Celebrate Donate Life Month with CMN Patient Miles!

This April, patients, families, and staff at Ann & Robert H Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago are celebrating National Donate Life Month.

Donate Life Month was established by Donate Life America (donatelife.net) and its partnering organizations in 2003. Each year, National Donate Life Month helps to encourage Americans to register as organ, eye and tissue donors and to honor those that have saved lives through the gift of donation. It’s an important celebration for the many patients who have received lifesaving transplants, like Miles.

When Miles was eight weeks old he was in kidney failure. He was transferred to a couple different hospitals before he came to Lurie Children’s, where he was diagnosed with primary hyperoxaluria type 1. After receiving dialysis for many months, he was eventually put on the wait list for a liver and later a kidney transplant.

“It was like I blinked and my life changed in an instant,” says Miles’ mother Ashley. Right away, he began dialysis treatment five days a week at Lurie Children’s and waited for the call that a liver was available for him. When he was one and a half years old, Miles had a liver transplant. He received a kidney transplant from a living donor a year later.

“My husband at the time was going through stage 4 cancer treatment,” Ashley says. “Lurie Children’s meant my husband got to see his child get his transplants before he passed. That was a huge gift.”

Today, the Wagner family hopes to raise awareness for organ donation, as well as the world-class care at Lurie Children’s that has allowed him to grow healthy and stronger. Miles is described by his family as a happy, resilient, brave and special five-year-old who continues to thrive.

This month, you can get involved with Donate Life Month by registering as a donor at donatelife.net, or celebrating both the organ donors and patients, like Miles who rely on organ donation and Lurie Children’s for lifesaving care!