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When Rocky Manno came home after 11 days at SSM Health Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital, Jimmy and Kelly Manno were nervous. The first-time parents had spent only one night at home with their infant son before he required admission to the hospital for jaundice and was quickly moved to intensive care with seizures due to…

Call it instinct, a mother’s love, or desperation, but when Ana Lisbeth Valerio learned that 6-month-old Alexa needed a surgery that her regional hospital could not provide, she went to extraordinary lengths to find help. As the stay-at-home mother of three and farmer’s wife quickly learned, the problem was much greater than finding another hospital…

On a laid-back Sunday morning, Doyle Ward had just ushered his four children outside for some yard work and gardening. In a moment of distraction, no one noticed 22-month-old Kiernan picking up a container from the recycling bin. Suddenly, 16-year-old Sabrina saw the upturned charcoal lighter fluid container and drips of liquid on Kiernan’s mouth…

“I would love for parents to see MaKenna,” says her mother, Lois Ann Maskey. “I am pretty proud of her. She’s such a good kid.” Mom wishes to boast not of MaKenna’s musical ability, however, but the health and life she has enjoyed since she was born with a complex heart disorder. MaKenna was diagnosed…

Life changes when a baby comes into a family. Although work, social and sleep schedules are topsy-turvy until the routine settles in, a baby brings the joy of new love to a family. Most agree that a baby is life-changing, but those changes usually don’t happen until after the baby arrives. The funny thing is,…

In sports terms, “It was bigger than a soccer ball but not quite the size of a basketball,” says John Stith, M.D., an otolaryngologist at SSM Health Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital. “I have seen this type of mass only a handful of times in my career. I have never seen one this large. It’s amazing…

“Ian is a pretty good athlete,” says Ken Campbell, the head boys track coach at Northwest High School in Jefferson County, Mo. “I talked to Ian about his diabetes before the season started and he told me there probably wasn’t anything I would need to do. I tried to keep an eye on things and watch…

“The doctors were very nice but straightforward — they told us what the worst outcome could be. If my son had a malignant tumor, he could only have weeks to live,” says Chauncey Ball. “By the grace of God it ended up being just a cyst. It is a blessing.” His son also was blessed…

To mother Angela Ford, the giggles are sounds of miracles. Eighteen weeks before birth, Delaney was diagnosed with a chest mass that would have prevented lung growth during her remaining weeks of gestation. Angela was referred to the St. Louis Fetal Care Institute at SSM Health Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital and Delaney became the second…