He initially showed up to the hospital simply wanting a stronger acid reflux medicine. But he was rushed to the Yale Cardiac Unit after it was determined that his current heart was not able to support life any longer.

“Because I was very fit with the exception of my heart, I was moved to the top of the national transplant list,” Ralph said. “This meant I was one of the sickest people but I also had a good chance of survival.”

Remarkably, Ralph got his heart in about 48 hours.

“That’s when it was removed and it took half of my chest muscle with it,” Jon remembered. “That growth was the size of a softball and tissue was removed all the way down to my ribs. In 2014 my pancreas started shutting down making me Diabetic on insulin. When they diagnosed me Diabetic, I told the doctor that we better have this tumor beat since I am running out of glands to have shut down!”

“At age 18, I was diagnosed with a rare chromosomal disorder called 22q-deletion syndrome,” Tony Bonanno said.

22q-deletion syndrome is a chromosomal abnormality that can cause a wide range of health and developmental issues, including heart defects, breathing issues, problems with the gastrointestinal tract, immune and endocrine systems, differences in the palate, slow growth, autism/developmental delays or learning disabilities in some individuals.

For APEMAN Andrew Hesselmann, just 10 weeks after his first and only child was born in 2011, he was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia.  

“They wouldn’t let me leave the hospital,” he said. “I was there for five weeks getting chemo and trying not to let the complications that occurred at the same time kill me. I had lots of pneumonias and I ended up getting a rare and deadly infection called Mucormycosis. It ended up killing my lower lobe in my right lung and needed to have the lobe removed. That surgery almost killed me.”

“My advice to anyone going through tough times would be simple – stay strong,” he added. “Just grind it out. It is not probably the most sensitive advice, but it's one of the few that works. Find that caveman DNA within you. We are all capable of so much more than we think we are.” 

“She was struck from behind by an SUV that had crossed the double yellow line and was traveling at over 60 miles per hour,” he said. “The impact flung her body over 50 yards into a local farmer’s field where she was left to die for over an hour. Thankfully, a passing cyclist saw Denise and called for help.”

“I saw how large I looked in pictures with my son,” Bryan said. “This was the tipping point. I was at 319 pounds. I was on blood pressure medication and felt tired all the time – literally all of the time.”

Bryan knew he needed to change. And that’s exactly what he did.