Sharing Mayo Clinic - May 2012 Archives

His Holiness the Dalai Lama recently visited Mayo Clinic and gave a special presentation on resilience through mindfulness. The below story takes place during his visit to Mayo Clinic last year... When Troy Keach, Mayo Clinic Education Administration, brought his 10-year-old daughter, Hannah, to the hospital one day during spring, 2011, he was expecting a difficult day. He wasn't expecting a blessing. But then he got in an elevator at Saint Marys for what turned out to be quite an uplifting experience. It turns out that another Mayo employee, we'll call him Jim, was on that elevator, and the two got to talking, even if only for a brief moment. Jim asked about Hannah, who is being treated for leukemia and was in the middle of a difficult course of treatment. By coincidence or providence (we'll leave that to you to decide), Jim had just visited with the Dalai Lama, who had been in Rochester for medical appointments. During that visit, the Dalai Lama had given Jim a scarf, which he had blessed, as an expression of gratitude. The spiritual leader hadn't specifically asked Jim to give the scarf to someone he thought might need it. But that's the thing about stories like this. Sometimes things just fall into place.

His whole life, David Vannausdle, 32, of Granger, Iowa, has been tethered to some type of breathing device for at least some part of the day or night.  Without external assistance, his body “forgets” to breathe. He was born with congenital central hypoventilation syndrome, also referred to as Ondine’s curse. Essentially, the brain fails to signal the lungs to breathe. 

As a recent graduate of the University of Florida with a degree in public relations, I was thrilled to have the opportunity to become an intern ...

"Jason, are you going to be covering the Katie Ride for Life like you did last year?" asked many colleagues of mine as the event drew closer. My response was always the same... "Yes! I'll be riding...and tweeting the #KatieRide again, shooting videos and photos as I ride through the Amelia Island course." Let's start off with the video... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlUzSKQwuss and we'll go from there... [tweet http://twitter.com/MayoClinic/statuses/193656266499948547]

Austin Horton’s adolescence was dominated by pain. More than a dozen specialists — among them an orthopedist, rheumatologist, pain doctor, psychiatrist and acupuncturist — couldn’t offer much relief or even a definitive reason for the pain.

The Patient Education video titled Just Keep Trying: Kids and Positive Airway Pressure Therapy (PAP) helps kids understand how important it is to use PAP.  ...

Carolyn “Ceci” Christenson, age 18, of Gilbert, Ariz., has already survived a rare, life-threatening blood disorder and become a high-powered recruiter for the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP). Her experience inspires Christenson to speak out for patients whose hope for a cure resembles a high-stakes lottery. In December 2011, she appeared on CBS’s “The Early Show” to promote the need for bone marrow donors. Being on the show fulfilled her altruistic request to Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Mindy Cahn is living proof that pancreatic cancer can be beat. The odds can be daunting. According to the National Cancer Institute, the five-year survival rate for localized pancreatic cancer is 21 percent. For cancer that has spread, the survival rate is about 9 percent. Cahn, 60, had been diagnosed with a softball-sized cyst on her pancreas 20 years ago. Told it was benign, the West Palm Beach, Fla., mother of three didn’t worry about it.

Last spring, Ravuth Thorng, then just 24, noticed it was increasingly difficult to do ordinary tasks, such as walking to his car. “I felt out of breath walking from my parking spot to work,” says Thorng, who worked at a home improvement store in Rochester, Minn. In retrospect, he recalls that during the previous winter, he couldn’t push a shovel full of snow more than five feet before getting chest discomfort and shortness of breath. He shrugged off the chest pain. “At my age, I didn’t think it’d be anything serious,” he says. “I thought it was heartburn.”