At long last

Related stories: How we got here Living livelier: Another patient’s story Barshop Institute: A timeline Ramiro Guerra, 90, does yard work whenever the weather’s good. Other times he is inside, often sleeping and sometimes agitated. The U.S. veteran began to forget things in 2006, the year his wife of 57 years, Elida, passed away. “It […]

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football helmets on the ground

Pursuing concussion’s cure

Veronica Carrillo, 17, and her mother, Paula, waited in the emergency department at University Hospital for the doctor’s diagnosis. The avid soccer midfielder had gone up to head the ball in a game when, in midair, the side of her head collided with the forehead of another player. Skulls are hard; no ball could make that […]

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dental

No ordinary lesson

They treated victims of abuse, and people who had lost everything after some unforeseen, devastating crisis. They treated prostitutes and drug users who measure time by the number of days since their last fix. They treated people living on the streets who used every last cent they had on a meal, not a toothbrush. They […]

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Andres Castillo Jr.

Heartening journey

Andres Castillo Jr. was born with a hole in his heart. At age 2, he underwent his first major heart surgery to repair the hole—an atrial septal defect. Seven years later, his first pacemaker was implanted—a box the size of an old VHS tape, visible under his shirt. He tried to live a normal life, […]

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Drawing it out

Zyren Lopez just can’t tolerate cats. “Cats and dust,” he said in a polite whisper. In the second grade, Zyren recalled, “I started getting really sick. My chest was hurting and it was hard to breathe, so I went to the nurse and she called my mom. And they wanted to take me to the […]

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kinetic kids

Asking ‘why not?’

It started with a simple question: Why can’t kids with disabilities play sports? In 2001, Tracey Fontenot and Kacey Wernli, physical therapists working at a local San Antonio hospital, wondered how they could get their young patients with physical and developmental disabilities to be active past their therapy sessions. What if they formed a baseball […]

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