Patient Stories: Healing Support
St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center is a recognized leader in quality tertiary care, medical education and research. It includes the internationally renowned Barrow Neurological Institute, the Norton Thoracic Institute, Center for Women's Health, University of Arizona Cancer Center at St. Joseph's, and a Level I Trauma Center verified by the American College of Surgeons. The hospital is also a respected center for orthopedics, internal medicine, primary care and many other medical services.
Generous donor support provides the important funding needed for the programs and services that make amazing patient success stories like these, and so many others, possible. Please visit our St. Joseph's magazine archives for additional stories.
Matthew Katusa's life was threatened two times in one year, but saved both times by St. Joseph's Hospital. It began with liver cancer, in which his life was saved through a liver transplant. But nobody could have predicted Matthew's life would have been seriously challenged again when he was hit by a car on New Year's Eve. Nobody is more grateful to have him still around than his mom.
Dr. Mark Peck
He was the picture of good health: a successful dentist who served his patients nine months of the year and worked as a whitewater river guide during the summers. He had a small setback that required treatrment to fix a heart valve problem--nothing major. But then a devastating health concern threatened to end his life, until he was transferred to Norton Thoracic Institute.
This young father of two was hanging on for dear life at St. Joseph's, suffering from COVID-19 but receiving some of the most advanced lifesaving treatment found anywhere through the ECMO machine. After many months in the hospital, followed by intensive rehab to learn how to walk again, Ryan Parker returned home and couldn't be more grateful to be with his two young sons.
He'd been supporting St. Joseph's mission for many years both as a donor and board member, but it wasn't until he nearly succombed to COVID-19 that Roger Stevenson truly understood how important it was to have compassionate, lifesaving care close to home.
After receiving a misdiagnoses of pneumonia at nearby hospitals, Christine was brought to St. Joseph's by ambulance, unable to breathe. She is grateful to have landed in the care of a multidisplinary team that was able to save her life.
A local physician who was given nearly a 100 percent mortality expectation from COVID-19 makes an extraordinary recovery thanks to a lifesaving treatment at Norton Thoracic Institute.
After receiving personalized medicine at St. Joseph's Cancer Center, diehard Diamondbacks fan gets clean bill of health and can't wait to attend a live baseball game at Chase Field.
Canadian mother and grandmother travels to Phoenix to undergo a second lung transplant with the hopes that she can return to living her life to the fullest, including participating in Pow Wow dancing.
St. Joseph's saves mom life through kidney transplant, then celebrates the birth of her premature daughter, Faithrateful for the care she received, Danielle gives back to the hospital that kept her family together.
Mike had been fighting cystic fibrosis his entire life and had already undergone one double-lung transplant. But with his body in chronic rejection, his life was once again on the line. Thankfully, his family reached out to St. Joseph's Norton Thoracic Institute for help.
She was born long before her due date, and at just 22 ounces, she was a teeny tiny baby. But she had one of the Valley's best nursery intensive care units treating her and rooting for her improved health, along with her parents, who never left her side. Laila Piccolo's story reflects back on her tenuous beginnings right up to the wedding she participated in as a spunky 5-year-old flowergirl--for one of the nurses who cared for her round the clock when she was a newborn.
Jamie and Skyler relocated from Utah to Arizona after learning they were expecting quintuplets, specifically because they'd heard that Dr. John Elliott at St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center was an expert delivering multiples.
A year ago and sick as can be, Davie Boulton was diagnosed with prostate cancer and told by doctors there was no hope. But the Army veteran wasn't ready to call it quits. Nor was his wife, Sandy, ready to let him go. That's when the couple came to St. Joseph's for a second opinion.
Margaret and Michael Baudinet traveled from Virginia to St. Joseph's in Phoenix specifically to receive prenatal care and safely deliver their quintuplets. Generous donations have allowed St. Joseph's to develop into a leader of maternal fetal medicine. The hospital's nursery intensive care unit also serves as the first home to hundreds of severely premature newborns each year. The Baudinet babies arrived just in time for Christmas!
Katie Grannan has three kidneys. She received the "extra" after an autoimmune disease caused her to need a donor. Because of the generosity of our supporters, the Norton Thoracic Institute at St. Joseph's was there to perform her transplant. The center is the busiest lung transplant program in the state and recently added kidney and liver transplant programs, to be ready should you or your loved one ever need it.
Officer Chris Bennett had seen St. Joseph’s trauma team at work numerous times in his years as a Phoenix police officer. Part of his job includes accompanying the victims of shootings, car accidents and assaults to the Level 1 trauma center for treatment. But on January 6, 2013, he became the patient.
As an officer with the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, Annette Olson was trained to think quickly on her feet. So when a fight broke out between inmates and she was the lone officer at the scene, she knew her best line of defense was pepper spray. Unfortunately, the can she grabbed was defective. Instead of deploying a short puff, it streamed its entire contents into the jail and—worst of all—into Olson’s lungs.
Late one evening in June 2010, Zach Lindsay, then just 30-years-old, was studying for a final exam. He drank a tall glass of cold water and went to bed. But he didn’t feel right. He later got up, splashed water on his face and tried to calm his racing heart. But it didn’t work. He woke his fiancé and asked to be taken to the emergency room near his Scottsdale home.
The bullet that tore through Mario Zapata’s flesh lodged high in his cervical spinal cord and left him paralyzed from the neck down. The metal fragments damaged the cervical vertebrae responsible for controlling the diaphragm and allowing the body to breathe. He was placed on a ventilator, and for three years, that was how his body breathed -- until doctors at St. Joseph's implanted a diaphragmatic pacemaker.