Gastroenterology Patient Stories

When debilitating itching and fatigue prevented him from working, Rabbi Melvin Gruber turned to Mayo Clinic, where a series of specialized procedures allowed him to get back to teaching and sharing his knowledge with his community.

When she was 38, Radhika Sattanathan received a frightening diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. Taking the advice of her physician in India, Radhika sought care halfway around the globe at Mayo Clinic. Today, she's cancer-free.

For Knox Rhinehart, who had been plagued by chronic vomiting for years, eating was a torment to be avoided — until he met a Mayo Clinic specialist who understood that treating Knox meant treating his fear.

A host of serious medical concerns were making daily life a challenge for Robert Watts. Comprehensive care at Mayo Clinic helped him tackle each of them and successfully restored his health.

When congestive heart failure led to the need for a heart transplant, Vincent Arnold turned to Mayo Clinic. The care he received took all his medical concerns into account, providing him a way to return to better health.

With his wife by his side and a team of experts at Mayo Clinic to help him through, Jim Heinl faced down a cancer recurrence and then went back to a life focused on family.

Esophageal cancer can be deadly if it's not caught early. Fortunately for Mary Helen Duggar, her Mayo Clinic doctors found her cancer when it could still be treated. Today she's working to help others learn more about the disease.

Extra weight was ruining Scott Decker's health and draining his bank account. Bariatric surgery helped Scott lose the weight and set the course to a healthier, happier life.  

For years, Rosa Isern has thoroughly enjoyed her job with the Army and Air Force Exchange Service, where soldiers, airmen and their families purchase goods and services. Her work has taken her around the world on several tours overseas, including stints in Iraq, Afghanistan, Greenland and Djibouti. In 2015, however, Rosa's future became uncertain when she learned she had a large colon polyp that was at risk to become cancerous. Doctors thought they might need to remove part of her colon. But thanks to a minimally invasive procedure available at Mayo Clinic's Florida campus, Rosa was able to have the threatening polyp successfully removed without surgery. That allowed her to get back to doing the work she loves.

Jack Cawthon unabashedly brags about the secret sauce that is a hallmark of his renowned barbeque restaurant in Nashville, Tennesse, Jack's Bar-B-Que, where tourists and locals line up for Texas brisket and Tennessee pork shoulder. The iconic sauce remains a family secret and a vital part of the landmark restaurant located on the honkytonk strip on lower Broadway in downtown Nashville. These days, however, the Barbeque King is a fan of a whole different kind of secret sauce.

Mark Harlan tried diets. He tried exercise. He modified his behavior and his lifestyle. Yet nothing worked to keep off extra weight that had plagued him for years. Nothing worked, that is, until Mark underwent a cutting-edge procedure designed to help those who don’t qualify for gastric bypass surgery to shed excess pounds. In 2015, Mark was the first person in the nation to receive the Obera intragastric balloon. The grapefruit-sized, saline-filled, silicone balloon was placed and inflated in Mark’s stomach during a minimally invasive, outpatient endoscopic surgery at Mayo Clinic’s Rochester campus. In the six months Mark had the balloon — the device was removed during a second endoscopic procedure — he lost 30 pounds, or about 15 percent of his body weight, says Mayo Clinic gastroenterologist Barham Abu Dayyeh, M.D. 

As a father of three and the district manager for 11 large retail stores in Houston, Chad Fogle was used to being tired. But in the spring of 2015, he began experiencing exhaustion far beyond what was typical. “Two hours of being out doing something would exhaust me as much as working 12 hours,” Chad says. He also began having memory loss. Sometimes he would drive to one of his stores and not remember how he got there. Some days he’d have to go back to his car four or five times because he kept forgetting things. “I was living in a constant fog,” he says.