In 2015, Marcus Cook weighed 489 pounds. This past weekend, he completed a triathlon. “My weight became such an issue, I found myself intimidated when I’d walk into a business meeting. I didn’t want to be photographed and I didn’t want to leave the house.  When I got close to 500 pounds, I said enough [Continue Reading]

This Father’s Day was already guaranteed to be extra special for Ibrahim Khawaja. Nestled in a room with his wife on the sixth floor of Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital, the Houston attorney was still celebrating the birth of his third child and first son, an occasion so momentous that Khawaja brought a box of monogrammed [Continue Reading]

When 54-year-old Realtor Vern Oakum first noticed a pebble-size lump near his left armpit, he disregarded it. “But it never went away,” says Oakum. Over six months, the lump grew to golf-ball size and was sore when he lay on his side. “I was a typical man,” he admits. “I procrastinated about going to the [Continue Reading]

Nearly three decades ago, David Teverbaugh stood on a beach in Belize with his sun-kissed new bride and made one more vow: For the rest of their lives together, he would celebrate their marriage by dancing with her on beaches around the world. Over the years, Christina and David Teverbaugh have slow-danced on the sands [Continue Reading]

Deep inside 10-year-old Caleb’s brain, an insidious brain tumor grew and grew, pressing down on his brain stem and causing fluid to build inside the brain’s cavities, until Caleb could no longer walk, run or play. From dawn to dusk, Caleb sat in the corner of his family’s Haitian home, plagued by constant headaches and [Continue Reading]

Sun Ko doesn’t remember the horrible car crash, the urgent rush to the hospital aboard a Memorial Hermann Life Flight® helicopter, or the emergency surgery to stop the swelling in her brain that would’ve killed her. But UTHealth neurosurgeon Dr. Ryan Kitagawa remembers her. It was late on Thanksgiving night in 2013 when Ko was [Continue Reading]