Our Patients Copy

“We were at Target trying on shoes.” That’s what Kennedy Burger remembers about the day her SSM Health Cardinal Glennon journey began. Her ankles and feet were so swollen that her local doctor sent her to be evaluated at the Dan Dierdorf Emergency & Trauma Center at SSM Health Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital. There, SLUCare…

“This is something that you never think is going to happen to you. You wish you didn’t have to go through these things, but you do and we have been blessed with all of things that have been given to Alec at Cardinal Glennon,” says Jennifer Ingram of Washington, MO. In May 2015 Alec Ingram,…

“Upset tummies are childhood rites of passage. Abdominal pain, constipation, vomiting and diarrhea bring many children to SSM Health Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital,” says Jeffrey Teckman, MD, director of gastroenterology and hepatology. “Within those common complaints are a hundred possible causes. What we do is be sure it is not something rare or dangerous,” says…

Although he first appeared quite healthy to his parents when he was born, D.J.’s health started to go awry when he was only a few months old and his skin turned yellow. His parents were soon told that their son was born with a condition called biliary atresia, a rare disorder that left him without…

Ryan, born in Jamaica with complex congenital heart disease, struggled to breathe almost since the day he was born. “I remember when I was 4 or 5 years old that I couldn’t walk from one room to the next. I would have to fall to the floor to catch my breath.” Unknown to his family…

Last October, Elsa Wiemerslage suddenly became devastatingly nauseous with a fever. Her pediatrician sent her directly to the Dan Dierdorf Emergency and Trauma Center at SSM Health Cardinal Glennon. Christopher Hugge, MD, a Costas Center oncologist, spent the night beside Elsa, initiating treatment in the pediatric intensive care unit as tests were ordered to pinpoint…

Chance Wunderle, again, had been asking for it. “He always wants to play,” says the tickler, Kelly Kiel, R.N., a nurse who has been taking care of Chance through the summer and fall. “He’s everyone’s friend. He hugs everyone. He is in and out of all the other kids’ rooms asking them if they want…

“We fell in love with the cardiology staff from the moment we walked in the door,” said Brooke, Hope’s mother. Hope’s journey at SSM Health Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital began in June of 2009, where the family went for a second opinion on their six-week-old daughter’s heart condition. “We fell in love with the cardiology…

A Christmas Lauren Will Never Forget Three days before Christmas of 2010, 12-year-old Lauren Lee was wishing for two things – to find an iPod Touch under her tree and to feel better. “She looked pale, anemic,” said her father, Jim Lee. “That was the clue something was wrong.” Rachel Tarr, a physician assistant at…

The joy of Caleb Ortbals’ birth suddenly dimmed. He inhaled blood before he could exit the womb and entered the world with a perforated lung. Through the fog of anesthesia, his mother vaguely remembers seeing two women in jumpsuits enter the room, rolling a Plexiglas incubator.They were a transport team from SSM Health Cardinal Glennon…