife, Rachel, were expecting their first child. Rachel was several months pregnant and in the process of completing years of study for a PhD. It was during this time that Evan noticed that something wasn’t quite feeling right with his health.
At just 15 years old, Jenny Gonzales has a profound understanding of conquering life’s adversities. She has endured 17 medical procedures including two open-heart surgeries. In July 2023, she faced another formidable obstacle: an 11-hour surgery to correct a severe curvature in her spine....
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.
Despite the previous reassuring tests, William’s position during the ultrasound raised concerns. His heart appeared too far to the left and his stomach couldn’t be located.
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.
Zach spent time in the NICU and required several blood transfusions. Once he was able to go home with his family, he began physical and occupational therapy while still an infant. Meanwhile, his parents crisscrossed the United States from their home in California, seeking advice from over 30 diff...
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...
Angel spent several months in the children’s hospital in Austin recovering from the accident. During that time, his parents researched rehabilitation hospitals and learned about Spinal Cord Injury Rehabilitation at TIRR Memorial Hermann.
Mya Guerra had always been extremely energetic, constantly running around, playing, and just full of life. Then, a few weeks shy of her sixth birthday, she began experiencing unusual symptoms that caught her parents off guard and concerned them. It was unlike anything they had seen before.
About five weeks after arriving at TIRR Memorial Hermann for stroke rehabilitation, Ahmed did go home. He started outpatient therapy at Memorial Hermann Rehabilitation Hospital-Katy, which was closer to his home. Because the hospital is part of the Memorial Hermann Rehabilitation Network, Ahmed w...
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.
He’d felt a similar sensation before, but usually just for a minute or two. This time it persisted. He happened to have a pulse oximeter nearby, and he put it on his finger while he was still seated. His heart rate kept rising: 150, 160, 170. He called to his wife in the other room. “...
Cherie Evans’ road to motherhood took some bumps and twists and turns. But the 32-year-old resident of Angleton, Texas, looks back on her journey with gratitude. For in her quest to give birth to a new life, she enriched—and potentially saved—her own.
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...
For over 17 years, Eric Blumentritt has worked for a power tool service company in Deer Park, Texas. Away from his job, he is a husband, father and musician who plays with a local band. After an accident at work resulted in a traumatic brain injury, Eric went to TIRR Memorial Hermann for rehabili...
One night in February 2022, Evelyn Hidalgo was awakened by a sharp pain in her left breast. “I did a breast self-exam and felt a little bump near the nipple,” she says. “I promised myself I would call my gynecologist in the morning.”
When Todd Hansen was rushed to the Emergency Center at Memorial Hermann Memorial City Medical Center early in the morning of March 18, 2022, doctors told hi...
After a sudden aneurysm and stroke, Yen Lang, returns home following inpatient rehabilitation through Memorial Hermann Rehabilitation Hospital - Katy.
On September 24, 2022, Chase and Kendall had a few friends over at their family farm in El Campo where they gathered around the fire pit, grilling fajitas. It was supposed to be a fun and relaxing afternoon on the farm. But then, in a matter of minutes, everything changed so quickly. Ripp had bee...
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.
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.
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...
“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...
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...
The entire time her husband was hospitalized, Carol Thompson kept a Hawaiian shirt hanging in his hospital room, within his eyesight to serve as a reminder of his goal – to recover from his strokes, so they could go on a Hawaiian vacation with their entire family.
In April 2021, Alexandra Chavez sustained a brain injury and was in a coma for a month. Once she was medically stable, in May 2021, Alexandra’s parents had her transferred to TIRR Memorial Hermann in Houston for rehabilitation.
The Carkhuffs’ journey to find answers for their son involved relocating their family 1,600 miles away from their home in Pennsylvania to Houston, Texas, where they found hope. Houston has been home to the family for the past 16 years, and it was in Houston where they found the doctors that...
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.
Fifteen-year-old Jacob Velez loves all types of music, from jazz, to classical, to rap. He is a member of his high school marching band in Brownsville, Texas, where he plays the trombone. When he had a brain arteriovenous malformation (AVM) that ruptured, his TIRR Memorial Hermann team worked tog...
Olympic medalist Tonja Buford-Bailey coaches other elite athletes and is in excellent physical shape herself – or she thought she was. She drinks plenty of water. She’s never smoked. She eats a healthy diet and avoids sugar, processed foods and red meat.
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...
Surrounded by family and friends in October 2022, Kelli Bixler was thrilled to be hosting an event to celebrate her life. She was able to chat, eat some of her favorite foods and walk around to spend time with her loved ones. Just a year prior, she was unable to perform any of those activities du...
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...
Since the day Derek Noriega was born, he had always been a healthy and physically active child. He rarely ate out and preferred healthy, home-cooked meals by his mom Yaris. But in late February 2021, when Derek was 7 years old, he began developing unusual symptoms that concerned his mother. ...
“Cancer” was not what Natalie Davis was expecting to hear. After all, she was 50 years old. She had no history of colon cancer in her family. The colonoscopy—her first—was routine. And she felt perfectly fine.
An MRI revealed a tumor on Cynthia’s spine. The pressure was affecting her nerves, causing numbness in her legs. Because of the location of the tumor, it was critical that it be removed as quickly as possible before causing further damage to the nerves in her spi...
Shortly after Slade was born in October 2011, he was diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy. This condition is dominated by a heart that’s too big, causing the heart muscle to be very weak and have a leaky mitral valve.
"I burned myself,” said Jayden. “As I was walking to the living room, I heard the microwave ding. Since my mom was still outside, I wanted to help her out so I decided to get the food out of the microwave. I went to the kitchen, got up on the counter, and opened the microwave door. Wh...
By June, following a transesophageal echocardiogram, in which an ultrasound probe is deployed down the throat to get a closer look at the heart, Dr. Dadu confirmed what he had suspected – Cordell was suffering from mitral valve regurgitation.
Robert spent a total of nine months at TIRR Memorial Hermann and had physical and occupational therapy every day. In addition, TIRR Memorial Hermann provided Robert with an opportunity for education, and he later returned there as an employee.
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.
As soon as possible, she and Troy made an appointment with The Fetal Center at Children Memorial Hermann Hospital for an in-utero echocardiogram, which would provide a detailed image of their baby's heart. Prenatal diagnosis plays a vital role in identifying critical cardiac defects, helps guide ...
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. ...
“My doctor and I decided together to monitor it and follow up with another scan in a few weeks,” Maggie said. “I was so nervous after I first learned about my diagnosis, so I started doing all of this research on my own, and that’s when I first came across The Fetal ...
"The ultrasound showed the ventricles in my baby’s brain were enlarged,” said Courtney. “Concerned he might have hydrocephalus, my OB-GYN sent me to a maternal-fetal medicine specialist in town.” A few days later, Courtney met with her family friend and MFM physician, Dr. ...
On a recent Saturday this past August, new parents Chris and Salma were hosting a small dinner party for friends. They had recently moved into a new home and were excited to get a group together for the first time since the pandemic had started. Between work, life and raising a young baby d...
When Sierra Tobia takes care of her patients at TIRR Memorial Hermann, she does so with a unique perspective. She first came to TIRR Memorial Hermann as a patient in 2014, and, today as a nurse at TIRR Memorial Hermann, she has first-hand knowledge and understanding of her patients’ journeys.
Elite athlete Alexandra Wainwright, 20, began her practice of karate at the age of 8. At the age of 17, she was diagnosed with hip dysplasia and had bilateral hip preservation surgeries as a patient at Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital. Now, Alexandra competes with the best athletes from...
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.
At the time, Shamesia was only 18 weeks along. Although their baby’s heartbeat was strong, the amniotic fluid was too low for the baby’s lungs to develop during the critical period between 16 to 20 weeks’ gestation
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.
When Tina Oliver had a sudden, severe headache, she knew she needed to get help fast.
“I thought cancer skipped a generation.” These are the words Vernita Eddins spoke when she received her breast cancer diagnosis.
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.
Jason Belin faces dangerous situations regularly. The 45-year-old Pearland resident works as a firefighter for the Houston Fire Department at Station 102 in Kingwood. But during a training session in June at the Department’s Fire Academy, Belin experienced something scarier than the situati...
“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.”
Kayla’s pregnancy was considered high risk because she had several pre-existing medical conditions including gestational diabetes, high blood pressure and lupus, an inflammatory autoimmune disorder. Since she had gastric sleeve surgery, that also elevated h...
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...
Having a 50-year career in sales and marketing, Kriss Woodbury’s job is to get messages out to consumers. But it was a message from his physician that stopped him in his tracks—“You have prostate cancer.” Before the diagnosis, Woodbury didn’t have any symptoms. But a...
Orain Penson was proactive in this health and enjoying life. As a facility director for a housing corporation, he also managed his A/C business on the side. He spent much of his days helping others. At 57, he thought he was too young to get prostate cancer.
While she was in the NICU being treated for her low blood sugar, Natalia also underwent all the standard newborn testing, including a newborn hearing screening. It was after that test when Zenia first learned there may be a problem with her daughter’s ability to ...
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.
Darrel Sisson believed he was the picture of health. The 65-year-old north Houston resident had been lifting weights and doing aerobic exercise for 38 years, frequently rode his bike on 10- mile trips, meditated regularly and rarely took any medication. So, when he felt tired and not himself on t...
After undergoing scoliosis surgery seven years ago at Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital to treat a severe curvature in her spine followed by three months of healing and recovery – 21-year-old Mya Aguilar has overcome many challenges, and with her audacity and boldness, she is makin...
“Mrs. Voss had a symptomatic severe stenosis in her right carotid artery, which was the source of her stroke,” Dr. Saqib said. “The severe blockage placed her at a higher risk of a recurrent stroke. We needed to intervene to prevent another, potentially severe, stroke. The highe...
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 ...
When Falon was 23 weeks pregnant, she was very excited about her next ultrasound and couldn’t wait to catch a glimpse of Ryder on the ultrasound screen to see how much he had grown since his last anatomy scan. At first, things were going well. Then, the atmosphere in the room abruptly chan...
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.
After being married for four years, Addie and Chase Adamek of Pearland were excited to learn that they were expecting in 2018. Addie was a NICU nurse at Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital in the Texas Medical Center and Chase was a middle school PE teacher and coach. Ultrasound after ultr...
Three-year-old Neal Wille is among the one in 700 kids annually around the world born with a cleft lip and palate. Today, he’s a ball of smiles and sunshine when his parents bring him to see the Texas Cleft-Craniofacial Team for follow-up care after his surgeries that were performed at Chil...
Shortly following a surgery, Brandon had several acute strokes. Although he survived, he lost his ability to walk, speak and, most importantly, to sing. But with the love of his wife and help from the specialists at TIRR Memorial Hermann, Brandon has found his voice again and is sharing it on sta...
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.
A passion for innovative solutions, a desire to provide hope to children who previously had none, outside-the-box thinking, and quality outcomes – these are the hallmarks of the Children’s Heart Institute, a collaboration between Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital and McGovern Medical School at...
On March 3 of this year, Simien, under general anesthesia, had a MitraClip device inserted through a catheter, or hollow tube, and threaded to his heart from the femoral artery in his groin. Using real-time images produced by ultrasound and X-ray technology in the catheterization lab at Memorial ...
One-year-old Joleigh Babineaux went from running around and playing with her sister to being lethargic and no longer walking independently within a few short weeks. A diagnosis of Guillain-Barré led to customized treatment at TIRR Memorial Hermann.
“Josetta could not sit without falling over when she first came to inpatient rehabilitation, let alone stand, but she worked tirelessly to improve,” said Anne Gwinn, her inpatient physical therapist.
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...
Corelle Chester says he felt fine—until he suffered a massive heart attack at age 39. “My heart doctor told me, ‘If you don’t get this weight off, you won’t live to see 50.’”
For as long as she can remember, Karen Wanjura suffered from a burning discomfort in her upper abdomen after she ate. A common symptom of gastroesophageal reflux disease, or GERD, the burning became a way of life that the 71-year-old resident of Cypress learned to accept. It was caused by a non-f...
When Brook arrived at TIRR Memorial Hermann, the first thing we did was address the phantom pain she was experiencing, as well as her grief over losing a limb from a shark bite.
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.
After suffering a heart attack at just 27 years old, Victoria Guajardo was placed in a medical coma and transported 330 miles to Houston, where doctors discovered both of her ventricles were failing. Watch the video to learn how doctors at the Larry D. Johnson Heart & Vascular Institute at Me...
Latorree Garrett describes the first time she saw an X-ray of her daughter’s spine. “To me, it looked like a lizard,” she says. Despite the shock of seeing the severe curvature of her daughter’s spine, she was thankful to finally have a diagnosis for her daughter, now 2 ye...
As Clark’s CT brain scan and CT brain angiogram were automatically uploaded into the Viz.ai platform, the software, using artificial intelligence (AI) learning, detected the presence of a large vessel occlusion, or LVO, and alerted the entire stroke team to its presence.
A novel treatment approach at Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital is giving 17-year-old Himanshu Prasad the opportunity to live life free of the muscle tightness and spasticity that has plagued him since birth.
Kristin Abello knows that it takes commitment and perseverance to reach her goals. In 2002, she was training for a marathon near her home in Sugar Land, Texas, when she was hit by a car and suffered a severe brain injury. Her journey back to health was long, and she documented her experience in a...
Sandra Mora has had a series of personal goals she has been working towards as a patient at TIRR Memorial Hermann. She wanted to stand as a bridesmaid at a friend’s wedding as well as help her daughter prepare for her modeling jobs. Finally, she wanted to take her kids to Disney World. She has ch...
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...
When an MRI revealed a cyst causing pressure on 11-year-old Santiago Sanchez’s brain, doctors in Mexico City were unable to offer treatment options. The family’s search for treatment ultimately led them to Children’s Memorial Hermann-affiliated pediatric neurosurgeon, David Sand...
After suffering a stroke in August 2017, Hector Alvarez started physical therapy at TIRR Memorial Hermann-The Woodlands Outpatient Rehabilitation.
As a detective with the Missouri City Police Department, Brad Tippit must be able to do all the physical activities that are an integral part of his job. However, after contracting COVID-19, he could not even walk.
Linda says she found a new passion when she began participating in research at TIRR Memorial Hermann – she understands how these studies are beneficial for patients.
Wife, mom of two young daughters, and financial controller for a Fortune 100 company, Carrie Jobe is a self-proclaimed ‘working momma and boss lady.’ When a series of fainting spells led to a benign brain tumor diagnosis, she didn’t intend to let it slow her down for too long.
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...
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.
Susan received care as an inpatient at TIRR Memorial Hermann on two separate occasions and as a TIRR Memorial Hermann outpatient. Her large care team worked closely together to ensure continuity of her rehabilitation.
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.
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.
Thirty-five-year-old Shawn Crockett began having epileptic seizures when he was 6 months old. In second grade, his classmates watched in horror as he suffered a seizure that lasted more than four minutes, his skin turning blue from lack of oxygen. From that point forward, Shawn saw a neurologist ...
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.
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.
Rasheed Alshammari had been on the waiting list for a heart transplant at a California hospital for over a year. When the surgeon who was to perform the transplant left the hospital, Rasheed was removed from the list.
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...
In the beginning, Don Pannell exhibited no obvious signs of prostate cancer. He had no issues with urination. No pain. And no family history of the disease.
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 Karen Cole finally sought medical care for the tumor growing in her right breast, the tumor measured 24 centimeters and weighed nearly 10 pounds. “I called it my monster,” says the petite 58-year-old from Montgomery, Texas. “I knew it was killing me, but I was upset and pan...
During a routine physical in November 2020, 58-year-old Troy Griffin mentioned to his family doctor that he had been experiencing some minor urinary symptoms—a little stopping and starting of his urine stream and a bit of urinary urgency and frequency. His doctor performed a PSA test, which...
Myford Collins set numerous track and field records in junior high and high school and was a Texas All-Star, an All-American and an Amateur Athletic Union Junior Olympics champion headed for the Olympics. Then, as an 18-year-old freshman in Irving, Texas, his life changed when a drunk driver ran ...
When Abbi first arrived at TIRR Memorial Hermann, she had mild weakness in her legs, patchy sensation in her legs, painful numbness and tingling in her legs, and difficulty with maintaining her blood pressure when sitting and standing because of her spinal cord injury from her tumor.
Karen and Taylor Mims spent the first six years of their son’s life trying to accept the fact that he was born with half a heart and would eventually require a heart transplant. Now, thanks to an innovative procedure being performed by affiliated pediatric heart surgeons at Children’s...
Grant had been staying with his parents at their Katy home because the power was out at his Houston apartment when he suffered a severe gallbladder attack. “I had been having gallbladder trouble for over a year, and my gastroenterologist had recommended I get a surgery consult to have my gallbla...
Natascha Odom thought she might be coming down with COVID-19 when she began having trouble finding the right words. The 49-year-old fourth grade math teacher at Hubenak Elementary School in Richmond told a colleague who took her to see the school nurse. When Odom told the nurse that the curren...
At Sarah’s 16-week ultrasound, her obstetrician explained that one of the babies she was carrying had a 2- to 3-centimeter mass at the base of his tailbone. The doctor explained that the baby had a sacrococcygeal teratoma (SCT), a tumor growing at the base of his tailbone. SCT is a rare condition...
Major Hudlin is a vibrant, active 7-year-old boy who loves to make TikTok videos and play outside with his siblings. So when his grandmother picked him up from daycare one day and realized that he was not lifting his right arm or moving the fingers on that hand, she became alarmed.
Hailee Nail learned her baby had spina bifida on Aug. 13, 2020, when she saw her obstetrician in Tulsa, Okla., for her 20-week anatomy scan. “My OB/GYN told me that it would require surgery and gave me the names of several centers, but he wanted me to go to Houston,” she says.
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.
In April 2020, Keisha Howell and David Hackworth got the call they’d been waiting for. “It was about 11 o’clock at night, and a nurse from the Transplant Center called and said, ‘We have a match for Derek.’ I packed up Derek and headed straight there,” says Keisha.
After the jaws of life extracted Faizbano from her vehicle, an ambulance took her to Memorial Hermann Southwest Hospital. She had a cut on her head and had fractured several vertebrae in her back. As an employee of Memorial Hermann, she knew she was in good hands.
In 2017, Daniel Begnaud’s world as he knew it came crashing down when he was diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer at the age of 30. A father of a 1-year-old son, he was initially told that it was unlikely he would ever have more children. On top of a cancer diagnosis, that was a hard pill to swal...
In April 2020, Corey Nowlin suffered a severe head injury. Today, thanks to the TIRR Memorial Hermann’s Disorders of Consciousness program, he’s able to communicate again.
Kemberlee Burgert's baby was diagnosed with Ebstein anomaly, a rare congenital heart defect in which the tricuspid valve, the valve between the upper right chamber (right atrium) and the lower right chamber (right ventricle), isn’t formed properly, allowing blood to leak back into the right atriu...
At her 8-week maternity check-up, Chanelle Smith and her husband, Patrick, were surprised and delighted to learn that Chanelle was carrying identical twins. At 28 weeks, Dr. Ramos identified a small hole in the heart of one of the babies. Additional tests revealed that the baby suffered from a co...
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 ...
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....
Eight-year-old David Martinez is finally free of the intravenous (IV) tube through which he has received essential nourishment since birth. His team of physicians at McGovern Medical School at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) and Children’s Memorial Hermann Hosp...
Emergency medicine physician Grant Lashley, MD, is among the many healthcare professionals who contracted COVID-19 while treating patients during the United States’ first wave of virus cases in April 2020. While working the night shift in the emergency department at Abbeville General Hospit...
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...
Melody and Doug Pohla have much to be proud of and thankful for. Their three sons, Nicholas, 17, Nathan, 15, and Daniel, 12, are all bright, active and extremely accomplished young men, each in his own right. Their firstborn, Nicholas, earned his first Tae Kwando black belt when we was 8 years ol...
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 ...
A spinal cord injury that started as a tingling sensation in his fingers quickly developed into numbness and immobility in his legs. After diagnosis and rehabilitation with Memorial Hermann Rehabilitation Hospital - Katy, Anthony has returned home and is walking again.
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 ...
When their unborn son was diagnosed with a rare and potentially life-threatening congenital birth defect, Carrie and Jordan Farrar knew they needed to find the experts, and fast. Fortunately, the couple from Tyler, Texas, was referred to The Fetal Center at Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital. T...
Aryah plays basketball. She cheerleads. She rides horses. She jumps on the trampoline and loves water slides. “She’s ahead of the curve for her age,” says Courtney. But that wasn’t always the case. Before Aryah was born, Courtney and her husband, Robert, learned that their baby had congenital dia...
Looking back, Michael wonders why he waited so long to have his abdominal hernia repaired. An avid hiker and hunter, the 60-year-old Houstonian somehow managed to work around it—for 10 years. “It wasn’t particularly painful, but after being on my feet all day hiking or hunting, it felt like if so...
“My whole life changed. Everything changed,” she says. “But it has been such a positive journey. It made me realize what’s important and what’s not. Everyone worked together. It all worked out.”
After retiring in 2017, Lewis Frey turned his part-time love of playing his guitar, into a full-time job. He had regular gigs around the Houston area, and he and his band were enjoying entertaining their audiences. But, in June 2019 he had a stroke which put a pause in his playing. After his inpa...
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...
After having a stroke and being rushed into surgery to remove a large portion of her skull to allow for brain swelling, Cathy was accepted into TIRR Memorial Hermann for rehabilitation.
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...
When Sophia was 6 or 7, her knees started to bow. At around age 8, she began experiencing knee and ankle pain. That’s when Leanne took her to see Dr. Younas, a pediatric orthopedic and scoliosis surgeon affiliated with Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital and an associate professor in the Departm...
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...
When Jaclyn was admitted to the TIRR Memorial Hermann Disorders of Consciousness (DoC) Program, she was not responding to any commands. But the first thing the therapist said when she arrived at TIRR Memorial Hermann was, ‘we’re going to get her up.’ At that point Jaclyn had bee...
Houston Deputy Sheriff Bryan Durham recalls the day he first felt something was wrong. “I was arresting a suspect who had become combative. I wrestled him for about 30 seconds to get him into handcuffs, and it felt like I had fought for an hour. After I subdued him, I couldn’t catch m...
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...
Women who get routine mammograms know the drill: Before the exam, you’re typically asked if you have experienced any changes in your breasts—including pain or changes in appearance—since your last mammogram. Those questions prompted 55-year-old Middle School Principal Andrea Deneé Cain to recall ...
During her 20-week ultrasound, Savannah’s obstetrician diagnosed that her unborn baby’s heart was abnormally small and referred her to a maternal fetal medicine specialist. The specialist ordered a dedicated fetal echocardiogram (“echo”), a specialized ultrasound of the fe...
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, ...
The team rushed Oscar to the heart catheterization lab to clear the blockages in the stent. But scar tissue from the heart attack had begun to form on his heart and he developed life-threatening arrhythmias called a ventricular tachycardia storm, basically, a severe electrical storm in his hea...
Aubree was diagnosed as a baby with spastic triplegic cerebral palsy. In her case, both her legs and her left arm had spasticity – a condition that made her affected limbs rigid and stiff. Because of the spasticity, Aubree has had physical therapy since she was a baby to help manage it. She has n...
As participants in the Memorial Hermann's NewStart program, Dynae and Garrett each lost 120lbs with NewStart. That's a combined 240 pounds. "Doing it as a team made it so much easier. You're going to get just a better quality of life and certainly a longer and happier life as a result of it. Why ...
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...
“My life turned around dramatically after total knee replacement surgery on both knees,” explains Gustavo Ayala, MD, who had the procedure done on both knees at the same time. Over a six-month period, Dr. Ayala’s condition worsened from experiencing moderate pain to battlin...
What began as a typical weekday evening for the Guice family of Atascocita, Texas, almost became one of unimaginable loss when 3-year-old Grayson “Gray” slipped in the bathroom onto a ceramic trash can and was impaled by a broken shard. An injury of this magnitude could easily have co...
Thirteen-year-old Grayson likes typical kid things – basketball, taekwondo, running, pizza and birthday cake. For Grayson, these things, which a “typical” kid might take for granted, carry a potential danger. Without proactive management of his insulin intake, too much physical exertion can send ...
After an automobile accident left him bedridden and unresponsive, River's sister found hope for him with the TIRR Memorial Hermann Disorders of Consciousness Rehabilitation Program.
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 ...
A well-orchestrated chain of events saved the life of Caleb, a newborn with a rare and very serious congenital (present at birth) heart defect. Fortunately, that chain was populated by an experienced and collaborative team who worked together seamlessly to diagnose, transport and treat the baby. ...
Doc Monical (“Doc”) returned from a fun four-day cruise early in 2018 with more than great memories of scenic adventures: the pain in his left leg was getting more severe. “The pain in my leg from sciatica was worse,” he recalls, “and I needed to find a solution.” Sciatica is a term that describe...
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...
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...
A double bounce on a trampoline at her brother’s birthday party sent 11-year-old Lexi spiraling out of control, landing hard on her right leg. Thankfully, Lexi would end up in the skilled hands of Lindsay Crawford, MD, an affiliated pediatric orthopedic surgeon at McGovern Medical School at UTHea...
Fourteen-year-old Chadrick, who plays outside linebacker for his school’s football team, struggled with hip soreness and stiffness for months, especially when engaging in physical activities. He took anti-inflammatories and iced his hip, but the pain and stiffness kept coming back. When his fathe...
Cameron is on the “A” honor roll in his fifth-grade class, a significant achievement for any kid. Cameron is not just any kid. He is a survivor. At 10 years of age, Cameron has already undergone 24 surgical procedures. Cameron was diagnosed with an extremely rare genetic condition known as Mandib...
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...
After being told she would not be able to walk within a year without back surgery, retired nurse Geraldine “Gerrie” Sullivan sought a second opinion and found neuroradiologist and pain management specialist John Beerbower, MD. With Dr. Beerbower’s help, she is not only walking, ...
In 2012, Brenda received her first wake-up call that she had to make a change when she was diagnosed with high blood pressure. Doctors prescribed her with medication to help with her diagnosis. However, her weight, a risk factor of high blood pressure, continued to be an issue.
After year's of different diagnoses, Camden's breathing and chest pains were worsening until the doctors at Children's Memorial Hermann stepped in and got him the diagnosis and treatment he needed. Camden was diagnosed with pectus excavatum, also known as funnel chest, the most common congenital ...
Fourteen-year-old Mina is a champion. Every day, she overcomes obstacles to pursue her lifelong goal of becoming a world-class gymnast. But recently, despite her hard work and fierce determination to be the best, Mina almost met her match. Mina was born with a venous malformation on her right che...
Hayes appeared to be a perfectly healthy newborn. Three hours after birth, however, a nurse who was listening to his heart through a stethoscope heard an abnormal heart sound – a heart murmur – indicating a possible heart problem. A cardiologist ordered an echocardiogram (diagnostic cardiac ultra...
When Dr. Adan Rios was diagnosed with cancer, his physician, Dr. Karni, knew it was deeply personal. One morning, Adan woke up with the left side of his neck completely swollen and assumed he had developed a lymphoma. A biopsy revealed that it was sqaumous cell cancer. The next steps were imaging...
As fall of 2011 approached, Jennifer Sailors was 40 years old and in the prime of her life. Between working and having a family, Jennifer was busy, but she was used to that. Then one day, she realized she was feeling run-down. “I thought, gosh I’m really tired,” she remembers. &...
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...
On April 21, 2014, Leah Yeglin gave birth to her son, Jacob. Moments later, she began to sense something was wrong – and soon learned her intuition was right. A nurse informed her that Jacob had a cleft lip but, thankfully, was otherwise healthy. “It was a shock,” Yeglin remembers. “I thought tha...
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...
Being a teenager is often difficult and confusing. For Dylan Palomino, that was compounded by his discovery, at age 14, that he had the genetic condition known as pectus excavatum, which causes the breastbone to sink into the chest, sometimes dramatically. “I was in junior high, a time when you’r...
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 ...
It was 6 a.m. on a summer morning when it happened: 3-year-old Max Mullervy, asleep next to his mother, Laura, rolled off the bed. He missed the cushions she had placed on the floor, and on the way down, hit his eye on the side table. Max’s scream woke his mom with a start. “It was a ...
When a very rare brain condition caused fourth-grader Lauren Lackey to slip into a coma, her parents, Sandy and Mark Lackey hate to think what would have happened to their daughter if the ambulance had not made the long drive to Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital. Mark remembers feeling i...
Chloe spent months in the offices of a local neurologist and neurosurgeon as they tried to determine what was wrong. Finally, one of them referred her to Dr. Ian Butler, a pediatric neurologist affiliated with Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital, about her many health concerns: headaches, lack o...
For many years, Dr. Mary Austin could count on one hand the people who knew. There was her close friend through middle school, who helped her pee by pushing on her lower abdomen. Years later, during her surgical training at Vanderbilt University, she confided in a mentor. Her husband knew, of cou...
By the time he was 3 months old, Wesley’s seizures were occurring up to 55 times a day — every minute or two while he was awake, and every 10 to 15 minutes when he slept. His doctor prescribed him nine different medications over the course of three months, but none provided long-lasting relief. D...
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...
When Andrea was 15, a CT scan showed an unusually large, dense mass in the back part of her brain - with a buildup of fluid. The imaging study revealed an unusually large, dense mass in the posterior fossa - the lower back of the skull containing the brain stem and cerebellum- with obstructive hy...
When Iris finally got her wish, an ultrasound revealed not one, but two heartbeats. Twins. Identical twins, in fact. Iris and her husband were elated. But the ultrasound indicated a potential problem, and her doctor referred her to The Fetal Center at Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital.&n...
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...
Lisa - who had been an avid equestrian all her life - shares the story of her struggle with hip displaysia, and how the pain from it nearly forced her to give up her passion. Lisa was left devastated after the pain became too much to bear, but found hope again after learning about joint replaceme...
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...
A small bump on the head during a game at his elementary school in Lufkin, Texas – at first Landon Courtney’s injury seemed minor. The seven-year-old was playing four corners in his P.E. class in early March 2016 when his feet got tangled with a classmate’s. He fell to the gym f...
A rare condition that occurs in 1 in 2,500 babies born in the United States, craniosynostosis changes the growth pattern of the skull by premature fusion of its fibrous sutures. Robert is among the 40% to 60% of cases in which the sagittal suture fuses earlier than normal. Thanks to his mother’s ...
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...
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...
When 9-year-old Noah complained of a stomachache, his mother, Susan, attributed it to everything he ate the day before. A few days later Noah went to a pediatrician, who took one look at Noah, touched his stomach and sent them straight to the nearest ER at Memorial Hermann Sugar Land. There, a CT...
Picture the bounciest, bubbliest five-year-old you can imagine. Her songs and dance moves come straight from Beyoncé. She loves bright colors and runs to the mirror to check every outfit. Her goal is to be a superstar. And she is a child who was born with spina bifida, one whose immediate future ...
After tipping the scale at more than 400 pounds -- from years of fast food, sweets and a sedentary lifestyle -- Bone said he knew it was time to make some drastic changes with his weight. A family member had success with the gastric sleeve procedure, so Bone decided to give it a try. Before the s...
Robert visited Farzaneh Banki, M.D., director of the Esophageal Disease Center at Memorial Hermann Southeast Hospital and professor of surgery at the McGovern Medical School, part of UTHealth in Houston.
A lifelong machinist, Robert remembers being nervous because the surgery to treat his ...
Ciaran Simon always discounted his heartburn as sensitivity to spicy food. It was not until his symptoms became debilitating that he sought medical attention. Ciaran underwent a laparoscopic Heller myotomy and a Dor fundoplication, a minimally invasive surgical procedure in which the muscle betwe...
Licensed Texas peace officer Jimmy Fincher struggled, for 15 years, with acid reflux caused by a hiatal hernia. With an aversion to taking medication, he inconsistently took the antacids prescribed to lower his stomach acid even when experiencing debilitating abdominal pain after eating large mea...
After emergency surgery to remove most of her esophagus, Monica Stark had no idea it would be nearly a year before she could eat solid foods. The lifesaving surgery, performed in April 2016 in San Antonio, resulted from complications caused by scleroderma, a rare connective tissue disease that af...
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...
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...
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 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 ...
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...
“It all happened in less than a minute,” Deepthi Bollu says. “We ran outside and looked around, then ran to the front and side of the house. By then I had a bad feeling, and when we looked in the pool, we saw him at the bottom.” After nearly three minutes of CPR administered according to instruct...
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...
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...
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...
As a three-year of glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), Janie Totten has defied the odds. After her surgery, the 60-year-old began exercising so she could return to a normal activity level and focused on keeping a positive attitude about her recovery. Totten and her husband, George, have also kept...
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 ...
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 ...
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...
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 ...
When physical education teacher Eddie Carlton began feeling debilitating as he taught his students, he knew it was time to find relief. After being evaluated by Dr. Eddie Huang, an orthopedic surgeon at Memorial Hermann Joint Centers, he felt confident in his next steps for treatment. Dr. H...
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...
In July 2012, the couple discussed a possible diagnosis of NPH with Raymond Martin, MD, a professor of neurology at McGovern Medical School at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) and medical director of outpatient neurology at Mischer Neuroscience Institute . After...
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...
At first Debra Johnson didn’t associate her 11-year-old son’s unusual behavior with seizure activity. He would go through periods of seeming spacey, and she couldn't figure the issue out. After an MRI revealed a small tumor in his right temporal lobe, the family was referred to Dr. David Sandberg...
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...
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...
Opportunity often arrives disguised as misfortune. After Robin Schroeder was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, she set out to ride the MS 150, a two-day cycling event organized by the National MS Society to raise funds for research. Her success led to an even greater accomplishment. “I’d never ...
Since he first began playing football at age 5, Treveon, now a high school sophomore, has dreamed of playing college ball, maybe even going pro. But in eighth grade, he was temporarily sidelined, when a routine visit to his pediatrician revealed a hump on his upper back. X-rays showed a curvature...
MaKayla’s scoliosis diagnosis came as a complete shock. The petite 13-year-old was a cheerleader, tumbled and played competition softball. By all appearances, she was perfectly healthy. Yet, in September 2015, a visit to a chiropractor for a back injury resulting from a trampoline incident ...
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...
Three days after she had LASIK surgery at another institution, 19-year-old Amy Truong noticed a white spot in her right eye. When a three-week course of antibiotics failed to resolve the issue, her eye surgeon referred her to cornea and external disease specialist Gene Kim, MD, at the Robert Cizi...
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...
For some parents, a newborn’s cry can cause distress. But for Marlen and Kevin, hearing their daughter Grace’s first cry brought relief and joy. Grace was born with a congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH), a condition that occurs during fetal development that can lead to severe respiratory and ot...
Since Jamie Wright was a child, she has wanted to change the outlook for people who struggle with a diagnosis of hydrocephalus, which is the most common reason some children require brain surgery. Out of every 1,000 babies born in the U.S., about one to two are born with hydrocephalus, a conditi...
Kevin and Karla Urrutia were born at term, but as twins they were both underweight – the boy weighing in at 4 pounds 10 ounces and the girl at 4 pounds 15 ounces. “Karla was eating fine after birth, but Kevin had stridor caused by a soft, immature cartilage of the upper larynx that ob...
Pediatric otorhinolaryngologist, Sancak Yuksel, MD, at Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital has provided care for Jayda Hector since shortly after she was born in October 2010 at just 26 weeks’ gestation. After 12 trips to the OR at Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital, the six ...
Much of neurology is detective work. Like good sleuthing, successful practice demands profound knowledge, honed investigative skills, persistence and a measure of artistry. In the case of Cristian Serrato, diagnosis and treatment of a challenging disorder required all of these talents and more. U...
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...
Bill liked the fact that Memorial Hermann’s main focus after surgery is to get the patient moving in order to jumpstart the healing process. When it came time for Bill to select a physician for his total hip replacement surgery, he knew exactly who he’d choose. “I selected affiliated orthopedic p...
Kindergarten Teacher Becky Anton and her bariatric surgeon decided to pursue gastric bypass after discovering pre-cancerous cells in her esophagus. The procedure has not only relieved the discomfort in her esophagus, but her weight loss journey has renewed her spirit and her health.
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...
While exercising at the gym one day, Jon felt a slight twinge of pain in his neck. Thinking nothing of it, he continued his workout and daily activities. During a spring break ski trip, that slight twinge became increasingly painful with each day and he developed radiating arm pain and weakness. ...
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...
“Before my surgery, I was in constant pain. My quality of life was, like, 30%. I had to limit what I was doing. I was not able to fully participate in the kids' education. And it was just very difficult for me as a teacher. So I had to make a decision. I found Memorial Hermann Joint Center throu...
When Fred Carpenter could no longer take a walk with his grandkids, he asked a friend who's an orthopedic surgeon who he would recommend. "He answered Memorial Hermann Joint Center. I would give Memorial Hermann - the whole system - the highest marks. From the very beginning to the very end, it ...
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...
At the end of a family vacation in Snowmass, Colorado, 17-year-old Clay “Tato” Stanley was seriously injured in a snowboarding accident. “They were doing jumps, and Tato lost control on the landing and was immediately paralyzed,” Tato’s mother, Alice Stanley says. Ta...
In July 2013, Evelyn Suber was hospitalized for dehydration – the result of a serious viral infection. At some point during the two weeks she was ill, she noticed numbness in her legs. A month later, when the numbness persisted, neurologist Suresh Roongta, MD, admitted her to Memorial Hermann Gre...
As Sabrina sat at her 16-week checkup, she was expecting her appointment to be ordinary. However, after receiving her ultrasound, she found out her baby girl was diagnosed with a birth defect known as gastroschisis. Shocked and scared about her baby’s health, her obstetrician referred her to The ...
As Kenzie and Ricky attended their routine 18-week ultrasound, they expected everything to go smoothly; however, they received unexpected information about their baby girl, Macy. Their unborn daughter was diagnosed with a unilateral cleft (a split occurring on one side) that extended all the way ...
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...
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 ...
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...
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 ...
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....
In September 2011, alpine enthusiast and search-and-rescue team member Miles McDonough fell 65 feet while scaling Mount Stuart in the North Cascade Mountains of Washington state. In the accident, he fractured his right humeral head and scapula, an injury that damaged the brachial plexus nerves co...
Jayden and Luke. Two-year-old identical twin boys. They run and wrestle, giggle and converse in their own shared lingo – jibber-jabber only they understand. But Jayden is taller, more robust. Luke wears the same size clothes as the boys’ younger brother Cooper. Each of the twins in his own way is...
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...
It was Daniel Turya’s eighth birthday and he couldn’t wait to take his new birthday gift from his parents out for a spin. It was a shiny new bike, and even though he didn’t have a helmet, he was just riding right outside of his apartment doorstep with his buddies. Soon after he got on, he acciden...
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...
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...
When Samantha Shine came to TIRR Memorial Hermann Pediatric Outpatient Rehabilitation at the Kirby Glen Center, the 3-year-old was still eating puréed food – very slowly – and was underweight for her age. Six months later, she eats breakfast, lunch and dinner with her family an...
James Durham was on his motorcycle headed home after an employee dinner. “I was about two miles from home. A woman was stopped at a traffic light but didn’t have her blinker on so it seemed that she was trying to make a U-turn,” says Durham. “When she pulled away from the ...
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-...
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...
Leiomyosarcoma is a rare malignant tumor of the smooth muscle cells that can arise almost anywhere in the body, but is most common in the uterus, abdomen or pelvis. The cancer typically spreads through the blood stream to attack the lung, liver, blood vessels and other soft tissues in the body. L...
Eileen Bogar’s recovery was not at all what her acute care physicians predicted. After suffering a severe bilateral brainstem stroke in mid-December 2012, she was tucked away in the intensive care unit at a hospital in Houston for five weeks. She was on a ventilator for the first two weeks ...
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...
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...
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. ...
Diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, Maria describes herself as “a new person” thanks to the skill of the deep brain stimulation (DBS) team at the Mischer Neuroscience Institute. Approved by the FDA for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease in 2002, DBS uses a surgically imp...
After Ezra's family started to notice him getting sick, they sought medical advice before finally ending up at Children's Memorial Hermann Hospital for care. Ezra's rare disease led to him needing a liver transplant. After finding a match, his medical team went into action to perform the transpla...
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 ...
During a routine football practice Jordan suddenly felt dizzy and showed signs that something was wrong. He was immediately taken to Memorial Hermann where affiliated pediatric neurologist Dr. Ian Butler along with neurologist Dr. Nicole Gonzales diagnosed Jordan as having had a stroke. Later aft...
Floyd went to the heart doctor because of a family history of heart disease and death. After experiencing consistent heart burn and indigestion symptoms he went to see the specialists at Memorial Hermann Heart & Vascular Institute. After receiving a ventricular stress test, his physician said...
When 33-year-old John Keller was first admitted to TIRR Memorial Hermann on March 26, 2008, he was in a vegetative state. On impact, Keller suffered a fractured skull and pelvis and an intracranial hemorrhage resulting in a severe traumatic brain injury (TBI). Nine days later, he was transferred ...
Eighteen-year-old Justin Lamb is one of many patients to benefit from a unique collaboration between TIRR Memorial Hermann and the pediatric neurology and pediatric cardiology services at Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital. Working together, the two institutions have developed a program t...
When 20-year-old Braxton Taylor arrived at TIRR Memorial Hermann in August 2013, he was unable to walk, transfer, eat or manage other activities of daily living without total assistance. When he was discharged on Halloween, he could walk with assistance and was independent in most aspects of dail...
Angelina was on an overnight flight in Louisville, Kentucky when she was awoken by strong heart palpitations. The very next day, she flew home to Houston, TX and saw a cardiologist. An echocardiogram showed an enlarged and weak heart. Dr. Jalal and the affiliated team at Memorial Hermann Southwes...
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...
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 ...
In the nine months that passed before 63-year-old Tommy Smith found his way to the office of Daniel H. Kim, M.D., FACS, FAANS, he gradually lost muscle function to the point of paralysis. By November 2012, he could no longer walk, feed himself or move his right hand. “I could see myself deterio...
Meena Dhanjal Outlaw was injured on January 23, 2000, after she stepped onto the balcony of her newly built home and was locked out of her house. Concerned about the safety of her 3-week-old son, Miles, and 3-year-old daughter, Jasmine, she attempted to climb down from the balcony. She ended up f...
Joseph Huerta and his siblings took off for a skiing trip. As he skied down the hill, Joseph lost his balance and went over a 15-foot cliff hitting his head on a tree. After being rushed to the hospital, going through surgery and being in a coma for 12 days, Joseph beat the odds and regained cons...
At 16 months of age, Angela Wrigglesworth was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy, a progressive motor neuron disease that causes weakness in the arms, legs and torso. This prevented her from walking and she began using a wheelchair at the age of 5 years. She was admitted to the TIRR Memorial ...
Saleh Alzahrani was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 12. He underwent a successful surgery to remove a brain stem tumor and then went back to his daily life. At the age of 25, Alzahrani learned that his cancer had returned and another operation was required to remove a tumor, which was located...
Caitlin and Emily may seem like your average identical twin sisters. But at one time in their lives, the twins shared something much more significant and they have the visible scars to prove it: Emily and Caitlin were born conjoined. Conjoined twins are an extreme rarity, only occurring once in e...
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...
Daniella Coca’s son Anthony was born with both a cleft lip and palate. Coca was five months pregnant when she received the diagnosis after a 3-D ultrasound, which afforded her and Anthony’s father several months to meet John Teichgraeber, MD, and his team, determine a plan of action and better pr...
Pediatric surgeons have the ability to bring smiles to patients and their families. Dr. John Teichgraeber, director of the Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery in the Department of Pediatric Surgery, recently brought smiles and positive outcomes to patients in Mexico as part of a medica...
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...
Last December, an eight-member neurosurgical team extended their practice beyond the walls of Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital and McGovern Medical School at UTHealth to Haiti, where they spent four days on a medical mission to treat children with hydrocephalus. “Like all mission trips, we ha...
Savanna and her twin brother, Austin, were happy, healthy babies, but at about 6 weeks old, Savanna began having what episodes – short periods during which she would be nonresponsive and withdrawn. Nine months later, the Lininger’s made the decision to move to Houston to be closer to ...
When Julie Batsche was diagnosed with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) by Jerry S. Wolinsky, MD, she was fresh out of college. Much has changed since her original diagnosis in 1984, yet one thing has remained a constant in Batsche’s life – her deep respect and admiration ...
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 ...
While on a camping trip in the Chisos Mountains in Big Bend National Park, Jared Dunten dove into the Rio Grande with a bar of soap to clean himself up – and hit a sandbar. He woke up in an intensive care unit in Lubbock, Texas, paralyzed from the neck down and breathing with the help of a ventil...
In September 2010, 49-year-old Barry Oakes collapsed in his home while walking to the bathroom in the middle of the night. An EMS team rushed him to the hospital, where doctors diagnosed a massive ischemic stroke and administered tPA. The stroke left him with a large basilar artery thrombosis in ...
Needville High School freshman Cody Kalinowski lives for football. So it’s no wonder he was disappointed at the prospect of missing most of the season after breaking his left ulna (one of the two long bones in the forearm) during a scrimmage in late August. To the surprise of many, Cody returned ...
By the time Jim Hyndman was diagnosed with secondary progressive multiple sclerosis (MS) in 2009, he was unable to walk and suffering intense, painful lower extremity muscle spasms. Today, he stands upright using a walking stick decorated with medallions from his travels. He credits the transform...
While riding her first BP MS 150, Melanie was about 25 miles from the finish line when a rider ahead of her clipped the tire in front of the person in front of him. Melanie was not able to react in time and hit the rider in front of her, causing her to go straight down. She remembers waking up wi...
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 ...
In October 2000, nine days after her second baby was born, Laura Snell became very ill. Doctors at a Houston emergency center diagnosed a urinary tract infection and treated and released her. As she walked to the car, she collapsed. Laura went into septic shock and lapsed into a coma for several ...
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...
In February 2008, Tina Bailey scheduled an office visit with her son’s pediatrician when he developed croup and a bad cough. While at the doctor’s office, 22-month-old Scottie exhibited right hand curling and right shoulder drop. Bailey’s pediatrician ordered an MRI, which revea...
Ralph was tired of not having energy and buying larger and larger clothes. When you tailor the procedure to the patient the results are better. The duodenal switch was a great tool for him. In this operation you, number one, reduce the size of the stomach, and number two, you re-route the small i...
Katia was having trouble doing exercise, going on bike rides with her kids and having problems with her back. She is young, has three beautiful children and a wonderful husband, and she wanted to get healthy. For her situation, gastric bypass would yield the best results. Bypass is a two componen...
By May 2010, seven months after the surgery, she achieved a major victory and her weight had dropped from a preoperative high of 251 to between 180 and 185; and she's still losing. Asthma, which she's had all her life, no longer plagues her. Her knees are improving, she no longer sleeps with the ...
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 ...
Before her gastric band surgery, Belinda's weight fluctuated between 203 and 205 and her health had begun to deteriorate. In addition to the general aches and pains that accompany excess pounds, she developed heart palpitations and sleep apnea. At the time of her surgery, she was 36-years-old. "I...
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...
Gwen began having problems with her weight after the birth of her first child. Before her pregnancy she weighed 125 pounds but by the time she delivered, she had jumped to 299, a weight she maintained during her second pregnancy and delivery. She developed type 2 diabetes, urinary incontinence an...
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 January 21, 2011, United States Representative Gabrielle Giffords was transferred from the University of Arizona Medical Center to Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center’s Neuroscience Intensive Care Unit. Rep. Giffords’ physician team upgraded her condition from serious to good fou...
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...
In November 2008, 2-year-old Curran started treatment for a language delay. When he started treatment, he was nonverbal and communicated only by using hand gestures and vocalizations. The speech-language pathologist suggested Curran’s family encourage English as his primary language, and after pr...
In November 2008, Brittany and her family were moving from College Station to Katy when they had an accident on a two-lane road. Brittany, 11, hit the roof of the van and sustained a T5 spinal cord injury, several broken bones, a collapsed lung and other internal injuries. She was rushed to Memor...
As an infant, Moya was diagnosed with a global developmental delay and, as a toddler, she was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. She was delayed in movements and milestones that a toddler normally accomplishes, such as sitting up, standing and saying a few clear words. Moya had received therapy befor...
After episodes of shaking and seizures, Alyssa, age 8, was diagnosed with epilepsy in January 2007. Alyssa’s medications were not working; she was forgetting everyday things, even the alphabet. A dancer, she was not able to remember dance steps she had learned, forgot dances she used to perform a...
In June 2012, Dan Hammers marked the 20th anniversary of an accident that changed his life. At the age of 19, he dove off a 10-foot building into a pool containing 4 feet of water. Hammers, who is a C4 quadriplegic, considers himself better off for the experience. In 2009, after seven years of ma...
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 ...
Kara Beatty was on her way to summer school at a community college when a truck ran a red light and T-boned her car. She lost consciousness, and emergency responders had to use the “jaws of life” to free her from the wreckage. She remained in a coma for three days in the Neurotrauma ICU, with a m...
On July 12, 2010, 14-year-old Logan Schaefer had a wakeboarding accident that left him unconscious, unresponsive and seizing following a traumatic brain injury. After an emergency craniotomy to relieve pressure on the brain caused by a subdural hematoma, the following day Logan awakened just long...
While Roberta was enjoying time on her daughter’s porch in Sealy, Texas, her family became concerned that she did not look well. She had been having some headaches, but nothing that seemed out of the ordinary. On September 21, after getting what her family described as a “glazed and f...
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...
When David Baker started having headaches, his parents were concerned enough to schedule an appointment with his pediatrician. David Baker's pediatrician prescribed a strong medication that failed to stop the pain. When a second dose of the medication provided no relief, the physician sent them t...
When Buffalo Bills’ football player Kevin Everett arrived at TIRR Memorial Hermann in September 2007 after suffering spinal cord injury on the field, he was paralyzed from the neck down. After months of aggressive therapy led by a group of physicians, physical therapists and occupational th...
Eleven-year-old Lexie Bolds was having fun visiting a friend in Jasper, Texas, when she was involved in an accident that left her with a broken neck and arm. She injured vertebrae C2-C4 and injured her spinal cord at C4. Rushed to Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center by Life Flight® helicopt...
It was late 2004 when Ray Williams went to the doctor for the first time complaining of severe headaches. In fact, Ray had hit his head – not once, but twice – and it was a coworker who helped jog his memory of the first event. After returning to his physician for further evaluation, ...
In early 2010, Marquita Spell knew something wasn’t right. She was beginning to have difficulty swallowing and getting food down was becoming increasingly painful. “The discomfort was unlike anything I had ever experienced before,” Marquita explained. “I never had issues w...
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...
Nearly two years after Jonathan Hardegree's football- ending concussion, the pain of walking away from the game is still raw. What he considered a good defensive hit turned out to be so severe that he had to withdraw from school. Though the gifted quarterback wrestled with accepting life without ...
Linda Hudson-Smith is no stranger to medical care. By age 56, she had undergone four complex surgeries involving abdominal incisions and had recently completed a third procedure to repair a hiatal hernia as a result of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). To compound her condition, Linda had a...
When Grace White was diagnosed with Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GERD) in the mid-1990s, she never imagined how much the disorder would one day transform her life. “At the time – and for several years afterwards – the reflux was easily managed through medication,” she ...
The nagging pain in both of Rennie Swift’s knees began about 15 years ago. Looking for relief, Rennie had arthroscopic knee surgery on both knees, which helped with his pain for several years. “The pain returned with a gusto,” he admits. “Especially, the right knee.”...
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...
Venola was so overcome with joy – and shock – at winning that the sweet victory did not sink in immediately. After all, it was only about 17 months after her lifesaving heart transplant. She had suffered from ischemic cardiomyopathy and coronary artery disease - also called coronary h...
After several heart attacks and multiple unsuccessful attempts to manage his congestive heart failure, Steve sought a heart transplant team to begin a new journey. The process of heart transplantation can be daunting but the heart surgeons’ and specialists’ display of high competence ...
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...
During a visit with his cardiologist Larry was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect: aortic stenosis. With this condition, the valve gets very tight and limits blood flow to the entire body. Larry was then referred to Memorial Hermann Heart & Vascular Institute affiliated cardiothoracic a...
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...