Changing Lives for More Than 125 Years | 2025 Annual Video
I was a civil engineer and the president of the company when I retired asked what I was going to do.
And I told him I'm going to golf, I'm going to spend time with my grandson, I'm going
to globetrot with my wife, and then I'm going to golf some more.
I played football in high school and then I started doing marathons.
And so I was always active.
It was about eight years ago that my daughters invited me to hike Pikes Peak with them.
I was really struggling.
That's when I started to wonder something's wrong.
He wasn't getting any answers and the doctors really weren't digging for any further reason
why he had the symptoms.
Their care provider referred me to National Jewish Health.
National Jewish is the leading pulmonary hospital.
We knew that he was going to get the best care.
When I first met Darryl, he was very fit.
So it was really striking when he was telling me that he couldn't run anymore.
Darryl had come to us with a history of atrial fibrillation.
As he developed more and more symptoms, there were some abnormalities on his echocardiogram,
suggesting some pulmonary hypertension.
And we wanted to tease out, is this from the pulmonary hypertension or is it related to
his atrial fibrillation?
It was clear that we needed to do something.
My family means the world to me.
I just can't imagine life without them.
I love gardening.
You plant the flowers and you water them correctly.
You know, they will give that joy.
Back to you.
I love that.
Barbara is very much of a nurturer.
She values her children and her family most.
My mom has an aura about her and a glow.
So when I noticed that light starting to fade, I knew there was something going on.
I had difficulty with breathing.
I was severely fatigued.
And over the course of time, you know, sometimes nap for hours during the day, gain her energy
and strength back.
To see my wife like that and not be able to figure it out.
It's so hard.
I want to fix it and not have any idea how to get her better.
That is very hard.
And she would say to me, I'm not fun and I'm a different person.
I can't do what I used to do.
How will this affect my family?
How will this affect my grandchildren when I've been such a strong part of their lives?
So after seeing so many physicians up and down the East Coast, my son, who is a physician
in Denver.
He says, Dad.
Um.
I don't want to be foolish looking anywhere else.
Why don't you come out here and see one of the excellent pulmonary physicians at National
Jewish Health.
When a child with asthma undergoes an asthma attack, they start to feel like their chest
is squeezed tight and they're gasping for air.
When Adam was about 11 months old, he had an episode of pneumonia that was incredibly severe.
He was then diagnosed with asthma.
We needed many ER visits.
Then began the hospitalizations.
Adam's pulmonologist at the time said National Jewish would be a good fit to really see if
there's something that we're missing.
Dr. Zeitlin could tell a story just from one test.
What a bronchoscopy can offer is a direct look at what's going on inside the airways
in the lung.
We have a clinical study that allows us to sample the cells from the airway walls.
Those specimens are sent to Dr. Seibold's lab to take a look at gene expression.
We've been studying those cells trying to figure out what is going wrong in the airway
tissue of someone with asthma.
We found that people with a certain type of inflammation produce mucus with a specific
type of protein.
Mucus really sticks to the airway and forms this plugging structure that blocks airflow.
Identifying that protein produces a target then that we can design drugs to to try to
break up airway mucus in those patients that have that type of inflammation.
And this discovery process is what allows us to make an impact on a patient's disease
and National Jewish is particularly well suited to doing this kind of research.
I think that's a unique aspect of working here at National Jewish Health where we're
not only taking care of the patients directly but we're also designing and then executing
research trials to advance our understanding and treatment of disease.
One of the special things about National Jewish Health is how closely we work with our colleagues
and collaborate to figure out what's really causing their symptoms and that's how we start
treating people.
I first met Daryl when he was referred for an exercise heart catheterization.
What we learned was that when we actually had him on the exercise bicycle his pressures
increased really out of proportion to what would be normally expected.
And what that test revealed was that when he exercises he actually has severe pulmonary
hypertension.
We treated him to help the blood vessels dilate and lower the blood pressure within the lungs
but his atrial fibrillation progressed where he was having more severe episodes and that's
when I referred him over to Dr. Sung.
We decided to try an ablation.
I'll burn specific areas of the heart.
Reroute electrical signals to cure or get control of arrhythmia.
He hasn't had any AFib since.
Working with the doctors helped him realize that there are things that can be done to
help the quality of life which has been, you know, really helpful for him to go out and
enjoy what he loves doing the most.
It's making sure I stay on the right side of the grass.
I feel that Dr. Hirsch.
Dr. Sung.
Dr. Kim are all enabling me to be able to live my life to the fullest.
I still feel like I have a lot to live for.
I've been a blessed man.
When Barb arrived at National Jewish Health, we did a comprehensive evaluation.
Her chest CT scans looked very normal, so that started us thinking about autoimmune
diseases.
Which can impact lung function without causing damage to the lungs.
Our immune system ordinarily is designed to protect us.
And an autoimmune disease that gets turned on its head
and the immune system starts to attack the body.
So we started to focus on this relatively rare disorder
called shrinking lung syndrome.
So I had a healthy lung, but my diaphragm
had sort of become paralyzed in a way.
You know, it wasn't working.
So if your diaphragm is not working,
your lungs are not working.
In the case of shrinking lung syndrome,
there's a medication called rituximab.
Over the course of getting that therapy,
her lung function really had bounced back
to essentially normal.
I was so thankful she can do more with her life.
She can play with the grandchildren more effortlessly.
And all those things just make her heart sing.
You see the joy.
You see the humor.
I have more of my mom back.
I can go outside and look at the garden
and just cry out of joy, feeling that if the garden is doing
well, then that means I'm going to do well.
It represents life.
There's a point that I think really
sets National Jewish apart.
And that's the holistic nature of their approach.
As a parent, you could not ask for anything more
than that for your child.
We try and make that personal connection
to move beyond that sense of you're
part of a medical machine.
I think it's really important that everything
that Daryl has needed, we're there all
under the umbrella of National Jewish Health.
This is a fantastic place.
The clinicians are top notch.
The research is cutting edge.
And we take a collaborative approach
to personalized medicine.
National Jewish Health changed my life by
figuring out what is going on so that I can continue
to enjoy life with my family.
Nothing else matters if you can't breathe.
If we can improve someone's symptoms,
provide a cure for these diseases,
it will be life changing.
They recognize there's a problem.
They're doing everything they can to help me.
When you're ill, that means all the world to you.
National Jewish Health really, really saved my life.
National Jewish Health, changing lives
for more than 125 years.