Patient Stories
Patients come to National Jewish Health from around the world to receive treatment they can't find anywhere else, and we are grateful to the many patients who have shared their inspiring stories. It is our hope that their messages provide you strength and encouragement.
Transcript
Back in the Game
Last spring, eight-year-old Genesis Avila began waking up during the night struggling to breathe. Her rescue inhaler, designed to relax the airways and allow air to move in and out of the lungs, was not helping.
Thorough & Expert Care: Family Twice Blessed
Successful treatment of David Espinosa’s scleroderma inspired a return to National Jewish Health when 8-year-old Remy developed frightening episodes of breathlessness.
Team of Doctors Joins Couple to Battle Lung Cancer
Researchers are evaluating strategies to combine immunotherapy with chemotherapy and to use it at earlier stages to further improve outcomes. They are also working to understand and prevent skin rashes, the most common side effect, which can be severe enough to interrupt therapy for some patients.
Teen Returned to Health
Mouhamed, now 14, spent his childhood as a healthy young man who enjoyed socializing with friends, playing football and spending time around animals. He showed no signs of serious health conditions – until late 2018 after returning from vacation in Algeria.
Rare Genetic Disorder Drives Precision Therapy
It got to the point that Jennifer Gleason’s 5-year- old daughter cried every time she had to leave her mother.
Looking Beyond the Lungs
Being knocked down by unrelenting breathing problems was not something with which Travis White was familiar. In his early 70s, Travis was living an active retirement, splitting his time between Austin, Texas and Incline Village, Nevada, when his breathing problems came about somewhat suddenly.
His Life…And His Choice
When Caleb Norder first tried vaping before his freshman year in high school, it seemed fun and cool. Everybody was doing it — kids in the back of the bus, in the school bathrooms and even in class.
A Medical Team Fit for a Determined Toddler
Asher was born with congenital heart and airway defects – soft, narrow airways prone to collapsing, a hole in the heart and no pulmonary artery – the main artery that supplies his lungs with blood. His toddler-sized chest makes treating these conditions difficult. Doctors surgically implanted a pulmonary artery right after birth, but it pushes on his already weak airways, preventing them from staying open.
A Long Journey
Twelve-year-old AJ Salgado-Rael has been accustomed to taking health precautions for as long as he can remember. “He was three when doctors discovered he has XLA immunodeficiency,” Sabrina Salgado-Rael, AJ’s mom, said. XLA immunodeficiency is an inherited inability to make antibodies that help fight infections. AJ receives antibody infusions regularly at National Jewish Health to strengthen his immunity.
Finding the Answer
Correct Diagnosis of HP Leads to Life-Changing Treatment.
Dr. Silveira found herself becoming the patient. She developed a persistent, dry cough, shortness of breath and fatigue that no amount of naps, long nights of sleep or cutting back on work could cure. Eventually, her declining health hastened her retirement. “I loved what I did and didn’t have any plans to retire, but moving and shaking was not a possibility at the end of my career,” she said. “The fatigue just really slowed me down in terms of steam.”
Joining Forces To Fight Deployment-Related Lung Disease
John Sepulveda arrived in Afghanistan in 2011 in peak form and proud to serve in the Air Force. His role was crucial, and he didn’t want to let down his fellow airmen, or his country. So, when he got sick less than a month into his deployment, he decided to tough it out. “That was the worst thing I could have done,” said Sepulveda.
Changing Gears and Adding Years: A Hot Rodder’s Recovery Story
In September of 2021, Cascio-Weldon got sick with what seemed like just a cold. When his symptoms worsened, he visited his local doctor, who informed him that he was simply dealing with post-COVID syndrome, as he had been infected a few months earlier. However, this wasn’t the case. “Come December, I just wasn’t getting any better. In fact, I was getting worse. My skin was gray, literally gray,” Cascio-Weldon said.
Not Settling for the Status Quo
Dov’s parents talked with an extended family member who had been exposed years ago to chemicals at work and was successfully treated at National Jewish Health. “He believes that without that hospital, his quality of life would be significantly different — he would need to live in isolation and be unable to live a normal social life,” said Kops. “So we made an appointment.”
Little Body, Big Battle
What started with a cough and a runny nose, quickly became much more alarming for 17-month-old Ivan Paez’s parents. “All of a sudden he started wheezing, so we took him to a local hospital,” Ivan’s mom Crystal Medrano said. A chest X-ray was performed and Medrano said doctors told her “he just has a cough and will be fine.” Ivan was sent home, but by the next day, Ivan’s cough and other symptoms were only getting worse. He also began developing a fever, prompting a second trip to the hospital. This time, Ivan was diagnosed with croup. “They gave him a dose of steroids and then they sent us home,” Medrano states.
Finding Care for Sarcoidosis in My Own Backyard
When patients are diagnosed with rare or unusual health conditions, understanding what to do next or where to find care can be daunting. For Diane Wein, a globe-trotting married mother of one, it took a team of doctors at National Jewish Health to get her back on her feet.
Searching For Answers
The second time Lillian Downs got COVID-19, she came to National Jewish Health. When infectious disease expert Jared Eddy, MD, saw Lillian before an antibody infusion, he realized that she needed a more extensive evaluation.
Life Gets Back on the Green
Even over the phone, Michael Brown’s voice is a hypodermic of pure energy. Indeed, the first word neurologist Jinny Tavee, MD, uses to describe him these days is “ebullient.” But it wasn’t always this way.
Former Asthma Patient Runs 100th Half-Marathon for National Jewish Health
Fifty years after receiving life-saving asthma care at National Jewish Health, Kevin Buron
used his passion for running to raise funds for the hospital.
