On Saturday morning, nearly 50 people gathered outside of 10-year-old Agatha Holloway’s home in the east central Seattle neighborhood of Madison Park to support the little girl with an incredible dream and fierce determination. Her dream was to walk to her local ice cream shop, a journey that until recently seemed impossible.
Jack Clark, 12, was born to stand out. He excels in sports, lights up a room with his infectious smile, amazes bystanders with dance moves on skates, and walks with a gait unique to him – with a prosthesis covered in flames. Jack was born with a disability, but he’s never let it slow him […]
Parents David and Jennifer Cowan share how the rapid initiation of a special medical diet known as the ketogenic diet helped their son recover by leaps and bounds after he suffered from a rare, life-threatening form of epilepsy known as febrile infection-related epilepsy syndrome (FIRES). For more about how the ketogenic diet is used to […]
In February 2006, Chris and Michele Westerholm’s 2 1/2-year-old daughter, Jenna, was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma – a cancer made up of cells that normally develop into skeletal muscles. At the time, Michele was 11-weeks pregnant with her son Braden. “It was frightening to imagine what life would be like, having a child with cancer and […]
Lisa Booth was 40 weeks and 6 days into what had been a completely normal pregnancy when she received unexpected news during an ultrasound. “Everything was fine at 9 a.m. At noon, I was told my daughter would be a dwarf. By 4 p.m., I was told she wasn’t going to survive,” said Booth. “I […]
Nearly half a mile away from 10-year-old Agatha Holloway’s home is a quaint family owned ice cream shop called Scoop Du Jour. It’s her favorite ice cream shop, and she’s always dreamed of being able to walk there. But until recently, that journey was physically too far for her to walk. Agatha’s declining mobility made […]
Whether she’s performing in her school’s jazz band, teaching cello, painting or working as a YMCA counselor, Audrey Wright, 16, seems to do it all. She especially doesn’t let an aneurysm in her heart that developed as a result of Kawasaki disease get in the way of being a busy teenager and her dreams of […]
As she watched her daughter being wheeled into the operating room, a striking memory overcame the flood of anxious thoughts going through Marisela Barragan’s mind. “Just a few months before the heart surgery, my daughter Shanae was telling me how desperately she wanted to try out for her school’s volleyball team,” said Barragan. “Her doctors […]
Rachael Satake holds a 3D-printed replica of her son’s heart condition in her hands during a recent appointment at Seattle Children’s Heart Center. For the first time since learning about the defect midway through pregnancy, she clearly sees how the surgeries he has undergone are helping his heart work despite having only one ventricle. Her […]
Leigh Sturges recalls the day she and her husband, Zach Sturges, learned they were having twins. Seven weeks into their first pregnancy, the Bozeman, Montana, family entered a state of happy shock. “We couldn’t believe it when heard two heart beats on the ultrasound,” she said. “We were realistic about the challenges ahead, deciding it […]
