patients

A mother's account of the courage and perseverance of her son, who, at times, was hindered by the very people who were supposed to be helping him with his OCD disorder.

On May 13, 2008 Isabella Maria was born, the eighth child of Rick and Karen Santorum. While the family rejoiced, they were also saddened. Isabella was born with a rare genetic condition called Trisomy 18, or Edward's Syndrome. She had an extra eighteenth chromosome in every cell in her body, making a genetic code doctors call "incompatible with life". Only ten percent of children born with this condition are born alive, and ninety percent do not make it to their first birthday. The Santorums refused to accept this fact, and made plans for Isabella's life with her family. During the next seven years, the Santorum family adjusted to life with a special-needs child and watched her transform their lives. Bella was a joy to live with and she became an inspiration to everyone around her.

Twenty-two-year old Su Meck was married and the mother of two children in 1988 when a ceiling fan in the kitchen of her home fell from its mounting and struck her in the head. She survived the life-threatening swelling in her brain that resulted from the accident, but when she regained consciousness in the hospital the next day, she didn't know her own name. She didn't recognize a single family member or friend, she couldn't read or write or brush her teeth or use a fork--and she didn't have even a scrap of memory from her life up to that point. The fiercely independent and outspoken young woman she had been vanished completely. Most patients who suffer amnesia as a result of a head injury eventually regain their memories, but Su never did. After three weeks in the hospital she was sent back out into a world about which she knew nothing: What did it mean to be someone's wife? To be a mother? How did everyone around her seem to know what they were supposed to do or say at any given moment? Adrift in the chaos of mental data that most of us think of as everyday life, Su became an adept mimic, fashioning a self and a life out of careful observation and ironclad routine. She had no dreams for herself, no plans outside the ever-burgeoning daily to-do list of a stay-at-home mom. The Meck family left Texas to start over in Maryland, and told almost no one in their new life about Su's accident. Nearly twenty years would pass before Su understood the full extent of the losses she and her family suffered as a result of her injury. As a series of personally devastating events shattered the "normal" life she had worked so hard to build, Su realized that she would have to grow up all over again, and finally take control of the strange second life she had awoken into.

A shy, small-town girl from Kiln, Mississippi, Deanna had always been perfectly content to let her famous husband steal the spotlight. Though married to the NFL's only three-time MVP, she preferred to live a life of quiet anonymity. But on December 22, 2003, the spotlight shifted. When television cameras zeroed in on a somber Deanna watching her grief-stricken husband lead the Green Bay Packers to a Monday night victory over the Oakland Raiders immediately following the death of his father, Deanna's anonymity was lost, and her life changed forever. Tragedy struck again the following October when Deanna's younger brother, Casey, was killed in an ATV accident. Four days later--still reeling from the loss of her brother--Deanna was diagnosed with breast cancer. Through it all, however, Deanna has emerged a survivor. Deanna's story is living testament that with faith, hope and love, ordinary people can overcome even the most extraordinary circumstances.

Liam Campbell faces a difficult choice when he discovers that his beloved wife, Mikaela, trapped in a coma after a riding accident, was once married to international movie star Julian True, and seems to be responding only to her first love's name.

Tells the story of a father's journey toward acceptance of his daughter with Down syndrome, chronicling her coming of age while confronting his own limitations as a father.

Fifteen-year-old Francis, a leukemia patient, falls in love with feisty teen Amber as they undergo cancer treatments, but their relationship is put to the test when one of them enters remission while the other's condition worsens.

Having spent his childhood confined indoors with his creative yet highly agoraphobic mother, Will experiences the outer world for the first time when he sets foot outside at the age of eleven. Soon, he is attending school, making friends, and learning to skateboard, but his family's past and the source of his mother's condition soon come back to haunt him.