In honor of National Dog Day, On the Pulse is recognizing a special four-legged volunteer who has provided comfort to patients at Seattle Children’s every week for more than 11 years.
If Abe had the ability to talk, he would likely share powerful stories about the thousands of kids he has met throughout his 11-year career as a registered therapy dog.
The road to becoming a therapy dog isn’t easy for most loyal companions, but for Abe, it was his calling.
“I always said he was born to be a therapy dog,” said Judith Bonifaci, Abe’s owner and trusty handler. “From the moment I met him, I could tell he was an old soul who had a special purpose in life.”
Someone forgot to tell Ryker Ringstad that he was a patient at Seattle Children’s, not a fundraiser.
A happy, gregarious kiddo with blonde hair and a playful spirit, Ryker bounces around his room at the hospital. He climbs on his dad, Paul, and mother, Sarah. Watching him move, you’d never guess that he just underwent his 14th procedure for the lymphatic anomalies in his tongue and neck. Wearing a Seahawks t-shirt, I ask him who his favorite player is and without missing a beat, he answers “Russell Wilson!”
Ryker hasn’t had an easy path, but as his mother says, “he is one strong, resilient little man.”
Dr. Joseph Flynn served as the co-chair of the national committee responsible for developing the American Academy of Pediatrics’ new guidelines on high blood pressure.
Parents may notice a renewed focus on screening for hypertension at their child’s next well-child checkup thanks to new guidelines published by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).
While hypertension, or high blood pressure, is common in adults, many people are unaware that approximately 3.5% of all children and adolescents also have the condition. If left untreated, over time hypertension can damage many organs of the body, including the heart, brain, kidneys and eyes.
“The goal is to ensure every child receives annual screening for high blood pressure starting at age 3,” said Dr. Joseph Flynn, an expert in treating children with hypertension at Seattle Children’s and co-chair of the national committee responsible for developing the new guidelines. “Evidence shows pediatricians aren’t routinely measuring blood pressure in younger children, or may not recognize when a child’s blood pressure is high, causing high blood pressure to go undetected and untreated.” Read full post »
Dr. Alex Kula is a resident at Seattle Children’s. As a young adult, Kula was the recipient of a life-saving living liver transplant.
As a resident at Seattle Children’s, Dr. Alex Kula brings a unique perspective to patient care: his own history as a youth with a serious illness.
Here Alex shares how his uncle gave the ultimate gift, and why the experience drives him to help sick children live healthy and fulfilling lives.
I was 15 years old and a normal teenager: living in Phoenix, hanging out with my friends at school and running with the cross-country team.
Then a mysterious autoimmune storm interrupted the normalcy of my life. It left me with type 1 diabetes, ulcerative colitis and an inflamed liver. Blood tests later revealed primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC), a disease of the bile ducts, as the cause of my liver inflammation.
Prior to this, I had never really been sick — which was fortunate, considering how much I hated to go to the doctor. However, I quickly came to appreciate the complexity and wonder of medicine. Read full post »
On Thursday nights this summer, 7-year-old Arabelle Laddusaw is saddling up alongside other children and teens to compete in the Tomorrow’s Rodeo Champions’ summer rodeo series in her hometown of Billings, Montana. As she sits up straight and grips the reins of her horse in anticipation of the chute opening, her cerebral palsy is the last thing slowing down the thrill of events such as barrel racing, pole bending and the crowd favorite, goat tail tying.
However, the prospect of being able to sit naturally on a horse wasn’t always a future possibility for Arabelle who was diagnosed at birth with cerebral palsy, a neurological condition that affects muscle movement and limits mobility.
As a toddler, the muscles in Arabelle’s legs were so tightly wound they would scissor – one leg twisting over the other – making it difficult for her to stand upright or simply straighten her legs out in front of her when sitting.
“With her, it was challenging because she required constant assistance,” said Arabelle’s mother, Christine Laddusaw. “She wasn’t just a normal child that you could put down and let play.” Read full post »
Grayson, wearing his black and white “Chucks,” weighed 1 pound when he was born. He overcame several life-threatening conditions while in the Seattle Children’s NICU and is now back home with is parents in Idaho.
For Leslie and Jeremy Barnett, Grayson’s black and white Converse Chuck Taylors represent a happy ending to a tough first chapter of life for their son, who weighed just 1 pound when he was born 18 weeks premature last November.
It took eight months and overcoming tremendous adversity for Grayson to grow into the tiny shoes he received the day before his 117-day stay in the Seattle Children’s neonatal intensive care unit ended.
“We were told that Grayson had this Mt. Everest of health challenges to climb,” Leslie Barnett said, recalling a conversation with Seattle Children’s and University of Washington neonatologist Dr. Maneesh Batra when her son was a few days old.
Brennan Henderson was born 3 months premature with a host of debilitating health issues, including necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), a condition that affects the intestines.
It’s common for parents of young children to worry about the unexpected accident that may occur while they’re out in public. But for the Henderson family, being prepared for the unexpected was something that lasted well beyond the early years of childhood.
Whether it was attending a family gathering or simply dropping by the grocery store, there was always a looming concern around when their youngest son, Brennan, may have his next vomiting or bowel incontinence episode.
“There were times when we would go to a restaurant and have to cover him with a blanket,” said Brennan’s mother, Gloria Henderson. “We did it to muffle the sound of him vomiting into a bag. It felt awful having to do it, but it was the only option we had.”
Brennan was born 3 months premature with a host of debilitating health conditions, including necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC).
Life did not start out easily for Emmett Seymer. He and his twin brother, Dashiell, were born at 29 weeks in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Emmett spent the first 30 days of his life on a ventilator because his lungs were underdeveloped. Doctors at the hospital had little optimism for Emmett and told his mother to prepare herself for him to pass away.
After 180 days in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), Emmett was able to join his brother at home. Though he had significant difficulty breathing and an inability to swallow normally, he was finally stable enough to get out of the hospital.
Daisie Losee had a rough introduction to the world. Her mother, Melissa, struggled to deliver her sixth child at an Idaho hospital. During the birth, Daisie suffered two injuries. Her broken right arm was discovered as they changed her clothes for the first time. Doctors tried to put a splint on her tiny bone, but the break between the shoulder and elbow was in such a small area that it was difficult to keep stable. The doctors had to improvise and make a sling that held her fist against her sternum to let the bone heal.
The second injury, brachial plexus, was more mysterious. Neither Cory nor Melissa Losee had heard of that condition. For the first month after Daisie’s birth, she had no movement in her left arm and hand. The Losees saw five different doctors at the hospital in the first seven days of Daisie’s life. None of them talked about the injury to the left arm and the Losees were unsure what was happening with their newborn daughter.
From his appearance alone, 3-year-old Hamilton McNamee looks like a typical kid. He is rambunctious and playful with strawberry blonde hair and a mischievous smile.
As he climbs on the tables and chairs in Starbucks at Seattle Children’s Hospital, his mother Claire casually states, “He’s going to wander around a little. It’s fine.”
What’s different about Hammie, as his family affectionately refers to him, is that he has a condition known as tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC), a rare genetic disease that causes tumors to grow in various parts of the body, including the brain and other vital organs. Though the tumors are benign (which means they aren’t cancerous), they impact a child’s development in a variety of ways depending on where they grow and how big they get.
At age 2, Hammie experienced some seizure-like behavior after a bout with hand, foot and mouth disease. His primary care provider referred Hammie to Seattle Children’s First Seizure Clinic where tests revealed that he had growths in his brain and he was diagnosed with TSC.
