Finding gender-affirming care: Elijah’s story
Elijah de la Torre and her family recently relocated from the second-largest state in the U.S. to the smallest. But their move from Texas to Rhode Island has revealed more differences than just geography. “When it comes to Elijah’s care, it’s like night and day,” says her mom, Sarah. But she recognizes the benefits of ... Read More
Cancer won’t stop me, and neither will COVID-19
Most people my age look at COVID-19 as a burden on their everyday lives of seeing friends, hanging out, and going to college. I see it differently. As an active cancer patient being treated for T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), I am immunocompromised. This puts me at especially high risk for contracting COVID-19, and my ... Read More
For Kenny’s family, it’s a beautiful day
As recent immigrants to Boston from Honduras, Jessy and Edgar didn’t have an easy life, but they were happy. They were both working full-time, raising their teen son, and finding their place in the U.S. They were moving forward. Four years after their arrival, the family was elated to be expecting another son. When Kendall ... Read More
Sharing our journey with cavernous malformations
Finley and her twin sister, Rowan, were born seven weeks premature on November 7, 2017 in Scranton, Pennsylvania. In July 2019, Finley was diagnosed with a cavernous malformation, an abnormal mass of thin-walled blood vessels, in a part of her brain called the cerebellum. My wife, Jolene, and I were shocked. Although I was diagnosed ... Read More
I never thought this would happen to our son
On June 16, 2019, our 4-year-old son, Evan, fell off a jungle gym at daycare. At first, his daycare provider thought he was fine. He got right up and seemed to recover. She called me and we agreed to watch him to see if there were any changes. A couple hours later, Evan started throwing ... Read More
Accessing hemophilia care: A tale of two countries
When Miguel and Marco Antonio were born in the Philippines, they had a 50 percent chance of having hemophilia, as two of their uncles had the condition. “We were just crossing our fingers that they’d fall in the other 50 percent,” says Jojo, their father. But when Miguel was taking his first steps as ... Read More