Patient Care

After a family trip to Finland last summer, Jasmine’s family became increasingly concerned about some unusual symptoms she was experiencing.

What started as occasional numbness in her lip or left side of her face last spring had progressed to twitching, which the family later learned were increasingly strong seizures.

Her family had been proactive in seeking help for Jasmine, who is now 13 years old. In Finland, they took her to a specialist, had lab tests performed and tried to adjust her diet and vitamin intake. They also took her to a chiropractor when she returned to their home in Alaska, but the symptoms did not let up.

Then, in September 2022, Jasmine’s father, Erik, found her having the most intense and longest seizure he had ever seen.

“Up to this point, she had never lost any of her awareness of what was going on,” Erik said. “That time, her eyes were open but it was like nobody’s home.”

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DJ received multidisciplinary care over several years at Seattle Children’s. He proudly displays his 4th grade inclusiveness award.

9-year-old DeAngelo “DJ” has his dreams for the future all planned out.

“DJ tells everyone that he wants to become a pediatric surgeon or a pediatric gastroenterologist one day,” explained Angela McCulloch.

“He says that he plans to go to school at the University of Washington and work at Seattle Children’s to help kids like they helped him.”

Angela is DJ’s mom, but also his biggest advocate.

DJ was born prematurely in Tacoma, Wash., at 31 weeks with a rare condition called esophageal atresia (EA), in which the esophagus does not form properly before birth, and tracheoesophageal fistula (TEF), an abnormal connection between the windpipe and esophagus.

A baby with EA cannot feed by mouth because there is no way for food and liquid to travel from their mouth to their stomach.

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Emerson, a Seattle Children’s patient, works on her cosmic creation

Space, art and healing is the mission behind one project that is uniting a planetary community of children through the awe and wonder of space exploration and the healing power of art.

As part of a unique space-themed art project between Creative Art Therapies and the Space for Art Foundation, co-founded by NASA astronaut Nicole Stott, Seattle Children’s patients are designing an art spacesuit that may one day have the opportunity to fly to space.

Patients were also invited to create colorful postcards that will be flown by ‘Club for the Future’ on a Blue Origin rocket, and once back on Earth, will be stamped with the phrase “Flown in Space” for the kids as a memorable keepsake.

The special project aims to bring joy and inspiration to children across the world.

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Originally published on the Children’s Miracle Network.

Pride Month is here and as some in-person celebrations resume, political leaders across the country have introduced a record number of legislative bills targeting the very LGBTQ+ rights Pride Month honors.

Among those called into question is the right of transgender and non-binary youth to access gender-affirming care, a form of healthcare that supports and affirms an individual’s gender identity and expression.

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Stuffy nose, sneezing, and itchy or watery eyes are a few indications that a child may be suffering from allergies. These symptoms are most often triggered during the spring and summer months but it can sometimes be tough to differentiate the cause among other illnesses that tend to spread this time of year.

On the Pulse answers some common questions about springtime allergies from parents and caregivers.

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Bennett (right) pictured with his family, received care in Seattle Children’s NICU for hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy

For newborn babies recovering from a difficult birth resulting in a brain injury, Seattle Children’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) team employs a surprising therapy — they lay some babies “on ice.”

On the Pulse shares how this cooling treatment can help newborns heal and stop further damage from happening.

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Autism Acceptance Month is a time to foster inclusion of the autism community. This goes beyond simply promoting education about the differences and abilities of people with autism— it is a commitment to understanding, respecting, and celebrating those differences and abilities from across the diverse range of the autism spectrum.

Seattle Children’s Autism Center holds space for the varied truths and narratives that co-exist in the world of autism, and believes that every person with autism has the right to thrive: to be accepted, included, celebrated and to live their best life. Some individuals with autism need high levels of support in their daily lives, while others are able to reach their goals with relative independence. And many others fall somewhere in between—benefitting from support in some areas and independence in others.

All deserve not just awareness of their differences, but true acceptance and inclusion. This requires a shift for all of us—not just in our healthcare and education systems to provide needed supports and therapies to autistic individuals—but in our society as a whole to broaden our appreciation of diverse lived experiences and recognition of the value of neurodiversity.

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At the Cure FactoryTM in Seattle Children’s Building CureTM, cell products for patients enrolled in clinical trials are manufactured on-site in downtown Seattle

Seattle Children’s, an international leader in the effort to better treat cancer in children, teens and young adults by boosting the immune system with immunotherapy, has reached a new milestone by enrolling its 500^th patient in its chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell immunotherapy clinical trials in 10 years.

T cells play a key role in fighting pathogens and regulating the immune system. Through a potentially game-changing experimental treatment called cancer immunotherapy, a patient’s own T cells are “reprogrammed” into CAR T cells that can hunt down and destroy cancer cells wherever they are hiding in the body.

Support from more than 24,000 donors in all 50 states and across 17 other countries has raised more than $123 million to date to move this research forward. Historically, only 4% of the federal cancer research budget was allocated to pediatric cancer. In 2021, advocacy efforts helped increase that percentage to 8%, but there is a significant need for additional funding and philanthropy in pediatric cancer research to help scientists advance this important work and open new trials sooner.

On the Pulse looks back at the remarkable stories of Seattle Children’s patients who fought and beat cancer over the last decade, and shares where they are today.

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Cleft teams from Seattle, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana joined together for the PACT program’s 5-day workshop

Every year, Seattle Children’s Craniofacial Center treats hundreds of children with craniofacial conditions and rare syndromes. Cleft lip and cleft palate are among the most common kinds of birth defects in the United States, and affects more than 1 in 1000 newborns around the world.

The lip and palate (roof of mouth) form in early pregnancy. Cleft lip is a separation of the two sides of the upper lip and a cleft palate is an opening in the roof of the mouth that occurs when the two sides of the palate do not bond together. A cleft palate can impact a child’s ability to speak, swallow and sometimes hear properly.

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Anxiety and depression are two of the most common mental health conditions seen and treated at Seattle Children’s.

Although sometimes confused, they are different classes of disorders. Some of the confusion stems from an overlap in symptoms and in fact, people often experience both at the same time.

Dr. Kalina Babeva and Dr. Sonia Venkatraman, co-directors of the Mood and Anxiety Program at Seattle Children’s, dive into these conditions with On the Pulse to answer some frequently asked questions from patients and families.

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