Marisa MacDonnell with her daughter, Cece. (Photo courtesy of Marisa MacDonnell) As she walked up to her fourth-floor apartment, Marisa MacDonnell figured something was different with this pregnancy, her second. She felt winded. She had to take deeper breaths. And when she carried her then-2-year-old son, Sam, he felt heavier than his actual weight. Even…
Cardiac arrest survivor Stan Goldstein. (Photo courtesy of Stan Goldstein) For more than 50 years, Stan Goldstein has donned his red, black, white and gold – the colors of the University of Maryland’s Terrapins – to cheer for his alma mater’s men’s basketball team at home games. In the 1990s, the team invited him to…
Congenital heart defect and mini-stroke survivor Justin Cadelago. (Photo courtesy of Justin Cadelago) For his first 29 years, Justin Cadelago thought little about his heart. The exception was even a fun memory: he got to leave school early once a year to visit his pediatric cardiologist. Cadelago was born with an aorta narrower than usual….
Cardiac arrest survivor Delya Sommerville. (Photo courtesy of Delya Sommerville) It was a Wednesday morning last October and still dark when Delya Sommerville took off for a run with her jogging club. They usually went out two to three times a week in the Capitol Hill area of Washington, D.C., and ran for about an…
Stroke survivor Beth Murphy is drawing on the memory of her husband, who died on 9/11, to stay strong for their kids and others. (Photo courtesy of Beth Murphy) From her hospital bed, Beth Murphy demanded that a television be brought into her room. She needed to see the face of her husband. Kevin Murphy…
Congenital heart defect survivor Zayne McCall. (Photo courtesy of Zayne McCall) Zayne McCall was blue when he was born. Before his mother could hold him, doctors rushed him away to run tests. At first, they thought one of his lungs had collapsed. Further testing showed Zayne was born with heart defects – six of them….
Heart attack survivor Natalie Latham. (Photo courtesy of Allison Muirhead Photography) Intense chest pain awakened Natalie Latham from a deep sleep. Surely, she figured, it was from the spicy soup she’d eaten the night before. Natalie had worked a full day in her role as marketing director for a bank in Brandon, Mississippi, then took…
Play without Auto-Play Play Video Text Murphy Jensen looked across the tennis court and smiled – a joyful, mischievous grin. At 6-foot-5, with a smooth face and scalp, the bright flash of his teeth radiated warmth and happiness. Of course it did. This is a guy so peppy that a friend insists “the sun decides…
Actor and stroke survivor Michael Shutt. (Photo courtesy of Cece Tio) Like many actors in Los Angeles, Michael Shutt had a second job. As a bartender at a restaurant, he had flexible hours and a reliable income with benefits. Shutt worked the day shift so he could devote his evenings to a theater company where…
Congenital heart defect survivor Cix Greene. (Photo courtesy of Chappral Greene) On her first visit to the hospital to check on her newborn patient, the pediatrician detected a heart murmur. A few days later, at Cix Greene’s first office visit, the doctor didn’t hear it. It was almost eight years later, at the boy’s annual…