Neurology Patient Stories

For years, seizures caused confusion and disorder in Kristin Taheri's daily life. Then she turned to Mayo Clinic, where she received the diagnosis she had been seeking, and her care team worked diligently to stop her seizures.

Mayo Clinic researcher John Fryer, Ph.D., is hopeful the work in his laboratory will yield insights into Alzheimer's disease, as well as sepsis — an often-deadly condition which claimed his father's life in 2016.

Following cutting-edge brain scanning and precision surgery, Jo Weir is catching up on decades of sleep lost to nighttime seizures, and she's relishing her renewed energy.

  Mountain biker, hiker and skier Robert Berlin, M.D., was just 53 when he began experiencing symptoms of Parkinson's disease. Today, thanks to health care tailored to his lifestyle, he remains active and optimistic.

After a stroke, Allen Witcher required complex surgery, followed by months of physical therapy and rehabilitation. Thanks to that comprehensive treatment, Allen now relishes each new day he has to enjoy.

Diagnosed with a rare condition that affected her neck muscles, Peggy Lang suffered for years with debilitating headaches, tremors and dizzy spells. But surgery at Mayo Clinic relieved her symptoms, allowing her to enjoy life once again.

In July 2017, Sally Kirilloff marked a decade since her care team at Mayo Clinic successfully removed a large, rare brain tumor, enabling her to continue enjoying her work, her hobbies and her family.

Steve Grinstead was eager to resolve a medical condition causing troubling symptoms. Physicians around the country turned him down for surgery. His team at Mayo Clinic found a solution that put him on the road to recovery.

As a talented wedding photographer, the pain of cervical stenosis with a herniated disc left Darrell Deutz, age 59, searching for solutions. "I've photographed over a thousand weddings in my life," says Darrell, who owns his own studio based in Fargo, North Dakota. "A lot of photographers don't like the pressure. There is no second chance, so you have to be confident. You can't make any mistakes. I like the challenge."

Just four months after being in a coma, Mike Short was crawling through tunnels, jumping over fiery logs, and scaling walls as part of a 5K race known as a "rugged maniac." The Georgia native owes his ability to participate in the race to the neurocritical care team at Mayo Clinic that helped him recover from a brain injury he suffered shortly after his 50th birthday. Diagnosed with a seizure disorder in childhood, Mike had had only a handful of grand mal seizures in his life. But on April 9, 2016, while visiting a friend in Blackshear, Georgia, he had another. It was his first in 10 years. The seizure caused Mike to fall and hit his head. He was transported to a local hospital where he had another seizure. “I aspirated everything into my lungs and passed out due to lack of oxygen,” Mike recalls being told.

Barry Connell couldn’t be happier to have his wife of 53 years, Maureen, back. Though the couple spent 16 years traveling cross-country after Barry retired as president of a manufacturing company in Connecticut, nothing prepared them for the difficult journey they would embark on when Maureen’s health began to decline rapidly in 2015. For the first five months of that year, The Villages, Florida, resident noticed his normally lively wife wasn’t as alert as she used to be. She was also much slower to respond to situations. Then, on Mother’s Day, Maureen collapsed in the bathroom of the restaurant where their family was celebrating. That incident led to months of debilitating symptoms for Maureen, along with a series of ineffective treatments. No one could explain what was happening to her. In desperation, the Connells turned to Mayo Clinic, where they were able to finally find the source of Maureen’s problem — hydrocephalus, a buildup of fluid in the brain. “After struggling with this for three months, we got a preliminary diagnosis less than 24 hours after arriving at Mayo,” Barry says. 

For more than a year, Mike LaBorde thought he had carpal tunnel syndrome. His left hand and arm often tingled and felt numb. He wore a brace for a while, but it didn’t help. Then he had carpal tunnel surgery, not once, but twice. The surgeries made no difference. “I was quite aggravated that the surgery was not successful,” Mike says. “But I was told that nothing is 100 percent guaranteed. I just kept working and doing the best I could. And it kept getting worse and worse.” When the symptoms didn’t fade, Mike’s primary care doctor suspected a herniated disc, so Mike had an MRI. What that test revealed changed everything.