Aidan had a very special wish. His wish was to meet his kidney donor.
Aidan is a very sweet, shy boy who likes to swing, swim and spend time with his mom. There were a lot of different ideas thrown around for his wish, but ultimately landed on a very special, intimate wish of meeting his kidney donor in Denver, Colorado.
While in Denver, Aidan was able to go to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and visit the Aquarium as well!
“Aidan was born July 5, 2018 in Iowa City, Iowa at Stead Family Children's Hospital at 33 weeks gestation, weighing just 4lbs 6 oz. He was born with bilateral dysplastic kidneys, causing what little bit of kidney was there to not have any function. This caused his amniotic fluid to be low, in turn causing him to also be born with underdeveloped lungs and chronic lung disease. He was put on dialysis at just 2 days old. He also dealt with high blood pressure and pulmonary hypertension. While in the NICU he would get very sick and need to be incubated and then recover for awhile only to get very sick again then recover. At 2 months old he was suffering from failure to thrive so they put in a gtube so that he could get his nutrition straight into his belly. This helped tremendously. At about 4 months, he got an infection in his dialysis catheter which entered his bloodstream, causing him to go septic. Aidan was then sedated and put on a paralytic so that he could be incubated, where he remained that way for 2 months. He was finally put on a CRRT machine which filtered his blood 24 hrs a day. Several times we were not sure if he would make it. Towards the end of those 2 months as he showed progress, the doctors wanted to do a tracheostomy as this was the only way they would be able to take him off the ventilator due to his floppy airway. His fighting spirit got him through a very tough time and he persevered. He grew and got stronger, going through many surgeries, procedures, and illnesses. We went from the NICU to the PICU to finally our "home" on L10 where most of his time was spent. Finally at 2 yrs and 4 months, Aidan got his kidney. A beautiful soul chose to be an organ donor when she passed and now lives on through my sweet boy. After his transplant he was a whole new kiddo. He was off oxygen, breathing room air, all the fluid he had been holding in his little body seemed to just melt away, he was pulling himself up and standing. It was amazing to see. We couldn't have done it without our amazing team of doctors and the love and support of all the wonderful nurses and staff. And of course Aidans strong will and fight. Finally, 3 months after his transplant, after 946 days in the hospital (2.5 years) my sweet little boy finally got to come home. He was able to get his trach out in July of 2021, which was a very big deal. In April of this year we got an Autism diagnosis but that doesn't slow him down. He is such an amazing boy.”
Aiden's mom