top of page

Hero Stories

Dr. Helen Taussig Dr. Taussig is my hero because she saved my live—literally. She is responsible for the development of the surgery I had at the age of two. The surgeon told my mother after the procedure that I probably would not have survived to my 4th birthday without the shunt. But she is also my hero because she overcame physical and gender barriers. Here is part of her story: Dr. Taussig was born in 1898 to a Harvard economist and one of the first women to enroll in Radcliff College. Her mother died of tuberculosis and later Helen also contracted the disease, preventing her from attending school until it resolved. She had severe dyslexia, and an ear infection that left her partially deaf further complicating learning. Despite all of this, she did well in school with her father as her tutor. She obtained a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of California at Berkley. She wanted to attend Harvard Medical School but they didn’t allow women into the program so she went to Boston University to study medically related subjects and eventually was accepted to Johns Hopkins Medical School as a full-degree candidate. Dr. Taussig wanted to study internal medicine but the only position available to women was taken so she chose pediatrics and cared for children with heart problems. By this time in her life, she was totally deaf. She had an amplifier for her stethoscope, but diagnosed primarily by feel, lip-reading, and fluoroscopy (a type of x-ray). The most common cause of heart problems at that time was inflammation from rheumatic fever. The children born with heart deformities were considered untreatable. Most died in early childhood. She noticed that some of the babies born with a vessel designed to shunt blood away from the lungs while in the uterus did much better if it didn’t close after birth. She came up with the idea of creating a shunt using one of the arteries that comes off of the aorta close to the heart. She collaborated with Dr. Albert Blalock and his assistant, Vivien Thomas to develop the procedure known today as the Blalock-Taussig-Thomas shunt—the procedure I had two weeks before my third birthday. There is more to Dr. Taussig’s story that can be found on the internet. Wikipedia has one of the better biographies available. PBS also produced a movie titled “Something the Lord Made” which chronicles the development of the B-T-T shunt. It is available on a variety of platforms and well as YouTube. But, for me her story is one about the person who developed a way to save my life, prepared the way for women in medicine, and pioneered the specialty of pediatric medicine that has continued to develop the care that has allowed me to live a long, blessed life.

Dr. Helen Taussig

A Pioneer in Medicine

Read More
JAMES (my father) My father was a complicated man. He had chronic depression and anxiety that often was directed at me and my mom. There was no abuse, we just had a tendency to trigger his anger. One example: It was my job to dust mop the family room floor every day after school. One day, he came home, went into the backyard, tracked in some grass and accused me of not doing my job. As a teenager, I hated my dad for his high expectations of me and his anger when I didn’t meet them. When I became an adult with a home and children of my own, my mom convinced him to share his story with me. James Dale Sullins was born in rural west Missouri in a small farming town called Adrian. His parents divorced when he was three years old. He and his mom lived with her parents on a nearby farm. He grew up knowing where his dad lived but was emphatically told he was never to interact with him or the kids in his yard. When he walked to school he had to walk on the opposite side of the street and the neighbors would report to his mom or grandfather when he didn’t do that, leading to a spanking and scolding. He was confused that he wasn’t allowed to interact with the kids he saw playing at the house where his father lived. My grandmother eventually decided to leave home. I don’t know the exact chronology of the things that happened but I know she was unstable, had 4 marriages, and used my dad as her primary emotional support. Her choice in men was poor. One marriage lasted 4 days because her husband was already married. One husband was a migrant farmer where accommodations were shacks with dirt floors. The third man she married would beat my father and when she finally objected to the beatings, my dad’s step-father refused to support him further. At the age of 12, my father raised rabbits to sell for food, learned to decorate cakes, and did odd jobs to support himself. My grandmother’s fourth husband was very controlling which led to her death. She had surgery for uterine cancer. The wound got infected and opened up. Her current husband refused to change doctors despite my father and the nurses begging him to do so. She died due to that decision. I was one year old so never knew her. Adulthood wasn’t much kinder to him. He met my mom in high school and married her at the age of 21. He worked as a bank teller while going to California Baptist College. After completing his bachelor degree, he moved his wife and three young kids (8-, 6- and 5-year-olds) to Dallas where he attended Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in nearby Fort Worth. Mom worked full time as a secretary and my dad arranged his classes so he could be home with us after school. He held a part-time job at a local church where he wasn’t treated fairly. After he finished his Masters in Religious Education, he received a job in Tulsa, Oklahoma as their Minister of Education—an administrative position. That lasted a year due to the pastor’s wife sabotaging him and spreading rumors of an affair with the wife one of the deacons. We then moved to Poplar Bluff, Missouri where he held the same position at a local church. A year later, the deacons asked him to resign so they could increase the lead pastor’s salary. This nearly broke my dad. The thing he was called to as a way to serve God had rejected him-twice. Left without a job and with his purpose gone, my dad went back to school. He commuted 2 hours away to the University of Arkansas where he stayed on weekends to complete a Master’s in Educational Administration with the goal of becoming a Vice-Principle. His first school was a small country school where he was the 6th grade teacher and principle. But there were no positions open that paid enough to support the family. He found a position in the St. Louis area as a 6th grade teacher and we moved there in 1968 and finally established a permanent home. My father was plagued with migraine headaches and irritable bowel my entire life. These often interfered with family plans. He had frequent visits with psychiatrists to deal with his depression and anxiety. I remember visiting him in a psychiatric ward once but I don’t know the details of why he was there. As he entered his 60’s he began having trouble with an aggressive from of osteoarthritis passed to him by his family. Over the next 20 years he had multiple spine surgeries with no relief of his pain. He fractured a hip which was treated by putting a rod to stabilize it. The rod slowly migrated through the bone, sticking out and destroying the hip socket. The rod was removed, but the hip joint couldn’t be repaired—he could no longer walk. He died and the age of 85 after being bedridden for several years. As I reflect on my father’s life, I realize what a hero he was. He knew how to persevere. When life stopped him in his tracks, he found a way to remake himself and keep going. But most of all, he never gave up on God. He remained a faithful Jesus follower all of my life. When the church rejected him, he worshipped at home. When he suffered, he prayed. When he could no longer go to chapel services at the Baptist Home where they lived, he would listen to my mom play hymns on the piano and they would do Bible studies together. That is why he is a hero to me. No matter his circumstances, he never turned away from God but sought to draw closer to him.

JAMES

My Father's Story

Read More
I met Heather when the wife of one of our pastors asked me to talk to her about how she was dressing; the men were uncomfortable. She was the mother of a three-year-old son and infant daughter, and married to a Coast Guardsman named Peter. I was recently divorced and starting the empty nest phase of my life. We met for coffee and I immediately liked this young mother. Even though she was raised in a church, she had many questions about Jesus and scripture. We continued to share coffee and conversations fairly regularly until the Coast Guard transferred her husband and thus the family to a new post in 2006. When they were transferred back to Sacramento in 2011, we resumed meeting together. That is when she began a journey of pain, disability, and PTSD. Heather developed abdominal pain that was diagnosed as cholangitis—an inflammation of the bile ducts often caused by gallstones. She went into the hospital for routine gallbladder removal. The recovery didn’t go as expected. Her pain increased and her abdomen began to swell. Her surgeon thought she just wanted drugs so dismissed the symptoms. Eventually, a consult with a Gastroenterologist led to an endoscopy that revealed the bile duct wasn’t properly closed, letting the caustic bile into her abdomen creating peritonitis and the need for immediate surgery to close the leak. With the delay due to her doctor’s denial, she also developed a fungal infection of the tissue covering the intestines—an infection that many don’t survive. If asked, Heather would tell you she survived only by the grace of God. Though alive, her life was changed. Heather continued to have episodes of pain and severe swelling of the abdomen that doctors couldn’t diagnose. Narcotics were the only thing that helped her tolerated the pain. If the pain wasn’t controlled at home, she would go to the ER to get relief. Often the people there didn’t believe how severe the pain was and labeled her as a drug seeker. A variety of diets were tried with no results. Where ever her husband was stationed, she searched for an answer. Twice she had surgery to remove the scar tissue that had developed, again without relief. Eventually, she found a doctor who understood the Abdominal Adhesion Disorder that cause Heather’s pain and swelling. That physician helped her get off of the narcotics she was now addicted to and began her on cannabis which gave her relief. There is more to the medical details of this part of the journey but it is the miracle of who she has become that makes her a hero. Over the years, I have seen her struggle with pain, the insecurity of uncertainty, the frustration of being dismissed, anger over the misdeeds of a surgeon, and fear of what the future will be like. I have also seen her fight for a better life. She took up weight lifting and hiking which has made her stronger physically and emotionally. She has forgiven the doctor who caused her suffering. And she serves the God she continued to love and trust through it all by helping other women with addictions along with anyone else who needs it. Her heart and her home are always open for others who just need to sit, eat, and talk to someone who cares about them. She faithfully attends and serves in whatever church she and her husband find where ever the Coast Guard sends them. And she posts honest looks at her life and struggles on Tik Tok, including the days she has to wear her “big girl” wardrobe because her stomach is swollen to the size of a 6-month pregnancy. Today, Heather lives in the Washington, D.C. area where her husband is currently stationed. Her son and daughter are grown and living lives of their own serving others—her son through the Coast Guard and her daughter as a Physical Therapist. I miss the times when she and Peter were stationed close enough to visit. I never knew what would happen or who might come over for dinner, but I knew she loved me and we would laugh and cry together. Whenever one of us needs a friend, the other picks up the phone for a long conversation. Heather is a hero to me because she didn’t give in to bitterness, self-pity, or despair but allowed God to shape her into a beautiful, loving, giving, and strong friend.

HEATHER

A Story of beauty in the midst of pain

Read More
bottom of page