ARTICLES RELATED TO:
Nemours Children’s Health, Delaware Valley

During her senior season of high school wresting, Kate felt something was off. When Kate’s right shoulder dislocated from her socket during a wrestling practice, pain started to occur. Kate dismissed it at first but soon, this pain became persistent during every practice and started to impact her everyday life.  Her shoulder constantly dislocated while out on the mat and it held her back from taking good shots against opponents. Kate continued to persist through the pain until she could no longer reach for something or close a car door without discomfort. “When I walked through the halls at school, I felt my shoulder being separated from the socket. It felt loose – that’s the only way I can describe it. It is a scary feeling when you know that your arm is not properly attached to your body, let alone wrestling with it,” says Kate. This injury had a […]

Tammy noticed her daughter’s size difference from a young age. Summer was consistently smaller than her peers growing up, but her parents and pediatrician never suspected a serious issue. When Summer was about 7 years old, the family took a trip to Disney. Unlike their previous vacations, Tammy and Erik realized that Summer was struggling to keep up. This behavior was concerning because it was not the norm for their bubbly, energetic daughter. Unfortunately, Summer’s limp worsened, she experienced immense stiffness and hip pain, and she struggled to do what she loves most: dance. After an attempt at physical therapy, many x-rays and testing, Summer was diagnosed with Multiple Epiphyseal Dysplasia (MED) in August 2020. MED is a rare genetic disorder that effects the development of the joints in the legs. Her doctors recommended Nemours Children’s Hospital, Delaware to see orthopedic surgeon Dr. Will Mackenzie and orthogeneticist Dr. Mike Bober. […]

My name is Alex Gaudlap. Also known as Raymond’s mom. Our journey with Nemours Children’s Health started in the fall of 2017 when we relocated back to New Jersey from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina due to Raymond not hitting developmental milestones appropriately. The doctors down South assured me Raymond was fine, but my motherly instinct told me he wasn’t. From the moment we stepped foot into Nemours Children’s, I felt like our concerns were listened to. Raymond’s first appointment at Nemours was with a neurologist in the Deptford location. Since we were new patients and basically starting from the beginning with tests, she ordered a routine EEG. We never would have thought that his first test would give us answers, but it did. Raymond was diagnosed with a rare form of epilepsy; that gave us some indication to why he had a global developmental delay. After receiving the epilepsy diagnosis, […]

On December 8, 2017, my wife Ashley delivered our twins, Reynolds, and Campbell. She gets all the credit. I didn’t do any of the heavy lifting. We always knew that Baby A was larger than Baby B, but we didn’t know why. And we had no idea that there were going to be complications at birth. The boys were born at 36 weeks via C-sections, immediately whisked away and taken to the NICU. Reynolds was eventually transferred to another NICU, while Campbell just needed a little more time to grow. So, Reynolds and I left Ashley and Campbell to go to a children’s hospital in Little Rock, Arkansas, where we ultimately spent 103 days in that NICU. He had airway issues. He had cardiac issues. He had GI issues. And throughout that entire time in the NICU, doctors knew that there was some underlying reason causing these issues, but no […]

Nine months ago, Annie and Ben Grayshan got the news no parents ever want to hear, “Your child has cancer.” Their son Ethan was 7 years old when recurring vomiting led to a visit with his pediatrician in April 2022. His doctor suspected a stomach bug. The vomiting persisted and Ethan was sent for allergy testing and then to a GI specialist. After starting antibiotics for a potential parasite, Ethan began to experience fatigue and headaches, common side effects of the antibiotics. But after a few days with no improvement, his parents took him to an ER where a CT scan showed a mass on Ethan’s brain. The Grayshans were then airlifted to the ER at Wolfson Children’s Hospital in Jacksonville. Within 48 hours he had undergone two brain surgeries. One to relieve the hydrocephalus, which had been causing his symptoms, and another to remove the tumor. A diagnosis of […]

To read this in Spanish, click here! One day in May of 2022, Sebastian came home sad after school, causing me to worry about his unusual behavior as he is a very happy child. I asked Sebastian if something was wrong and if he was being bullied at school. He assured me he was just unusually exhausted. The following day, Sebastian was in the same down mood, but had a fever this time. I took Sebastian quickly to our local doctor, where he was diagnosed with a stomach bug and prescribed antibiotics. He eventually felt better, but not much time passed before the same symptoms returned. We went to another doctor who gave him the same diagnosis and prescribed more antibiotics. I wondered how it could be a stomach bug if he had no GI symptoms, but I followed the doctor’s advice. Rapid breathing was later added to Sebastian’s symptoms, […]