you guys saved my life. Forever grateful honey. I mean that from the bottom of my heart where they're joined together, there is no skin currently and we'll have to replace skin on both twins once they are divided. Makes me feel good in knowing that other people can learn from my experience and just brings people hope here at stitch. We celebrate the ways everyday people are making this country a kinder place to live. One incredible story at a time. Modern medicine can work wonders. But sometimes even when it seems impossible, something truly remarkable can take place. Here are stories of people who defied the odds and experienced medical miracles. First, after struggling with fertility for years, a couple learned they were expecting not one, not two, but four babies. We got a false policy. I couldn't even go in because it was during covid rules. So I could, it was just one person that time. And she came back as sad Maria and joseph went through round after round of fertility treatments. Having dealt with years of disappointment, they decided to try one more time. It took us almost five years to get to this point. Then one day Maria came home from an appointment with a recorded message from the doctor. She came up to me and she was like don't be scared or like don't be frightened of what you hear. I was like oh this is gonna be bad news. So she does the recording and the doctor saying Duck said the same thing don't be worried or don't be concerned. We have four. And I was like what? The hospital hadn't seen a couple expecting quadruplets since 2017. It's exciting but nerve wracking coming from having those babies at all and now we're about to have four. But they also had to deal with the complications created by the pandemic was by myself most most of the time. And also we haven't been able to go to the birth class or tour the hospitals or anything like that because they're not allowing it. That included hosting baby events over zoom and setting limits on who could visit after the birth. You can have your family around, you can have your friends over just to talk about just going what you're going through. Um I mean I think that's the hardest part just not being able to have anybody around you while it was an extraordinary time for the couple Maria and joseph fully embraced the moment we have the jackpot. Now we can kind of say that we did everything that we could finally worked out. So now we got, we got a lot going on. Quadruplets arrived about two months before Maria's due date. The three boys and one girl were born healthy and they got to go home after a number of weeks in the neonatal ICU. Their names are Luca, barrett, tikus and juliana, enjoying every single moment, no matter how hard it is, even the late night that we've been having to get up. That sometimes we both said, oh my goodness, we're so tired. But in just enjoying that that night we get to spend those minutes that our with the babies by ourselves, Just us as a family. In our next story, COVID-19 left a firefighter on life support for a month. Then a transplant gave him a second chance at life. This firefighter captain found himself on the road to recovery after having a double lung transplant due to complications from Covid 19 guys saved my life forever grateful. I mean, I mean that from the bottom of my heart, randy was a healthy 44 year old when he came down with Covid 19, the active firefighter ended up in the ICU and took a turn for the worst. Randy was put on extracorporeal life support for more than a month. He also underwent a tracheotomy along with a number of procedures to deal with blood clots. Randy lost £55 while battling Covid 19. The ordeal also left his lungs so badly damaged He had a double lung replacement. four months after entering the hospital. I will live the rest of my life trying to Honor What you've done and what God has done. The road to recovery was long. But Randy was committed to rebuilding his strength and muscle memory one step at a time. Here we go. Next. A family finally reunited under one roof after their conjoined twin daughters were successfully separated in a 24 hour surgery, surprised they're so big. I'm still, I have a feeling like I'm leaving someone's life, not mine. When she was 11 weeks pregnant, Lilia and her husband anatoly were shocked to find out they're twins were conjoined at the head. But the pair who already had three boys took the news in stride. It was very tough. I just was shocked. I couldn't process. When I got home, my husband said that everything will be good. We will get through it. This is our kids. We already love them. It wasn't a given that the twins would survive childbirth, but they did. They both really happy babies. Not fuzzy ones. Very happy, always laughing, smiling, positive, always. Still it was difficult for her to find information on how to care for them. There is not much I can go and do research how to do what to do, what to use with them because it's really rare. There are um very few Children born in any one year worldwide that have this anomaly who you look. She's striking you she was like, oh and of those, there's only a much smaller subset that the anatomy is fortuitous enough to be able to attempt a separation and hopefully come out with two healthy babies using three D. Models and virtual reality Dr Michael spent five months figuring out how to separate the twins and keep them both alive where they're joined together. There is no skin currently and we'll have to replace skin on both twins once they are divided, it is choreographed much as in a ballet or any or any stage production So that everybody knows their role. Except unlike most ballets, the surgery to separate their heads lasted 24 hours. It's all in God's hands. It's not even in dr stands. That's what I believe. Cranial separation, abigail and Michaela made it through the surgery, lilia spent time with the twins nearly every day while anatoly cared for their sons at home. A few months later they were finally able to return home. I'm going to get my wife back. I get not to girls but I get three girls. Thank you so much. Mhm. That's the best goal the best presence or whatever the best thing happened in in our lives. Yeah. Yeah. Next meet another surgeon who spent months figuring out how to three D. Print new bones and change one patient's life. Really struggling with breathing, talking, doing everything she likes to do to help a woman having difficulty in everyday life. Dr Matthew decided to three D. Print new bones for her chest. He used the cat scan to create a titanium sternum bone. Teaming up with a lab to make the implant. So we have this three D. Printed model that's just made out of hard plastic. And so this was the whole that she had and then so they made a model that was sterile that would just fits right like that. And then it's really a pretty ingenious kind of concept. And then there's these other plates that go out through her rib that then we screwed into the plate and then into her ribs. So it really and there's another one that goes here. Another one goes here so it stabilized the whole thing to her ribs to her sternum. It was a medical first for his hospital. But that wasn't the only thing that made the situation unusual. It's extremely unique because you have to have the right situation where you can plan out and have that 3-4 months kind of time frame to plant it and build it and manufactured and shipped. Dr Matthew said that when the time came for the surgery the implant fit perfectly. I mean I put it in her and I didn't have to move anything. It was just just put it right in, screwed into the bone, screwed into the ribs. And literally it was just like it was her own natural stirred. Um In our next story, a young woman suffered a massive heart attack and lived to share her story. I wear my scar as a badge of honour. Heather survived a series of heart attacks at age 29 leading doctors to describe her as a medical miracle because of a mild congenital heart condition. She was used to shortness of breath and occasional heart palpitations. I knew the signs of a heart attack and a woman were different than a man because I know my body and I regularly go see the cardiologist, but on a work trip a few years ago, she realized something was very wrong and I started feeling shortness of breath and I was so nauseous and I get to the bathroom and I'm starting to sweat. I feel pain in my jaw, this pain in my neck, it just shot down my neck and this pounding in my chest. Heather went into cardiac arrest and was rushed to the hospital for surgery. She had several heart attacks and her doctors don't know what caused them. Heather was on life support for days in a medically induced coma. I had no idea where it was. I knew something was wrong. I was hooked up to more machines. Um, then I could count a left ventricle assisted device or L VOD was implanted by the doctors to keep her heart pumping for good. I had two batteries attached to my body on a harness or in a purse at all times, Heather started doing intensive cardiac rehab. After leaving the hospital, she was eventually able to get the L VAD device removed. Something that happens with less than 1% of heart patients. I had my l've at X planted exactly eight months from the day it was implanted before I turned 30, I had three open heart surgeries. I lived through all of it. I am physically the healthiest and the strongest I've ever been in my entire life. After making a miraculous recovery. Heather hoped that sharing what happened to her could save somebody else. I don't want anyone else to be that same person lying on the bathroom floor, not knowing whether or not they're going to live or die when we come back. We'll have more inspiring stories exploring the power of modern medicine. Welcome back to stitch. From one heartwarming story to another. This couple had the unique experience of nursing one another back to health after respective cardiac transplants first. Uh huh. Yes, we're both very thankful and lucky we both got transplants and uh it's a miracle of life. It really is. You know, miracle Jim and Kaye celebrated making it through two of the toughest periods in their lives when each underwent a heart transplant. The pair have been married for nearly two decades but have been in each other's lives for three. We've been together on and off for 30. We've been friends then Jim was told he needed a heart transplant. Was tired all the time. I didn't want to get up and go do anything. She kind of pulled me through a little bit of the hard times. His heart was about three times the normal size, but as it turns out, so was K's a few years later, Jim was able to pay it forward and help her through the transplant process. You get up in the morning, you think I'm going to do this and this and then you sit down and like, oh my God, I can't do it. What's even stranger? The surgeries were done by the same heart specialist at the same hospital. It's a really unusual of course to ever have a heart transplant period. But in an even more unusual situation, both both of them ended up getting bad enough that they both ended up with heart transplantations obviously not planned, not genetic, not related in that sense. The duo decided to dedicate a tree of life at the medical center with quote closer together and kept us fighting, fighting spirit. That tree is symbolic of new life, new beginnings. For k it was important to honor the families who made the transplants possible great representation of the donors because they are strong and we'll have to come and watch it grow. They are guardian angels for sure. Next. A young man who survived cancer and a stroke opened up about reaching a milestone for Matthew. Seeing his 18th birthday wasn't promised had cancer four times. I had a stroke. Apparently it could kill me but it didn't. The right side of his body was affected by the stroke and he wasn't responsive for three days afterward. He thought he had died and then he was just listening to us talk about him, although his doctors didn't expect him to speak or walk again. Matthew proved them wrong on both counts though. His wheelchair is helpful for longer distances. When he turned 18, he marveled at all the things he was now legally able to do. I can win the lottery. I can go get a tattoo or piercing, I feel like it. Um, I can uh, can skydive. Matthew said he hoped others could learn from the way he pushed through in challenging times, makes me feel good and knowing that other people can learn from my experience and just brings people hope a mother of two was given six months to live then a double lung transplant. Rewrote her future every day that I live. I think about my daughter and I'm thankful to them for giving me that gift. Mandy had been living with an incurable lung disease but was resistant to getting a transplant in her mid thirties. She felt she was too young. That is until doctors told her that she only had six more months to live. I needed to hear that and I think he knew I needed that kick in the pants to kind of wake up and realize that I was not that terminal Mandy agreed to a double lung transplant, but there were a few bumps in the road along the way along with some false starts. One statistic concerned her. So the average lifespan of a set of lungs when your transplant, it is 5 to 8 years, which doesn't sound like very much, um, for somebody my age being only 36 that's part of the reason I didn't want a transplant to begin with. That's part of what scared me so much. Mandy found new hope after learning that lung transplant recipients her age can live much longer. When the transplant finally became a reality. She had to go in alone because of Covid 19. Even though she couldn't have her family by her side, Mandy made it through the eight hour surgery. I feel the best I felt in a long time. I am grateful to no end that the family of my daughter was selfless enough to want to donate organs. I wouldn't be here right now. After the surgery, Mandi began her recovery with the goal of quickly getting back into fighting shape. I'm hoping to do a five K in the spring. It's a walk run. So if I can't job the whole time I can walk, it's okay. But I'm going to try to jog. That's my goal. Before the transplant, Mandy feared that she would leave her kids without a mom. At this point in time, I'm not really worried about the time I have. I just take each day grateful for the time I do have and my deal with God. But I tried to express to him and I just at least wanted to raise my kids. I don't want to leave this earth while they still need somebody to raise them. Finally, a baby born with his bladder outside his Abdomen underwent a delicate procedure that required a whole medical team's expertise. I've been handed a five month old off to a nurse and even though we 100% trust all of our doctors and we know that he was in perfect hands. That's just really hard to do. It was the longest day of my entire life. Mallory's son underwent major surgery when he was just five months old. Jackson's bladder was on the outside of his abdomen. A condition known as bladder extra fee. What happens is the pelvis is tipped way to the outside. There's a big gap in the middle here. The long complex surgery to fix the condition was handled by a team of specialists. We start pretty much early in the morning and we don't stop before the evening. We actually do cut the bone that lets us bring the front together and it lets their reconstruction heal better. And we put another device on all an external fix it er which allows us to hold it in that position. It was a tough time for Mallory. I was as prepared as you can be prepared. I did the research. I joined the support groups online. Nothing prepares you to see your kids like that. Nothing prepares you to see him pumped full of fluids. And Why does a ghost with tubes coming out of his body? Due to the complicated nature of the surgery? The baby had to spend six weeks in the hospital. You just had bars that were coming out of his hips, um that just kind of stuck out probably 5" away from his hip bone. I would guess because of that. Jackson couldn't be moved. Couldn't pick him up. I couldn't I mean, I could touch him, but I couldn't hold him. I couldn't console him. I couldn't. You know, when your baby is crying and pain and there's nothing you can do. So, we came up with other ways that we could do that, Whether that was providing soothing music and having comfort items from home here with him, specialists spent time with the baby to keep him calm and as comfortable as possible. It's a really delicate balance to keep someone nearly immobile for a week without having them on a ventilator, without having them paralyzed in an intensive care unit. Jackson made it through, but he will have to have surgery again in the future. That's something that will kind of always be considered to have. Even though his bladder is now on the inside. Mallory was overjoyed that her little boy was able to come home in time for the holidays is wonderful. I'm obviously super grateful that he's doing so well. I'm grateful. He's even here to the gambler. My most exciting thing is just to finally have our christmas morning with the baby that we wanted for seven years and is finally here. We hope you enjoyed these stories of unbelievable medical marvels. Thanks for watching stitch. Yeah. Mhm.