Becky is doing great almost two years after her kidney transplant! Becky spent 8+ years on dialysis waiting for a transplant after a rare vascular disorder, Henoch-Schönlein purpura, caused her kidneys to fail. Declining health forced Becky to put college on hold for several years. Last year she was thrilled to graduate with a degree in criminology and is just one semester away from finishing her paralegal studies!
Our Intensive Care Unit nurses opened Tuesday's San Francisco Giants game by cheering PLAY BALL in the official broadcast! They were pumped to open the game on Nurses Appreciation Night! 🎉
One of our medicine wards teams recently wrapped up a month of caring for hospitalized patients together—they marked the occasion with a physically distanced send-off! #GoTeamE
The UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals school room received 40 new iPads to help hospitalized kids keep up with remote learning during the pandemic! Thank you, Royal Automotive Group, for this important donation and for organizing a virtual back-to-school party and magic show for our pediatric patients!
Our Center for Advanced 3D+ Technologies uses 3D printing and virtual reality to help doctors prepare for surgery and explain procedures to patients! Radiologist Dr. Kelil and surgeon Dr. Mukhtar created this precise 3D model of a patient's breast for a cancer surgery this week!
John is celebrating five years cancer-free and his birthday! He was diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer in 2015 and underwent surgery and six months of chemo. Just before his diagnosis, John cycled 375 miles from Monterey to Anaheim. Last month John took his oldest son to Oregon for college and biked to the top of Mount Ashland!
Brad is doing great 3+ years after his double-lung transplant and cochlear implant surgery! Brad has cystic fibrosis and, prior to his transplant, hadn’t hiked since his senior in high school and needed to carry an oxygen tank everywhere he went. Brad also lost his hearing because of some of his cystic fibrosis treatments.
Since his transplant and cochlear implant, Brad has normal hearing and has hiked and traveled all over the world, including Yosemite, Australia, Jordan, Switzerland, Japan and Singapore! Brad is doing so well that he’s preparing to move back to his home state of Hawaii, after spending several years in the Bay Area for medical treatment at UCSF!
WATCH a KPIX CBS San Francisco Bay Area special about Brad’s amazing recovery at 6:30 p.m. PST, Sunday, Oct. 11 ➡️ https://ucsfh.org/3iGpYVu
Great News: The Kidney Project, headquartered at UCSF, has received a $1 million grant that could accelerate development of the world's first implantable, bioartificial kidney—a potentially life-changing device for people on dialysis!
PHARMACY.UCSF.EDU
Bioartificial kidney aims to mimic natural kidney function with $1 million grant from the John and Marcia Goldman Foundation
Eric is doing great four months after his spine surgery! After many years of sports, Eric developed spinal degeneration and had trouble standing for more than a few minutes. He traded baseball and tennis for the lower-impact sport of pickleball and managed his discomfort with nerve medication and epidural shots. Unfortunately, Eric’s pain got much worse in April, and he had spinal-fusion surgery at our hospital. Eric has been diligent about recovery and PT, surprising his care team with his quick progress! He recently got the all-clear to get back on the pickleball court and is thrilled with how much his quality of life has improved!
We're proud to open a new infusion suite at the UCSF-John Muir Health Cancer Center in Berkeley, featuring five private infusion rooms and a team of experienced oncology nurses! The center lets our East Bay patients receive world-class cancer care closer to home!
Charlie is feeling “completely fine” and hiking around San Francisco again, less than three weeks after his colon cancer surgery! In September, Charlie had both a scary and happy month: He learned he had a colon tumor and three weeks later married his fiancée, Carly.
On Oct. 12, Charlie had surgery at our hospital and was thrilled to learn his cancer was stage 2—there had been a chance it was much more advanced. This week Charlie climbed Twin Peaks multiple times and is looking forward to returning to running, cycling and more strenuous hikes soon!
Happy #RespiratoryCareWeek to our wonderful respiratory therapists! These frontline healthcare workers care for patients with lung and breathing issues during the COVID-19 pandemic and every day!
😷: Some photos pre-date COVID-19
Happy National #PharmacyWeek to our pharmacists and technicians! This dedicated team makes sure our patients receive safe and effective medications during the COVID-19 pandemic and every day! 🎉
Please congratulate Krystie—she rang the end-of-treatment bell at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals after months of chemo and surgery for bone cancer! 🔔🎉
Heather is doing great six months after her spine surgery! At age 12, Heather received a scoliosis diagnosis and spent her teen years wearing a brace 23 hours a day. Unfortunately, her spine curvature and pain got worse over time. Last year, Heather had a full spinal fusion at a non-UCSF hospital that left her unable to stand up straight, in continued pain and depressed.
Our spine team performed a revision surgery in April, and Heather is now recovering well and able to walk on a treadmill and use an elliptical machine—she might even be able to play golf soon!
"He gave me my life back," Heather says of her UCSF surgeon, Dr. Berven.
Please join us in thanking all the health care workers caring for patients during the COVID-19 pandemic! We are forever grateful to you. #Gratitude #Thanksgiving
😷: Some photos pre-date the pandemic
Our Mount Zion hospital's annual Halloween costume contest went virtual this year due to the pandemic—but the winners celebrated in style with pumpkin trophies! Congratulations to the winning teams from our Physical Therapy and Intensive Care units! 🎃
Happy National Radiologic Technology Week to the wonderful techs who care for patients in our radiology clinics! 👏 #NRTW
😷: Photo pre-dates the pandemic
Please leave Jade positive messages, as she recovers from spine surgery and begins the next stage of her treatment for a rare, recurring spinal tumor! In the last 10 years, Jade has had three surgeries to remove spinal tumors, each requiring months of physical therapy, including relearning how to walk. She’s continuing PT and undergoing radiation and chemotherapy after her latest surgery in October. Jade is hopeful for the future and thrilled to finally be back home with her 4-month-old daughter, Kalliope!
Our new Vision Center opens Nov. 9 at Mission Bay! The state-of-the-art facility brings together UCSF's renowned eye care and research, paving the way for new discoveries and better treatments! 🎉
UCSFHEALTH.ORG
New UCSF Vision Center Opens at Mission Bay
Nick gave Leslie, his girlfriend of 11 years, two amazing gifts last month: a kidney and an engagement ring! On Oct. 8, Nick proposed to Leslie in our hospital just before their transplant surgeries, with Nick as donor and Leslie as recipient. Our staff was delighted by the hospital proposal and made a congratulations sign for the couple to see when they woke up from surgery. Both Nick and Leslie are doing great! After years of dialysis and losing her father and sister to kidney disease, Leslie finally has her energy back and is excited to cycle, play golf and row on the Napa River again—and, of course, marry Nick!
Zehra is doing great five years after a stroke brought her to our ER! After undergoing brain surgery on two aneurysms, Zehra relearned to speak, write, see and walk, progressing from a wheelchair to a walker to a cane over several years.
Zehra was thrilled to start walking unassisted and to graduate from her special eyeglass lenses. About three years after her surgery, Zehra gave birth to her second son, Aidan. She is hoping to relearn to ride a bicycle, hike in Yosemite again and do walking tours of Europe once the pandemic is over!
Happy American #HeartMonth from everyone at our Heart & Vascular Center! ❤️
There are several new variants of COVID-19 circulating in the Bay Area right now. Let's #StayStrong and avoid another surge together by keeping up masking, physical distancing and other precautions. 💪🌉
Please leave Nick positive messages, as he recovers from surgery! In October 2019, Nick was diagnosed with Ewing's sarcoma, an extremely rare, cancerous tumor, which had grown in his back. Over the next year, he underwent surgery and 17 rounds of chemo at another hospital. Unfortunately, Nick’s doctors found a growth after his treatment, and he came to UCSF last month for a complex, 8.5-hour surgery.
Nick works as a project manager for the San José Fire Department and is hoping to fulfill his lifelong dream of becoming a firefighter soon—and he wants to get back to surfing and serious hiking this summer!
Please consider donating blood at our San Francisco drives on Thursday and Friday! There is a critical need for life-saving blood throughout the Bay Area, due to shortages during the COVID-19 pandemic. Pediatric patients like Jazmine depend on donor blood to survive and give all of our generous donors a big thumbs-up! 👍👍👍
Sign up here: https://ucsfh.org/3ciDKOv
Darian is doing great 10+ years after her brain surgery! When she was 13, Darian had surgery at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals for a ruptured arteriovenous malformation (AVM), an abnormal tangle of arteries and veins. Darian’s AVM caused a stroke and she spent months in the hospital and relearned to walk and talk.
Darian recently graduated from UC Berkeley and is applying to graduate school to become a speech therapist for pediatric stroke patients!
