“I don’t even want to imagine what our lives would be like without Dr. Thornton, Lisa, our surgeon Dr. Miller and everyone at Cook Children’s! They truly are our heroes!!!” - Zackary’s Mom

When Zackary was born in 2014 he was considered healthy and we took our baby home. He wanted to eat constantly and I just kept feeding him. At 3 weeks of age, my baby boy started having seizures. We rushed him to TCH and they immediately began running tests.  They tested him for all kinds of things and misdiagnosed him at least 3 times.  At one point they told me they had over 20 doctors scratching their heads trying to figure out what was wrong.  We spent a month at TCH scared out of our minds not knowing what was going to happen.  He was on a continuous IV form of sugar and every time the IV would blow out his sugar would drop. Medication was trialed that would not work. Then this one doctor came on rotations and told us she thought she knew what it was, a rare disease, and she was transferring us to Cook children’s in Fort Worth to see a specialist.  I was so scared because I thought TCH was the best children’s hospital in the state of Texas and they were sending us away.
 
After meeting with Dr. Thornton and Lisa Truong CPNP, for the first time I knew my baby was in the right place! They came in to talk to us and described everything that we had watched my son go through as hyperinsulinism symptoms.  They explained everything to us in detail and answered every question we had.   After genetic testing and a research PET scan, they ended up taking him to surgery and removing half of my son’s pancreas. He was cured of focal hyperinsulinism!
 
Zackary is now a rough and tough, wild and completely HEALTHY 4 year old!!  I don’t even want to imagine what our lives would be like without Dr. Thornton, Lisa, our surgeon Dr. Miller and everyone at Cook Children’s! They truly are our heroes!!!