Tough As Nails (Encore)

It all started at a housewarming party in 2011. After experiencing a series of focal seizures, headaches, nausea and numbness in his left side, Phil, along with his wife of six years, Stacy, decided it was time to consult a doctor. After an MRI found a tumor the size of an avocado, it put a halt on the couple’s plan to have a child because their fight was just beginning. Stacy went to war with insurance companies to get the best doctors at UCLA to perform the surgery, which led to an easier than expected recovery and chemo and physical therapy treatments. Plans to start a family revved back up and led to Stacy beginning fertility treatments. In 2013, Stacy and Phil learned they were pregnant, but the bad days were far from behind them.

Regardless, Phil and Stacy refused to give up. With a terrible miscarriage looming large and an abscess the size of a golf ball having been found in Phil’s brain (leading to the loss of half his skull), another battle with insurance companies led to Phil receiving a prosthetic skull. And when it was learned that none of Stacy’s embryos were viable, the choice to use a donated embryo became their lovely daughter, Sophia Pearl. Now they spend much of their time helping others find the same strength to get through similar issues and become tough as nails.