HHN News

To Our Dear Friends At The Anayat House~    How do we even begin to express what The Anayat House has meant to our family during these past several challenging weeks?  Let us begin at the beginning…    In the early hours of Tuesday morning, October 29, 2024, our daughter Melissa Estes, was involved in a serious car accident. We received the terrifying phone call from the Jasper Hospital that no parent wants to get informing us of Melissa’s accident and that we needed to come immediately. By the time we drove from our home in west central Louisiana to…

  In 2002, our son’s life took an unexpected turn upon graduating from high school when he received a diagnosis of Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis, a kidney disease that threatened his renal function. FSGS is characterized by scarring the glomeruli, the filtering units of the kidneys, leading to eventual kidney failure. Over the next four years, he battled the disease, navigating its complexities and enduring its impact on his health and well-being. His kidney function gradually declined, necessitating the consideration of a kidney transplant. Fortunately, his father was a suitable match and willing to donate one of his kidneys, presenting a…

My name is Blair Counihan. I have been a volunteer at Quantum House for one year. Every Monday, I spend two hours with the kids in residence and I bring a different craft or activity. I usually have an idea of what families are staying at Quantum House and try to bring activities that will appeal to a range of ages and abilities. In the year that I have been a volunteer I have made so many lasting relationships with the kids and their families. Getting texts, calls and FaceTimes from the kids is exciting and it is so rewarding…

When we think of heart transplants, we often picture patients well into their golden years. But sometimes life throws curveballs at the young too-like Ashley, a man in his late 30s whose resilience and recovery offer a reminder of what it means to fight for life.  Seeing someone his age undergo such a major surgery is deeply moving. It challenges the narrative that transplantation is only a concern for the elderly, and shines a light on the many younger patients walking this road every day.    Here is Ashley’s story:  Gabriel House of Care: Ashley’s Story

  Two Journeys for One Family   Lucy and Landon get the bone marrow transplants they need in the fight against Severe Combined Immunodeficiency Everyone who stays at The Children’s Inn at NIH is making their way through a unique medical journey. Even within the same family, dealing with siblings who share a diagnosis, the journeys can take wildly divergent paths. Take, for example, Lucy and Landon, siblings who arrived at The Inn in early March 2024. For seven-year-old Lucy, that arrival culminated in two years of searching for answers. For 12-year-old Landon, it opened up a path he hadn’t…

NICU parents find ‘place of love and comfort’ at Gorecki Guest House In November 2023, Michelle and Nathan Schultz were eagerly awaiting the birth of their daughter, Stella.  The pregnancy was easy and uneventful —  until the birthing process. Michelle labored for 36 hours at CentraCare – Long Prairie Hospital and ended having a Caesarean (C-Section) delivery. The difficulty toward the end of the labor caused complications resulting in an ambulance ride to CentraCare – St. Cloud Hospital (SCH) for both Stella and Michelle. Little Stella, born full-term and weighing seven pounds, seven ounces, had developed Meconium aspiration syndrome. This…

Wheeling for Healing: Cycling Across America for Multiple Myeloma Awareness March is Multiple Myeloma Awareness Month, and at Goodness Village, this holds special significance. Our organization began 30 years ago exclusively for those battling multiple myeloma, providing a home away from home during treatment. While we expanded in 2020 to serve patients with other serious medical conditions, our roots remain deeply connected to the multiple myeloma community. One of our recent guests, Chris Seab, and his wife, Liz, from Montana, have stayed at Goodness Village three times during Chris’s treatments. Through Chris, we learned of an incredible journey taken by…

Since Ulman House opened our free hospitality home for adolescent and young adult oncology patients and their families in Baltimore City in 2019, we have helped more than 500 families and have saved them more than $2.2 million in lodging fees. Below is a link to a video of one of our long-term guests Will Yank from Indiana. Ulman House – Will Yank