A premature baby born at just 29 weeks gestation, Brandon Seminatore spent many weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at the Stanford Children’s Health – Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford in Palo Alto, California.
Throughout Brandon’s stay at the NICU of that hospital, Vilma Wong had been his primary care nurse.
“My parents told me that I needed an incubator to keep me warm, a ventilator to help me breathe, getting endlessly poked and prodded to make sure I was making progress,” Brandon shared.
Some 28 years after surviving that his NICU stay, Brandon is now a doctor studying at Stanford University. The second year pediatric resident was assigned to Stanford Children’s Health – Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford where he had spent many weeks in!
Photo credit: Facebook / Stanford Children’s Health – Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford
Excited to hear that he was assigned at the hospital, his parents told him to look for a nurse named Vilma as she might still be working there.
“His last name sounded very familiar when I asked his name. I asked where was he from, and he told me that he was born in San Jose, California and he knew he was a premature baby born at our hospital,” Vilma shared.
It was a reunion that brought tears of joy to many people’s eyes – and Brandon was quite amazed to meet the person who helped save his life all those years ago.
From the patient taken care of by this nurse, the two now work together as a nurse and doctor at the same hospital he had spent a lot of time in as a baby. It was truly a beautiful reunion.
Photo credit: Facebook / Stanford Children’s Health – Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford
“Meeting Vilma was so surreal. I never thought I would meet a provider who cared for me when I was a baby,” Brandon said.
Amazingly, Brandon’s parents even had photos of Vilma and a baby Brandon taken at the hospital.