Caitlin Whyte (Host): Welcome to In Their Words, a UPMC Pinnacle Foundation and UPMC in central PA podcast, that brings you authentic stories of healing, hope and gratitude.

As December wraps us in it's gentle embrace, a time when we gather with loved ones and reflect on life's precious moments; we invite you to listen to four extraordinary stories from right here in central Pennsylvania. In this special episode, you'll meet Eva Marie, Karen May, Chad and Pam. Each of them walked through UPMC's doors, facing different challenges and each emerged with a powerful story to tell. These grateful patients wanted to do more than simply say, thank you. They felt compelled to share their journeys with you.

You'll hear firsthand accounts of their remarkable paths to healing, the exceptional care they received from their UPMC providers, and the deep bonds formed along the way. Their stories remind us that behind every medical challenge are real people, real emotions, and real triumphs. As you listen to their heartfelt words, you'll discover how the dedicated teams at UPMC in central PA, not only provided outstanding medical care, but also restored hope and renewed their patients' zest for life. Join us for these moving testimonials that capture the true spirit of healing and gratitude. Stories that remind us of the profound impact compassionate healthcare can have on people's lives.

Karen May Marshall: My name is Karen May Marshall. I started at Women's Behavioral Health probably three years ago. On January 3rd, I was diagnosed with stage 3B breast cancer. Had just lost my mother to ovarian cancer in October the year prior. Two days after New Year's, here I'm also being diagnosed with cancer, so I decided that I needed help and I wanted to talk to someone.

I was referred to Dr. Silver's office. At the time, it was just him and his wife. They hired Virginia Goetz. I probably was one of her first patients there at the center, and she really helped me, coping and dealing with my trauma, because I was dealing with the death or loss of a parent, then I was being, what I thought was another death sentence, being diagnosed with cancer, decided, that I'm going to give therapy a chance. I've been to therapy before as a child. My childhood um, I had my mother was an alcoholic, and the experience that I had with Virginia, was definitely very different.

It was a great relationship. It was almost like a friendship, but a therapist at the same time. She worked on gaining my trust, you know, it led to me definitely opening up and healing the way I need to. And eventually learned that part of who I am or the way I react to certain things in life was because of my past childhood traumas.

We all have a little girl inside of us. I don't want to dismiss her because for me, she kind of had to grow up fast and then use my adult self and definitely, you know, make better decisions. I guess I didn't even realize how just being diagnosed with cancer, how that like, for whatever reason, like I felt like my world blew up.

Oh my goodness, like, my volcano was erupting, everything, like all my cards were on the table. I didn't know how to likemove on, how to do anything.

I wish there were more of her to go around for everyone to experience. Honestly as a mom, I have two children and my son is a teen and I often say to him, Hey, would you like to go to therapy? And he's like, no mom, why? I was like, I don't know. You never know. You know, for me, I'm always trying to advocate like therapy is necessary, especially in the African American community.

We don't go to therapy. It's like a bad thing almost. It's like the stigma, like that's not for us. I had my surgery in February, and in March I was scheduled for my first chemo treatment, and my husband was able to come in and my second visit, we were shut down. I still was able to go to chemo, but I was the only one who could go in, so my husband would drop me off, come back for me.

So it felt like I went through the journey by myself. My kids, we were homeschooling, right? Because they everything had shut down and I would come back from chemo and I would be hurting or in pain and my kids had to sit there and watch this courageous, loving person that they knew, suffer. You know, I lost my hair. I lost my eyebrows. I lost hairs on my body. And to the point where I couldn't go outside because just the air hitting my skin will itch me or irritate my skin because I didn't have the hairs to protect me. And, I think that was traumatic for them.

I think when programs like these are offered, it shows others that, you're not alone because a lot of the times a lot of people feel like, why me? You know if they believe in like a God or a spiritual being, they'll say why me God or why I have to go through this. But you're not the only person. When I was in group, other people's stories and journeys, I guess helped me understand that I'm not alone andit's okay to talk about it and that's how you heal. You know, it's a good way to give back because you'll help people heal in the long run.

I want to say the entire UPMC staff, from when I was diagnosed in my gynecologist's office, my surgeon, my plastic surgeon. I had Dr. Wolfe as my surgeon, my plastic surgeon was Dr. DiAgostino. I feel like everyone I came in contact with, you had different nurses throughout. They were all so loving and caring and understanding.

They were always happy and smiling and so everyone on the UPMC staff, I think helped me along through my journey because I think if it wasn't for them being encouraging, yeah, I was treated with the care and respect that I needed. When I say the entire UPMC campus and staff, like throughout my journey, was great, it is not even an exaggeration, just warm, friendly, inviting environment.

Host: At UPFC West Shore, every hallway holds a story. Just one of the many inspiring journeys is Pam's, a Testament to how healing can come full circle.

Pam Freeland: My name is Pam Freeland. I'm a volunteer West Shore Hospital. Thanks to Paulo Olivero who helped me out. I love what I do. I'm in medical building one, entrance 5. I have been here going on two years. I work Monday, Wednesday, Friday. I am giving back to the hospital because this is the people who saved my life.

The story how I got here, my husband passed away. He was my whole world. I became an alcoholic. Alcohol was my best friend. And then one night in December, I went to the bathroom a week before Christmas, and I threw up. And from the waist up, I knew numb. I knew I was in trouble, called my neighbor. He came over and I came to the emergency here. I almost died.

I had tubes all over me. Dr. Moritz was my surgeon. Of course, the night this happened at the ER, I just found out that Dr. J. Jady, he was the first one rushed in. I don't recall the first two weeks I was in ICU. I had a tear in my esophagus from drinking. Spent 44 days here. The experience changed my life. I went to rehab.

I spent almost two weeks there. The Helen Simpson Rehab was just wonderful. I realized that there was a world out here. I need to get out and do something. And I said the people at West Shore Hospital and the surgeons saved my life. I mean, I need to give back. They gave me Paulo Olivero's phone number. And I said to Paulo after a week, I can't do that.

There's new people. He said, How about coming over to Medical Building 1, Entrance 5, and being the greeter. I've been here ever since. I love the people. I mean, helping them. I mean, the elderly that come in here. I take them where they need to go. I give them wheelchairs. I get them out of their cars.

It's like my second home, and I got something now to look forward to. I'm not at home. I've been alcohol free for going on two years. It's, to me, everything. And, you know, giving back for the people that saved my life. I take a bus here and I do thank Rabbit Transit. I have an eyesight problem. I did have surgery and Dr. Farrell up on the second floor here was my surgeon. They picked me up in the morning. I get antsy because I want to get here on, even though I don't get paid for this. I do pay Rabbit Transit 15 a day to get here. They are awesome. I would say especially for the people out there who think their life is nothing, meaningless, whatever.

Volunteer. Do something because I will never regret reaching out to Paulo and doing this. I mean, even if it's not a hospital, I would say do it. Because it's life changing and there's so many people out there. I never thought in my life I'd be doing this. Volunteer, please. It's a rewarding feeling.

I would especially like to thank Dr. Moritz. He's up on the third floor here. Dr. Brady. Dr. Chachati. I want to say to them three, thank you very much. I wouldn't be here without you.

Host: Sometimes the most extraordinary connections are forged in our most challenging moments. For Eva Marie, what began as a medical journey became a story of divine timing and unexpected blessings.

Eva Marie Holland: I'm Eva Marie Holland. I've been married to my husband Rob for 47 years, coming up in August. I have two boys. That's Anthony in Florida and Joseph is here in Mechanicsburg. He lives about eight minutes from me. He has two boys, Parker and Chase, the love of my life. I am a baker. I used to own my own catering business.

I also am a part time learning support teacher for Mechanicsburg School District. I get calls whenever they need me. My dad passed away when he was 58 years old of complications from diabetes. He died of a massive heart attack. This is why this comes full circle. My mother is diabetic. She, God bless her, she's 92 years old.

She lives behind me and I take care of her. I decided in my life I did not want to go down the route my father did. He lost his eyesight, he was on kidney dialysis, he had neuropathy, and he died of a massive heart attack July 31st, 1986. We'll always know that date. So I became diabetic 10 years ago and I found out myself.

My son Anthony, the one who lives in Florida, had come home from one of his trips. I said, you know, Anthony, you gained a lot of weight. I worry about diabetes in our family. I said, let me take your sugar. I always have a glucometer on hand because my mom, whenever she's here, I have stuff for her. So I took his blood sugar and it was normal.

He said, well, what's yours? I said, don't worry about me. I don't have anything. I took my blood sugar. It was 160. That's when the red light went on. I thought, great. So I called UPMC. So then I had met various endocrinologists in my life. Nobody could help. Then when I met Dr. Joshi, I thought, well, she's my answer.

She's going to put me on Ozempic. I've never heard of it. Okay, that's a once a week shot. I started with that. What she kept telling me was, Eva Marie, stick with it. So I was in my regular doctor's office, my PCP, Dr. Bell. She said to me, Eva Marie, do what you're doing. You're doing good. Follow the diet.

You're doing good. I was eating very little. I said, okay. I came out of her office. I was sitting at the front, you know, at the receptionist to make another appointment. And I was telling the girls, I said, I don't know what to do anymore. This weight is ridiculous. Well, Kim, the office manager, overheard me.

And she said, Eva Marie, can I see you a minute? Come in my office. How do you feel about your diabetes? I said, don't even get me started. And then the tears came. She goes, well, think I have good news for you. I said, what? She said, well, I've been interviewing Dr. Sirucci for the last three months. I think she can help you.

I went, are you kidding me? She goes Eva give her one visit, just one visit. She looked at my books because I have plenty of diary books that I have kept over the years. She looked at my book and she said to me, Eve Marie, I want you to go home for two weeks. I want you to write everything that goes in your mouth.

So I go back to her and she looks at the book and she said, well, first of all, you're not eating enough. She said, I am going to strip you of everything and you might get sick. She said, but trust me, stay with me. I know this is going to work. I came out of her office. I looked up and I thought, you know, is this my answer?

Is this the answer I've been waiting for? Okay. Went back, kept a diary. Wrote everything down that I ate, no fruit that week. And she said to me, you're still not eating enough. I went back to her two weeks later, I started losing weight. I was like, I come out of her office, I was so happy that I had dropped eight pounds in two weeks.

I was like, oh my God, the angels, I can hear them singing to me. Is this my answer? She's my angel in disguise. And I have always told her that from day one. Because now the weight started coming off. And I started to get closer and closer to 100 pounds. My insulin has started to drop. Went from 160 to 140 to 130.

I'm thinking, this is great! Now I'm down to 35 units. I can't believe it. I really can't believe it. She has taught me a lot about nutrition. And she said to me one day, Eve Marie, let me ask you something. What makes you do this? You've lost quite a bit of weight with me. What makes you do this? What pushes you?

I said, it comes from here. Because I see my father, I see my mother diabetic, and now my older sister's diabetic. It's not easy. I am not perfect. There are days when I cheat, and I know it. And then, I'm right, like she said to me, Eva Marie, you can have that birthday cake, but the next day you're right back on it.

I didn't have to get gastric bypass, which is a big thing. Well, when I say, I love you to death, you are my angel in disguise, I tell her that all the time. She goes, and my mother met her last year, and my mother said, so you're the angel in my daughter's life. She goes, no, she does all the work, but you taught her.

If it wasn't you teaching her, she wouldn't know. I have had five times Bell's palsy, which is very rare. People get it once or twice, not me. I get it five. I was diabetic in 2013, which now it makes 10 years, and also I had cancer. I didn't even know I had cancer. Last year, I developed diverticulosis, another thing that isn't common.

So, it's just always something. And I work out every single day at the club, which is Planet Fitness. I have a trainer, Ray. I work out with him every single day, five days a week. And people go, you're crazy. No, I'm not. Because I want to reverse my diabetes. And that's what Dr. Saruji's helping me do.

Host: The holiday season is meant to be a time of joy and celebration. But for Chad, one December brought unexpected challenges that would test his strength and ultimately transform his perspective on life itself.

Chad Whitaker: My name's Chad Whitaker. I'm 41. And I recently developed heart failure. Basically, I was on like a little vacation, a trip away from town, and I noticed I had swelling in my legs and feet. I had shortness of breath and I had a persistent cough that I had been ignoring for a few months. Just brushing it off as being sick or whatever.

So I eventually agreed with the persistence of my fiance to go to an urgent care. When I went into the urgent care, they basically took a look at me, heard my symptoms and said, we believe you're in heart failure. You need to get to the emergency room as quick as possible. So we headed to the West Shore UPMC hospital, got admitted immediately, had a team of doctors around me looking at my symptoms, checking out my condition.

And basically, that first couple hours, it was a touch and go. I mean, there was no guarantee I was going to make it through. When it's all said and done, I had about 30 pounds of fluid that came out of me over the course of 17 days where I was in the hospital. So getting back to the first day, I spent the first 12 hours or so at West Shore.

Then I was transferred over to the Harrisburg UPMC Hospital because there was more cardiac doctors over there. It was an interesting trip. It was freezing cold. We left at midnight from one hospital, arrived at the other. I was rushed around basically, still waiting for answers, a bunch of tests were being ran, giving blood every five minutes to try to figure out what was going on.

But by the next day, I started to become more stable. I wasn't out of the woods yet, that would take several days, but I was comfortable. I had a whole team of doctors surrounding me, giving me updates every few hours. I had a wonderful team of nurses. I was in the ICU Cardiac Unit for about seven days of my 16 or 17 days I was in the hospital.

Can't mention enough how wonderful I was treated by all staff, you know, from janitorial, to food service, to nurses, to doctors. So I spent a good chunk of Christmas and New Year's in the hospital. A lot of people kind of have a negative connotation of being in the hospital. My experience was wonderful.

My fiancé laughs because I keep talking about how good the food was. I'm an artist, so one of my ideas was to create a piece of art, a video documentation of my entire process. I'm still working on that, I want to wait until I'm pretty much back to normal to finalize everything. So, even in that aspect, I was kind of energized by the whole experience, what happened to me, to be able to make things and tell my story.

And try to be a positive influence on people that might be dealing with something similar, whether they're just resistant to go in and get checked out by ignoring their symptoms the way that I did for a few months, or someone going through it with fears about how they're going to come out on the other side, how the treatments are going to work, how the medications are going to work, how they're going to feel.

Pretty much the day I got out of the hospital, changed my eating habits completely around, I became much more active. I walk between three and five miles every day. Going back to the middle of the summer, way before heart failure, way before I knew I had anything wrong, my mother passed away at the UPMC Hospital in Altoona.

And even back then, like, I remarked on how wonderful the nursing staff were, the doctors, how everyone was in a good mood. I nominated a few nurses for the Daisy Award, and at that point, I felt like something was missing from my life. So the idea of volunteering popped into my head. But I didn't know what aspect.

I thought about working, maybe volunteering in a nursing home or something similar. I think the first week that I got home, I submitted an email over to Shonda. We had a conversation on the phone where she went over all the details, explained how things worked, and the one option that she threw out there was actually being, I believe the term's liaison, on one of the floors where you kind of interact with patients, you know, if they need a magazine or a book or something like that, you get it to them. But the main thing was just being there to talk, being there to provide some company to maybe somebody that doesn't have a lot of visitors. And surprisingly, I'm going to hopefully get to volunteer on my floor at the Harrisburg hospital where I spent the second half of my visit, the cardiac unit, non intensive care. So the main reason I'm doing this is to give back, to try to make a difference, to try to brighten up someone's day and make a rough experience a little bit better. But it's also a little bit for me to try to keep that feeling of gratitude, of being positive towards life, that feeling that I'm given this chance and it's something that I need to like really respect, like the chance of having you know, more years of my life to live.

And opportunities to do more. I think that volunteering will be a great way to keep that mindset, seeing others going through what I went through, keeping it fresh and not letting myself become jaded again to how I was before this whole experience.

Host: As we close this episode of In Their Words, we've heard remarkable stories of healing that remind us how a medical journey can transform, not just bodies, but hearts and lives. From Pam finding her calling as a volunteer to Chad's profound holiday awakening.

Each story speaks to the extraordinary impact of compassionate care. These grateful patients choose different paths to express their appreciation. But all of them remind us that gratitude has the power to create ripples of positive change throughout our community. This holiday season, you too can be part of this continuing story of hope and healing. If you've experienced life-changing care at UPMC in central PA, consider sharing your own journey. Visit UPMCpinnaclefoundation.org to tell your grateful patient story. Remember, your words of thanks, mean everything to those who have dedicated their lives to healing and bringing hope to others. In this season of gratitude, there's no greater gift than letting someone know they've made a difference in your life. From all of us at UPMC Pinnacle Foundation and UPMC in central PA, thank you for listening to these powerful stories of healing, hope and gratitude.