![\"Monaghan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/doctor-patient-reunion1.jpg#.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nA wish came true for a stroke survivor in Chester County, Pennsylvania, on Thursday, with a simple thank you to the doctor who saved his life.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was a reunion 51-year-old John Monaghan has been dreaming about.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I’ve been looking forward to this for so long, thank you so much,” Monaghan told Penn neurosurgeon Dr. Jan-Karl Burkhardt.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Burkhardt performed emergency brain surgery on Monaghan on Valentine’s Day 2021 to remove a large blood clot in a critically sensitive part of the brain.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“That’s usually an area which is not survivable if you don’t reopen the vessel,” Burkhardt said.<\/p>\n
The Downingtown dad returned to Penn almost five years after the stroke.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
CBS News Philadelphia<\/p>\n
“I had COVID for a month. It created blood clots, which I didn’t know about,” Monaghan said. “Twelve clots went up into my brain, took me out.”<\/p>\n
Thursday marked the first time he saw Burkhardt since the surgery.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I’m not here without him, it’s that simple,” Monaghan said.<\/p>\n
Burkhardt said quick action is what saves stroke patients.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“It’s just amazing to see that our work helps all the patients,” he said.<\/p>\n
After the surgery, Monaghan faced a long recovery that started with learning to walk again.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Look, it was tough, but I was alive,” he said. “So that part made it easy.”<\/p>\n
Now fully recovered, he was determined to share his gratitude with the surgeon who made it possible. He said he’s especially grateful during the holiday season when he’s able to spend time with his family, including his three sons.<\/p>\n
“This is, without question, the best Christmas present I could have got,” he said. “Just being able to look him in the eye and say thank you is everything.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A wish came true for a stroke survivor in Chester County, Pennsylvania, on Thursday, with a simple thank…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64665,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29,69,19991],"class_list":["post-64664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-philadelphia","tag-stroke"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64664\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}