The Most Miraculous Medical Recoveries

Surely you can’t survive with only half a skull. Or can you? We’ve got the miracles behind these amazing stories and others that are certain to inspire you. This is what today’s medicine (and maybe a few angels) can accomplish.

Courtesy Jennifer Fresneda

The first 23-week preemie to survive in more than a decade

A few years ago, we wrote about the miraculous survival of a baby born at 26 weeks. Now we have Samuel Rodriguez, born in April 2017 at just 23 weeks and 3 days, the result of a spontaneous placental abruption (separation of the placenta from the uterus). All Samuel’s mom, Jennifer Fresneda of Tioga, Texas, remembers is waking up to labor pains and rushing to the hospital, where she learned that her baby’s sole chance of survival was an emergency C-section. Sam actually took a breath upon emerging, but doctors immediately intubated and rushed him to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). When Jennifer and her husband were finally allowed to see their baby, Jennifer nearly collapsed from the shock. “He was the tiniest thing, hooked up to all these wires. I was frightened and powerless.”

Samuel spent four months in NICU, during which he had two surgeries, including surgery to correct a heart abnormality. On August 9, the day before his actual due date, Samuel was discharged from the hospital, a healthy baby boy, albeit with an apnea monitor and supplemental oxygen. “I didn’t even know babies so small could survive,” Jennifer marvels. Check out these 8 unsolved mysteries that still stump doctors.

Courtesy The St. Baldricks Foundation

The boy who survived leukemia three times in ten years

Zach Swart was first diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) in 2007 at age 6. Although ALL is generally highly treatable, Zach’s version played hardball. Zach’s first treatment consisted of more than three years of chemo. Two years later, the cancer returned. After another two years of treatment, Zach was deemed cancer-free. Then, when Zach was 15, the cancer came back. This time, chemo was just the pregame—to put Zach into remission in preparation for a bone marrow transplant (BMT). But three months later, after nearly dying from the side effects, Zach still wasn’t in remission. It seemed as if he was out of options when along came the miracle.

Kevin Curran, MD, at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, introduced Zach and his family to “CAR-T cell treatment,” which Dr. Curran developed through a research grant from St. Baldrick’s Foundation. It put Zach into complete remission in a matter of weeks. Within a month he received his BMT (from his brother, Ben). He’s getting stronger by the day. Read about the 10 parenting lessons we can all learn from children with cancer.

“I was initially afraid about CAR-T’s side effects,” Zach told Reader’s Digest. “But then I didn’t have any at all. I was so lucky, and it feels so good not to be sick anymore and to be home and see my friends. I’m determined to leave cancer far behind me.”

“Every day I see Zach smile, laugh, and just be a kid, it is truly a miracle,” his mom says. Find out 12 loving ways to support cancer patients.

Courtesy Kate Ogg

Two parents’ lifesaving touch

On March 25, 2010, Kate and David Ogg heard the words every parent dreads: Their newborn wasn’t going to make it. Their twins—a girl and a boy—were born two minutes apart and 14 weeks premature, weighing just over two pounds each. Doctors had tried to save the boy for 20 minutes but saw no improvement. His heartbeat was nearly gone, and he’d stopped breathing. The baby had just moments to live. “I saw him gasp, but the doctor said it was no use,” Kate told the Daily Mail five years later. “I know it sounds stupid, but if he was still gasping, that was a sign of life. I wasn’t going to give up easily.”

Still, the Sydney, Australia, couple knew this was likely goodbye. In an effort to cherish her last minutes with the tiny boy, Kate asked to hold him. “I wanted to meet him, and for him to know us,” Kate told the Today show. “We’d resigned ourselves to the fact that we were going to lose him, and we were just trying to make the most of those last, precious moments.”

Kate unwrapped the boy, whom the couple had already named ­Jamie, from his hospital blanket and ordered David to take his shirt off and join them in bed. The first-time parents wanted their son to be as warm as possible and hoped that the skin-to-skin contact would improve his condition. They also talked to him.

“We were trying to entice him to stay,” Kate told the Daily Mail. “We explained his name and that he had a twin that he had to look out for and how hard we had tried to have him.” Then something miraculous happened. Jamie gasped again—and then he started breathing. Finally, he reached for his father’s finger. The couple’s lost boy had made it. “We’re the luckiest people in the world,” David told Today.

Eight years later, Jamie and his sister, Emily, are happy and healthy. The Oggs only recently told the kids the story of their birth. “Emily burst into tears,” Kate said. “She was really upset, and she kept hugging Jamie. This whole experience makes you cherish them more.” Read about these 9 nurses who went above and beyond the call of duty.

Amanda Friedman for Reader’s Digest

The church that cured one man’s cancer

It’s hard to say which was in worse shape: the run-down, century-old church or the cancer-ridden 56-year-old man perched on its crumbling steps. For years, Greg Thomas would sit on those very steps and pray when he walked his dogs along the country lanes in rural Minnesota. But in May 2009, he learned that the searing headaches, earaches, and jaw aches that had plagued him for the past year were due to inoperable head and neck cancer. Doctors told Greg’s family to be prepared to plan his funeral.

“I was sitting at the church one evening, pouring my heart out to God,” Greg told Reader’s Digest. “I kept looking at the building and the shape it was in. I said, ‘Before I leave this earth, Lord, I’d like to do something for you.’”

Greg decided that that something was to fix the peeling paint and the leaking roof, the mangled steps, and the rotting floorboards. He approached the church’s association with a deal: He would completely repair the building on one condition: “That I get a key to the front door so I can go in anytime I want to worship.”

Incredibly, as Greg scraped paint and replaced boards, he felt himself growing stronger every day. The more he worked on the church, the better he felt. As Greg continued to rehabilitate the church, medical scans revealed some startling news: His tumors were shrinking. Four years and 23 days after Greg’s diagnosis, his doctors were able to remove his feeding tube. Today Greg’s tumors are gone. He is considered officially in remission and no longer needs follow-up tests.

And the church? After five years of Greg’s labor and love, it has been restored to its former glory, too. Greg finished his main project last summer, but he will probably always be involved in maintaining its beauty (he still wants to replace some windows, for example). Greg held his third annual open house there near Christmas, inviting the entire community. “While I was restoring the church,” Greg says, “God was restoring me.” Be inspired by these 7 stories about the healing power of prayer.

Courtesy David Shusterman MD urologist NYC

The bladder cancer that saved a man’s heart

You might not consider a cancer diagnosis to be a miracle, but then you probably haven’t talked to David Shusterman, MD, a urologist who practices in New York City. Dr. Schusterman had a patient last year whose life was actually saved because of his cancer diagnosis (for privacy reasons, Dr. Schusterman can’t disclose the name of the patient). Here’s what happened:

Before any surgery, it’s protocol for a patient to get a presurgical workup, including blood tests and an EKG. In fact, before initiating any cancer treatment, the patient’s general health should be assessed. In this case, Dr. Schusterman explains, “We had a patient with bladder cancer, but when we checked his heart, we found a terrible heart condition.” The condition was so life-threatening that the patient was actually at risk of sudden death. Literally, as Dr. Schusterman told Reader’s Digest, “he was about to die of a heart attack.”

Because of the patient’s cancer diagnosis, his treatable heart condition was discovered in time. “He survived and was able to get his bladder tumor cured as well” and, in so doing, “beat two conditions that almost caused his death.” Find out the most miraculous recoveries these doctors have ever seen.

Courtesy Memorial Hermann Red Duke Trauma Institute

An internal tourniquet saves a man who was split wide open

By all accounts, Michael Cassidy should not be alive today. In March he was thrown from his motorcycle, face-forward, into a fire hydrant. The impact broke his pelvis wide open—literally, cracking him open like a book. It’s what Michelle McNutt, MD, chief of trauma at Memorial Hermann Red Duke Trauma Institute (MHRDTI), says is known as an “open-book fracture.”

When Michael arrived at the trauma center, Dr. McNutt had to make an immediate decision to utilize what’s called the REBOA (resuscitative endovascular balloon occlusion of the aorta) technique. It involves placing a flexible catheter into the femoral artery (located in the thigh), maneuvering it all the way up into the aorta (the main artery of the human body) and inflating a balloon at the end of the catheter. What this does is stop the blood flow beyond the balloon, which improves the person’s blood pressure and provides a sort of “bridge” to getting a severely injured patient into the operating room in time.

Another way of thinking about the REBOA is as an “internal tourniquet.” It’s revolutionary and the key to why Michael is alive today, according to Laura Moore, MD, FACS, an associate professor in the department of surgery at the University of Texas McGovern Medical School and medical director of the Shock Trauma ICU at MHRDTI. Michael was also lucky to have been where he was when the accident happened, or he might not have had access to REBOA. Amaze yourself with these 20 other true stories about luck.

Courtesy Jennifer Beaver

She’s alive and well, though half her skull is gone

In June of last year, Jennifer Beaver fell off a golf cart and landed on her head, leading to such a massive brain bleed that doctors had no choice but to remove half her skull to alleviate pressure. To say her prognosis was grim is an understatement. Colin Looney, MD, the orthopedic surgeon who helped repair Jen’s broken limbs, was also a friend of Jen and her husband, Bill. “I had operated on friends and neighbors before, but this would be my first time operating on a friend who was dying,” he recalls. “Talking to Bill shortly after, I tried to sound positive, but I’d seen so few patients survive massive brain trauma that I’m sure it all showed on my face.”

“So many things were going through my head,” Bill recalls. “One minute we’re having the best day. The next, all the doctors can say is ‘They’ll do their best.’ I just wanted to hold her hand and make it better. I couldn’t stand to think she’d never come home again.”

But she did go home again. After being brought out of a medically induced coma, Jen steadily improved. “Whenever I examined her,” Dr. Looney told Reader’s Digest, “I’d get emotional seeing how she’d improved beyond anyone’s hopes or expectations.” Read about what it’s like to be in a coma, from real-life survivors.

Jen, who’s back at work and is suffering no significant deficits, knows she’s a “walking miracle,” and she’ll be forever grateful to her doctors, including neurosurgeon Lola Chambless, MD.

courtesy Memorial Hermann Health System

She wasn’t supposed to live, let alone stand or dance again

Katie Vacek was never your typical high school senior: a class officer, sixth in her graduating class, a member of her school band, a varsity cheerleader, and, as if that weren’t enough, a member of the school’s powerlifting team. She’d planned to attend Texas State University in the fall until her future took a tragic detour in February 2017, when she fell 20 feet from a tree she was climbing while on a nature walk with friends and family. Katie landed facedown, but miraculously enough, she remained conscious. Turning over, however, she realized she couldn’t feel her legs.

Air-lifted to Memorial Hermann Red Duke Trauma Institute, Katie was found to have a fractured sternum, multiple broken ribs, a partially collapsed lung, and a broken spine. After a seven-hour surgery to fuse her spine, she was told she might not walk again.

But for Katie, it wasn’t enough just to have survived. Even if she’d never walk again, she was determined to stand beside and dance with her boyfriend at prom. That’s what she told her physical therapy team at TIRR Memorial Hermann, who came up with a plan and worked on their own time to fashion a harness for Katie and her boyfriend to wear together. A few weeks later, not only did Katie stand and dance beside her boyfriend at prom, but the two were also voted prom king and queen.  Read on for 5 real-life miracle stories.

Courtesy Memorial Hermann Southwest HospitalRand Mintzer

He’s alive because of his angels … and an AED

In January 2017, attorney Rand Mintzer, set out to complete his 25th marathon and his 11th Houston Marathon—but it didn’t go exactly as planned. “I wasn’t feeling great. I was struggling to keep up my pace, but I had heartburn and nausea. I even vomited on the sidelines,” Rand, 58, recalled. “Then I began feeling lightheaded, and my vision started to blur.”

At mile 15, he collapsed. He was in full cardiac arrest. Luckily, six spectators (aka Rand’s “angels,” as he calls them) who were trained in CPR ran to his aid. What’s more, he had collapsed right near an assisted-living facility that had an AED (a heart defibrillation device that saves lives). When the paramedics arrived, they transported Rand to Memorial Hermann Heart & Vascular Institute–Southwest, where Peter Chang, MD, positioned a stent to address a severe arterial blockage.

Today it’s Rand’s mission to encourage everyone to learn the miracle of CPR. “I will keep working to make sure that everyone who crosses my path knows CPR, so perhaps that percentage of survival will increase and someone else gets to go home to their loved ones.” Next up, read 13 more “unsolved mysteries” easily explained by science.

Originally Published: November 13, 2018

Lauren Cahn

Lauren Cahn is a New York-based writer whose work has appeared regularly on Reader’s Digest, The Huffington Post, and a variety of other publications since 2008. She covers health, fitness, yoga, and lifestyle, among other topics. An author of crime fiction, Lauren’s book The Trust Game, was short-listed for the 2017 CLUE Award for emerging talent in the genre of suspense fiction.

Lauren Cahn for Reader’s Digest

The Miracle of a Patient’s Recovery | Stanford Medicine 25

First trips to Stanford

Millie may have been healthy, but Lindsey was not. She was bleeding, a lot, to the point where it became difficult for her to walk. She saw a local hematologist and was in and out of her local hospital, but it was clear that she needed a larger hospital’s resources.

When Millie was eight weeks old, Lindsey went to Stanford. Her first stint there was five and a half weeks. Jordan and Millie moved down with her. “My husband works for my dad, so my dad was just like, ‘Don’t even think about coming to work, you need to go be with her and Millie,’” Lindsey says. She was given a private room, where Jordan camped out and Millie played in a playpen.

The Stanford doctors tried everything they could to staunch her bleeding. They tried numerous medications, and eventually one seemed to work. They stopped the bleeding and sent her back home to Ukiah.

But a day after she left the hospital, she started bleeding again. She worked with doctors in Ukiah and Stanford to up the dosage of the medication, but nothing was working. And they still didn’t know the underlying cause.   At this point, she explains, “I have zero diagnosis. Their goal was literally just to get me to stop bleeding, and then they would try to figure out what was wrong with me.”

Around this time, Lindsey met Dr. Caroline Berube, a hematologist who became her primary outpatient physician for much of her time at Stanford. Dr. Berube and her colleagues in various departments, including pulmonology, gastroenterology, pediatric hematology, and hospital medicine, desperately tried to stop the bleeding, and—what’s more—to find out what was wrong.

A diagnosis

In February of 2014, Lindsey finally had a diagnosis: KLA, or Kaposiform lymphangiomatosis: a very rare, newly-identified, incurable condition caused by abnormal lymphatic vessels that often cause life-threatening bleeding. It’s usually a pediatric condition– only a handful of adult cases have ever been reported. Most patients die within three years.

But Lindsey’s team of doctors didn’t give up. They put her on medication and, as she puts it, “For a year and a half I did okay. I wasn’t super sick but I didn’t really have energy.” She still had blood and iron transfusions, mostly in Ukiah, but she’d also occasionally start bleeding again and wind up back at the hospital.

A turn for the worse

In September of 2015, Lindsey started to turn yellow. She called Jillian Settlemire, RN, a nurse coordinator in Dr. Berube’s office who often calmed Lindsey down and was always a “huge help” during her illness, and explained what was happening. Jillian told Lindsey to come back down to Stanford.

Lindsey calls that “the beginning of this huge kick in the stomach for the next year and a half. I got down to 96 pounds. I was mustard yellow all over: my mouth, my eyes, my fingernails, my skin. And I just kept hearing over and over, ‘We don’t know what to do.’” The disease was taking over her liver, and the doctors were working frantically to save her, but she was still sick.

In December of 2015, during one of her stints at Stanford, she and her family were given an apartment near the hospital, so she could come and go with ease. She remembers one particular day, when Dr. Berube came to see her. “I went up there with my dad,” she says “and we just thought we were going over there just for a blood transfusion. But Dr. Berube was really, really worried about me. She looked at my dad and me, and she said, ‘You know, I think it’s time you start preparing for the worst if it does happen.’ This was the first time we had heard it. My dad took his glasses and he just chucked them, he was so upset. He punched himself in the face. It was horrible, so horrible. And he walked out. He can’t stand crying in front of me — or anybody — but he went to the bathroom and he came back and this was the first time that I said, ‘Dad, we have to be strong. We can’t think like that. I’m not going anywhere.’ That was the first time we heard it and I thought, Okay, well, this is real now.”

Dr. Berube and Dr. Michael Jeng suggested that she go to the East Coast to see Denise Adams, an expert in the disease, in Boston. Adams suggested that she go to Philadelphia as well. So in March 2016 Lindsey, her husband, her daughter, her parents, and in her in-laws flew to the East Coast to speak to the experts. In both cases, the results were devastating: there was nothing anyone could do. Again she was told that she was going to die.

“That was always what I heard,” Lindsey says. “So I just remember feeling really calm and saying, ‘Okay.’ And I don’t know if I was in denial or what, but I always felt like I wasn’t gonna die, even though I heard it over and over and over. I just kept thinking, That’s not gonna happen. I have to be here for my daughter, you know?”

She saw a naturopath. She kept fighting. As Dr. Berube put it, “This woman would not give up.”

Biologist explained singer MakSim’s “miraculous” recovery

08/21/2021 at 20:16

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Doctor of Biology, Professor of the School of Systems Biology at George Mason University Ancha Baranova explained to NTV why the singer MakSim (Marina Abrosimova) was able to recover, having a high percentage of lung damage. Recall that on August 13, the singer was discharged from the hospital home. Her manager explained that MakSim would be recovering, and there was nothing to say about concerts in the next year.

Photo: Social networks

Biologist Baranova explained that the singer has strong and trained lungs, which helped to cope with the consequences of the infection. The respiratory apparatus of people who sing is more developed. “Therefore, the factor that MakSim sang beautifully allowed her to survive even with severe lung damage,” Baranova added.

The head of the phoniatrics department, Yekaterina Osipenko, also said that the illness had affected the singer’s vocal apparatus. Therefore, rumors that MakSim will soon perform from the stage are implausible, because it needs a long recovery.

Let us remind you that Yulia Beretta, a former member of the Strelka group, said that she did not believe in the story of MakSim’s serious illness. According to her, all this was done for the sake of PR. “Let a talented singer, but PR on this so much and so mercilessly is overkill. And then there is no real evidence, ”said the artist.

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• Pavel Bystrov

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Miraculous recovery: how spitting can save you from cancer, and an accident from a tumor in the head Buckley spoke about salvation from oncology of one of his fans.

The girl explained that she was hospitalized with a complaint of pain in her eye after he spat beer at her during one of the concerts. The musician wrote about this on his Twitter page. 360 has prepared a full story of miraculous healing, as well as other similar cases.

During one of the concerts, a fan approached Jordan Buckley and said that during one of the concerts he hit her in the eye with beer, which he was spitting.

“I apologized. Said our shows seem stupid, never know what’s going to happen. I was probably just trying to imitate someone, ”the guitarist tried to explain his behavior during the performance.

But the girl did not let up and continued her story. She especially emphasized that after that the eye began to hurt, a burning sensation appeared in it. Fearing an infection, she decided to see a specialist.

“I apologized 10 more times, afraid that she might sue me,” the musician said.

In the hospital, the girl was tested and the necessary tests were taken. It turned out that she did not have any infection, but at the same time she had a brain tumor, which was at an early stage. In the end, she had an operation.

According to the band’s lover, if it weren’t for the beer from the musician’s mouth, she would never have reached the doctor, and therefore would not have known about the terrible diagnosis. In the end, she thanked him for saving her life.

Summing up the story, the musician noted that all those who come to the concert of his band can save their lives.

He retweeted a photo from the concert, where he once again spits at the crowd of fans on stage with the caption “Here is a photo of me saving at least ten lives.”

When asked by one of the users if he could also help him with an earache, the musician replied: “Yes, my son.”

A similar story happened to a resident of California. But here a car accident became a “happy occasion”.

During a trip to Sacramento, Aimee Green lost control of the car with her boyfriend and sent the car into a ditch. Neither she nor her companion received any special damage. But during a CT scan, doctors found a tumor in her head that threatened her brain.

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According to doctors, the neoplasm has been growing right under the ear for about a year now. She blocked the cerebrospinal fluid, and was ready to go to the brain.

The girl noted that she now knows why she had migraines and convulsions.

However, the operation requires large funds, which Aimee raised on her Facebook page. On June 4, doctors removed her tumor. Now the girl travels and encourages everyone to appreciate every minute of life.

Little Yaroslav from the Irkutsk region came to Novosibirsk with his mother during his vacation. After the child complained of a headache, the woman took him to the doctors. A giant tumor was found in the boy’s head.

According to the parents, they attributed Yaroslav’s fatigue and complaints to a recent cold and had no idea that a malignant neoplasm was growing in the boy’s head. Doctors were able to remove the tumor during a six-hour operation.

Another miraculous rescue happened in a German clinic. According to the Lancet magazine, a 55-year-old patient turned to doctors with heart complaints. Doctors could not find out the cause of tachycardia for several months. But the love of chief physician Jurgen Schaefer for medical series helped.

The patient’s entire history reminded the physician of one episode of House M.D. where the patient exhibited similar symptoms due to cobalt poisoning from a prosthetic hip joint. An analysis of the blood of a real patient showed the presence of an excess of metal in the body. It turned out that a man with heart complaints also has a prosthesis in his hip, which, among other things, was damaged and began to poison the carrier’s body.